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Anak Krakatau: Volcano's tsunami trigger was 'relatively small'
Visual images couldn't tell how much had collapsed initially, in the event that caused the tsunami (400 dead), because the ash cloud obscured the volcano while the eruption continued. But radar analysis has worked:
The scale of the tsunami hazard from volcanoes that collapse into the sea has been underestimated.
...
A key image in Dr Williams' study is one acquired by the EU's Sentinel-1a satellite which passed over the volcano just eight hours after its western flank had fallen into the water but before the 340m-high mountain's summit had been removed.
It helped her team to not only get a good calculation of the likely volume of lost material in the landslide but to also pick apart the different phases the event went through to produce an edifice that eventually stood little more than 100m above the surrounding ocean.
The estimated slip volume is 0.1 cubic km. This is a third of the volume that had been anticipated would produce the kind of tsunami witnessed on 22 December.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49568107
...
A key image in Dr Williams' study is one acquired by the EU's Sentinel-1a satellite which passed over the volcano just eight hours after its western flank had fallen into the water but before the 340m-high mountain's summit had been removed.
It helped her team to not only get a good calculation of the likely volume of lost material in the landslide but to also pick apart the different phases the event went through to produce an edifice that eventually stood little more than 100m above the surrounding ocean.
The estimated slip volume is 0.1 cubic km. This is a third of the volume that had been anticipated would produce the kind of tsunami witnessed on 22 December.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49568107