Tsunamis - why we can never get them in NZ

When I was a child I did not ever hear the word 'tsunami'. But it was probably not that they did not occur then. It is a Japanese word, and was onlyapplied to events in Japanese waters. We can't get tsunamis here. The water is not deep enough and the earthquakes here are generally not powerful enough. But suddenly we are hearing about them more and more. Why? The only thing that has changed has been the level of media scaremongering. Now it is just one more thing we can add to the list of things that can 'get' us.

According to  http://www.mapsofworld.com/tsunami/ , in the 84 years between 1929-2013 there have been only 25 registered tsunamis in the world. In the first 40 years, to 1960, 9 or 10 had occurred. In the next 40 years to 2000, another 9 or 10. During the 13 year gaps between 1933-1946 and between 1964-1976 no tsunamis were recorded. But in the last decadethere have been 6. What happened?  

It is because every time there is a large earthquake the media are now poised, hoping for a tsunami so they can gleefully report a certain number of deaths. This sick salivating hoping, a form of climate-porn makes it a media reality.  

Now even no tsunami is called one. The few-cm wave that arrived on NZ shores from Chile in 2013 was called a "small tsunami". But there is no such thing as a small tsunami. That is simply called a "wave." By definition a tsunami is a HUGE destructive tidal event. 

There has been ZERO people killed by tsunamis in NZ in all of our history. After 250 years of settlement, 2-3 million recorded earthquake events, and plenty of tidal and rogue waves, not one name can be attributed to a tsunami misfortune. Does that sound like a national hazard? Worth spending millions on prevention?

Our shallow coastline and therefore our geography forbids it. Luckily for NZ, only 7% of the country's mass sits above the waves. That means 93% sits underwater. NZ is therefore like a submarine, with only a small part poking out. That means it has relatively shallow water around it.  You need deep water, to supply the destructive wave in enough quantity, and to keep 'loading' it. For a tsunami to occur, an earthquake must exceed a certain threshold. The 8.9-magnitude (on the Richter Scale) of Japan's earthquake was enough to trigger a tsunami, and the magnitude-7.7 earthquake that struck Indonesia in October 2010 only just surpassed the threshold. 

With over 90% of the land beneath the waves, we are unique in the world, when it comes to the larger countries. It is therefore as if NZ is a submarine with only a periscope poking above the waves. To escape waves a surfer on a board dives beneath them. Our country is like that. It is as if tsunamis are constantly going over but not affecting us.  

A shake must be 7.8mag or higher. Earthquakes below 7.5 or 7.0 usually do not trigger them. A 7.1 or a 7.4 will not do it. Two earthquakes have exceeded 7.7mag, in 1855, in Lake Wairarapa, a 8.2mag and 2016, in Kaikoura. Neither saw any sign of a destructive tsunami and certainly no loss of life. (In 1855 a hotel was carried away when a higher tide entered an inlet, but no population was endangered). If one was going to occur, it would have been at Kaikoura.

There is a website about tsunamis put up by the earthquake commission. It bears the title of Tsunami but is and mentions the 1855 event, the 1868, the 1947, and the 1960 as extra-high tidal systems that can cause tsunamis. 

Of deaths it says Only one tsunami death has been officially recorded – on the Chatham Islands in 1868. 

If you read on it says this poor chap went into the water to try to retrieve a boat. That's asking trouble in a storm. Then we read

"  .. the 1960 event was not a major disaster in New Zealand. No lives were lost or even threatened. So when we invited stories about natural disasters, the 1960 tsunami accounts tended to be more amusing than terrifying. "