Namadu Journal March 2008

Assessment of Bathymetry Effects on Tsunami Propagation in Viet Nam

Nguyen Anh Duong(a)*, Prof. D.Sc. Fumiaki Kimata(b), D.Sc. Irwan Meilano(b)
(a) Institute of Geophysics, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Vietnam (b) Research Center for Seismology, Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation, Nagoya University, Japan

Abstract The bathymetry off-coast of East Vietnam varies from region to

region. The distribution of various tsunami heights raises the possibility of significant effects by the focusing on tsunami wave propagation. No experiences were available regarding the propagation and the impact of tsunami along the coast of Vietnam such that potential tsunamigenic sources determined are the deciding factor for tsunami hazard mitigation. The tsunami spreading characteristic in the South China Sea is studied by numerical simulations for tsunami scenarios with different locations of fault source along the Manila Trench in Western Luzon, Philippines. The tsunami spreads over the South China Sea and separates into two ways with a direction towards Vietnam coastal area. The ocean waves focus and resonate each other as they reach gradual bathymetry slope area around 15oN latitude. It is more obvious in scenarios of tsunami sources shifted southward along the trench according to maximum tsunami height maps, tsunami travel time maps and tsunami animations. From the results of this research it is possible to identify the most vulnerable area for the purposes of tsunami hazard mitigations and preparation along the coast of Vietnam. Introduction In consequence of recent tsunami impacts on human life and ecosystem along coastal areas, it has emphasized the need of a better understanding of tsunami characteristics on each specific area. The Sumatra tsunami on 26 December 2004 is one of the major natural disasters of the last centuries which caused extremely damage to the South Asian countries which suffered directly from hazard for which they were unprepared. The 1998 Papua New Guinea tsunami is good example for not understanding the way that tsunami might attack. The tsunami was greater than expected from its earthquake magnitude. That was also surveyed on the June 3, 1994 East Java earthquake tsunami occurred off the southeast coast of Java Island, Indonesia (Tsuji, 1995). That was the consequence of shallow bathymetry influenced on the tsunami behavior (Satake, 1988; Walsh et al., 1999). Tsunami earthquake progression, affected by various factors which were researched, can roughly be separated into three steps: First is the initial tsunami generation related to source, common
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*Corresponding author: duongna@igp.vast.ac.vn

tsunami caused by deep seafloor deformations: movements and shifts. Source orientation is one of the factors which affected arrival time and amplitude of tsunami (Kajiuka, 1972; Satake, 1988). The second step is tsunami propagation from the generation site to the coastline which is affected by ocean bathymetry. The velocity of tsunami in deep ocean is proportional to square root of water depth, so that tsunami reaches the shallower coastal area it begins to slow in speed and build in height, because waves conserve energy and build up until breakpoint in general. Tsunami waves will reach much greater heights and cause the greatest damage on the coastal areas instead of the deep sea. It is the third step that is affected by shore and the resonance of bay or harbor (Murty, 1977 referred to Satake, 1988). The waves reflected from various coastlines and shelf slopes interfere with each other in the later phases (Kajiuka, 1972). Tsunamis generated mainly depend on their size, directivity, and peculiarities of the bathymetry between source and observation point. The anomalous local bathymetry in the middle coastal area of Viet Nam will possibly

N. A. Duong, F. Kimata, and I. Meilano

2 The bathymetry data are made from ETOPO2 provided by National Geophysical Data Center. The study area is showed in figure 1. The grid interval of bathymetry and topography was 2.5km x 2.5km. The time step was 5 seconds used for calculations. There are some off-shore islands located on the eastern coast of Vietnam namely Paracel Islands which serves as a natural barrier for tsunami generated from the Manila Trench. Looking at the bathymetry off-coast of East Vietnam, it is evident that two possible propagation directions will be generated from the two deep ocean ways for tsunamis attacking Vietnam coast. The shallow part is about 2.5km depth located between off-shore of South China and Paracel Islands and the deeper part at 4 km depth is lager and laying on the southern part of Paracel Islands. They are referred as Fronts A and B on the figure 1, respectively. Near shore bathymetry raises gradually up and creates Front A curves upward to coast area spreading from 14o to 16oN latitude. On the other hand, Front B looks like V-shape and its crest pointing towards the central region of the shore of Vietnam (Fig.1). Both Fronts A and B can be illustrated like funnels or conduits for tsunami wave. Near shore bathymetry between 14o and 16oN latitude also exhibits exclusively a shallow dipping compared with surrounding areas. All these factors may amplify tsunami amplitude as it reaches nearer coast line. Therefore, it is anticipated in this Tsunami Numerical Simulation to confirm the focus of off-ocean waves. On the western Luzon, Philippines, the South China Sea sub-plate belongs to Eurasia plate which subducts eastward beneath Luzon creating the Manila Trench (Yu et al., 1999; Sibuet, 2004; Galgana, 2007). Regional GPS and focal mechanism data were utilized to estimate the absorption velocity of the plate convergence showing that the Manila trench is 2-10cm/yr (Galgana, 2007). The western boundary of the Taiwan deformed zone is considered as northward prolongation of Manila trench (Sibuet, 2004). In this study, mainly concern is a segment which extended southward along the western margin of Luzon to Mindoro Island (Fig. 1).

