Remembering the 1929 Grand Banks Tsunami

The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami occurred on November 18. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.2 and struck off the south coast of Newfoundland in the Laurentian Slope Seismic Zone.

It was felt as far away as New York City and Montreal.

The earthquake, along two faults south of the Burin Peninsula, triggered a large submarine landslide. It snapped 12 submarine transatlantic telegraph cables and led to a tsunami that arrived in three waves.

Newfoundland and Saint Pierre and Miquelon had the largest impact, both from the snapped 12 submarine cables, and the tsunami.

This was Canada's largest submarine landslide ever recorded, up to 500 times the size of 1894 Saint-Alban subaerial slide.

The tsunami waves had an amplitude of 3–8 metres, and a runup of 13 metres along the Burin Peninsula.

It destroyed many south coastal communities on the Peninsula, killing 27 or 28 people and leaving 1,000 or more homeless.