cause the focusing or defocusing of the tsunami waves coming from different directions into a certain place on the shoreline. To date, there is not any scientific confirmation about palaeo-tsunami evidences along shore of Vietnam. Therefore, no experience is available concerning the propagation and the impact of a tsunami wave to the coast. Above all, under the present circumstances of potential earthquake and tsunami activity over the world, it is necessary to consider and understand thoroughly the tsunami characteristics in Viet Nam. We also need to take a judicious look at possible sources of coastal hazards and adopt a concerted approach towards our preparedness. In this paper, confirming the focusing and resonance of tsunami affected by near shore bathymetry of Vietnam and tsunami source location by using numerical simulations for tsunami scenarios will be carried out. The different scenarios will be compared and the impact of tsunami to Vietnam coast will be determined from the maximum wave level along coastline. The objective of the study is also to understand the propagation of a tsunami wave in the South China Sea. The scenarios are going to take place on a distant source, Manila trench in Western Luzon, Philippines. It is also of encouragement for construction of a tsunami warning system and evaluation of tsunami hazard mitigation in Viet Nam. Some papers discuss the historical documented materials of tsunamis for Asian region (e.g. Heck, 1947; Berninghausen, 1969; Nakamura, 1978) the results show there was a tsunami that occurred on this subducting slab. Tsunami Modeling and Data Modeling of propagation and impact tsunami could be applied for near-shore region run-up specifically by using a non-linear shallow water equations (Satake, 1995) and based on the condition of Iwasaki and Mano (1979). The open boundary condition is used at the edge of the computational area (refer Nakamura, 2006). Run-up calculations using a code that is modeled by Nakamura (2006) using the finite-difference method was applied to simulate for the 1771 Yaeyama tsunami, southern Ryukyu islands, Japan.

Assessment of Bathymetry Effects on Tsunami Propagation in Viet Nam

Figure 1. Fronts A and B pointing towards Vietnam coastal area caused by

near shore bathymetry. To the East is location of Manila trench which is the distant source of tsunami. The red star shows the Feb. 14th 1934 earthquake with magnitude of 7.5 on northwest coast of Luzon island which generated tsunami. It will be simulated to estimate how high it might attack the coastline of Viet Nam.

The focal mechanism solutions for shallow focus earthquakes (0-65km) were determined in the western Philippines show Manila trench is thrust faulting and its whole segment from 13o to 22oN latitude is still very active (Bautista et al., 2001). Moreover, Bautista et al., 2001 made nine cross-sections through the trench from 13o to 22oN latitude and the summary shows the slab dip is about from 10o to 45o at shallow depths and it steepens gradually southward. It means that the focal depth gradually deepens from the north to the south. The subduction is being bended as it subducts downward in the depth of 200 km (Bautista et al., 2001; Zhu Jun-Jiang, 2005). The generation mechanism for a tsunami on Manila trench is mainly the static sea-oor uplift caused by abrupt slip at the Eurasia plate / the Philippine plate interface. To determine the fault model of scenarios for Manila trench, earthquake catalogue of Engdahls catalogue (2002) within period of 1900-1963 and U.S.

Geological Survey (USGS) catalogue within period of 1964-July 2007 were used. According to Hamburger et al. (1983), two earthquakes with M7.5 in 1934 and M7.1 in 1948 were detected during the early instrumental years so that their mechanisms are unavailable and locations are not so precise, however, they were evidence to prove the trench is still active (refer Bautista et al., 2001). In addition, according to research of Heck (1947) wave was observed on Feb. 14th 1934 on northwest coast of Luzon island: San Esteban (1720N, 12027E) and Vigan (1734N, 12023E), and the generating location could be offshore the South China Sea at 18oN, 118oE (Berninghausen, 1969). That event could be connected closely with a tsunami induced by the M7.5 event in 1934 within the same day located on Manila trench (Nakamura, 1978). It is the maximum earthquake occurred in the middle part of the trench at depth of 33km.

Manila Trench

N. A. Duong, F. Kimata, and I. Meilano

Figure 2. Distribution of tsunami height along coastline of Vietnam showed

by columns and maximum tsunami height drawn by contour lines caused by the earthquake with magnitude of 7.5 which occurred in Manila Trench in 1934.

Figure 3. Tsunami travel time map counted from M7.5 Manila Trench source in 1934. Contour timelines indicate each 15 minute from the origin time

Assessment of Bathymetry Effects on Tsunami Propagation in Viet Nam

On that segment, there was a M7.2 earthquake that took place at depth of 33km on Dec. 11st 1999, but no tsunami was announced. The notations of the earthquake fault were followed from Akis textbook (1980) and Okada (1985). Some earthquake parameters are utilized to simulate such as location, depth, length, and width of fault plane, strike, dip angle, slip rate, seismic moment and rigidity of rock. The fault rupture area can be estimated by some approaches in which finite fault seismic data inversion method is one that needs to have the seismic data recorded by seismic instruments. Other traditional one applied usually to delineate earthquake rupture zone is based on locations of aftershocks which occur during 24 hours following the main shock (Kowalik, 2005). The method usually overestimates the length of rupture, because several aftershocks may be induced by the series of events belonging to main shock. Rupture area is sometimes flexed so that fault model to simulate is separated into several parts which depend on observed tsunami travel time. The two methods discussed above request enough seismic data to process, therefore, they can not apply for uncertain earthquake scenarios such as events during the early instrumental time and future scenarios. The fault parameters of the scenarios are determined by using the available researches such as Kanamori (1978), Wells and Copersmith (1994) and Papazachos (2004). Strike and dip angle are also determined by the trench orientation and cross-sections through trench around the location of the event. The shear modulus of the rock surrounding the fault is 4.21011 dyne cm-2 (Kowalik, 2005). In this paper, the tsunami generated by the earthquake in 1934 Feb. 14th with magnitude of 7.5 located on Manila Trench at 17o2414.4N latitude and 119o1124E longitude will be simulated to estimate how high it might attack the coastline of Viet Nam at that time (Engdahl, 2002). Further more, three scenarios will be created to evaluate how a tsunami from distant source can be affected by local bathymetry as well as location of sources when they reach coastal areas of Viet Nam. At that time its fault mechanism could not be detected, so that it will be calculated based on experimental formulas

suggested by Kanamori (1978), Wells and Coppersmith (1994), Papazachos (2004) for earthquake with magnitude of 7.5. Fault parameters for scenario with magnitude 7.5 used to generate vertical sea oor movement are such as dip angle, slip rate, length and width of rupture area. Dip angle is 15o inferred from cross-section at 17oN latitude which was researched by Bautista et al., (2001). The slip angle is set at 90o as it is assumed that slip mechanism was pure reversing and displacement is 4 m. Dimensions of fault rupture area are 110 km in length and 40 km in width. Results and discussions From the result of tsunami simulation illustrated on figure 2, the maximum tsunami wave caused by M7.5 Manila Trench earthquake in 1934 is about 50 centimeters at Vietnam coastline area. The ocean wave that surges about 50 centimeters at the narrow area is not big enough to be recognized by human eyes at that time. Even though, tsunami is a complex phenomenon, the simulation result is one of possible explanations for lacking of historical information of the ocean wave surging in 1934 along coastline of Vietnam. On figure 3 of tsunami travel time map, it is clearly demonstrated the idea of two deep ocean ways (A and B discussed earlier) for tsunami propagation. Along the two ways, water waves will travel faster, focus on coast area and be resonant each other. Figures 2 and 3 do not show clearly the resonant or focusing between 14o and 16oN latitudes as anticipated. However, bathymetry effects caused the concentration of tsunami energy into area A. This could be explained by scattering of tsunami energy which depends on bathymetry and location of earthquake source. In figure 2, we can observe maximum height of the tsunami wave as well as selected period of time in figure 3 at different locations. To make an attempt at getting better results to illustrate influence of near shore bathymetry and location of tsunamigenic source on tsunami along Vietnam coastline, three scenarios are created southward of the real earthquake with magnitude of 7.5 in 1934 along Manila Trench.

N. A. Duong, F. Kimata, and I. Meilano

Figure 4. Distribution of tsunami height along coastline of Vietnam showed

by columns and maximum tsunami height drawn by contour lines caused by fault source moved southward along Manila Trench next to the real earthquake with magnitude of 7.5 in 1934

Figure 5. Distribution of tsunami height along coastline of Vietnam showed

by columns and maximum tsunami height drawn by contour lines caused by fault source moved southward along Manila Trench next to the scenario 1.

Assessment of Bathymetry Effects on Tsunami Propagation in Viet Nam

Figure 6. Distribution of tsunami height along coastline of Vietnam showed

by columns and maximum tsunami height drawn by contour lines caused by fault source moved southward along Manila Trench next to the scenario 2.

The source parameters of three scenarios are kept the same as the ones of the real earthquake except their source locations are changed. One scenario following each other consecutively without any gap left. Scenario 1: Fault source is moved southward along Manila Trench next to the real earthquake with M7.5 in 1934. In figure 4, tsunami heights along Vietnam coastline distribute slight differently compared with ones in figure 2. They are higher at most of observed points and up to 70 cm at the middle part of coastline. Tsunami propagates directly via deep ocean (way B) and focuses on around 11oN latitude area. Some islands hold back ocean waves in front of around 15oN latitude coastal area, however, they still propagate via way A and B (Fig. 1) then are amplified by near shore bathymetry. Scenario 2: Fault source is moved southward along Manila Trench next to the scenario 1.

In this case, the resonance is found around 15oN latitude area and a little bit decreasing at other area (see Fig. 2, 4 & 5). The tsunami height is up to 1m. The distribution of tsunami energy in two ways is not quite different as fault source located between 14.5o and 16oN latitude on Manila trench. It means that the role of way B on focusing of tsunami is more outstanding than way A. It is more obviously in the last scenario. Scenario 3: Fault source is moved southward along Manila Trench next to scenario 2. In this scenario, the source location is the most southwards with strike of North on Manila trench, more energy of tsunami concentrates on way B and amplification of tsunami height up to 1.5m as shown in figure 6. The tsunami simulation results show a strong evidence to affirm the tsunami wave amplitude gradually shifting towards the southern region of the trench. Further more, tsunami waves abnormally focus around 15oN latitude coastal area (Fig 4, 5 and 6).

N. A. Duong, F. Kimata, and I. Meilano

8
at Research Center for Seismology, Volcanology and Disaster Mitigation - Nagoya University - Japan. Support for this study was provided by JICA group training course on Operating Management of Earthquake - Tsunami - Volcano Eruption Observation System fiscal year 2007.

Conclusions Focusing and the final amplitude of tsunamis at a point on the shoreline will be strengthened not only due to variations in bathymetry along the path of the tsunami, but also because of their fault sources on Manila trench. It means that the direct effects of rupture propagation along the fault are also important, hence tsunami energy will be spread over South China Sea in the form of ocean waves, as tsunamis are generated from Manila Trench. Distribution of wave surface level varies depending on near shore bathymetry and location of earthquake source. Coastal area around latitude of 15oN is a place that should be investigated to find out the palaeo-tsunami evidences in Vietnam. The area should also be considered as a priority of tsunami risk mitigation. The area with shallow dipping will be impacted by tsunamis as they have enough energy to travel from Manila Trench to Vietnam coastline. In this study the result shows that the tsunamis are more dangerous in this region as they are produced on the further south of Manila Trench (last scenario). Based from the tsunami simulation, the central part of Vietnam shows the earliest arrival of tsunami from Manila Trench which takes about 2 hours to propagate. This time is enough to evacuate and carry out tsunami mitigation in case of a tsunami generation. Local governments of Vietnam in coastal provinces need to prepare concerted efforts for coastal hazard mitigation. Since the ability of a community to respond to a natural hazard is also dependent on the state of infrastructure, communication, roads and ability to mobilize resources such as medical facilities, proper authorities should be implemented for adequate educational plans regarding natural disasters, including tsunami. This will ensure proper response from the people in a tsunami event. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank D.Sc. Mamoru Nakamura for providing the simulation program codes. Most of the simulation and calculation described in the paper were carried out by using computer cluster

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Assessment of Bathymetry Effects on Tsunami Propagation in Viet Nam

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