1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami
Earthquake in Indonesia
The 1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami occurred on 12 December on the island of Flores in Indonesia. With a magnitude of 7.7 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), it was the largest and the deadliest earthquake in 1992 and in the Lesser Sunda Islands region, with at least 2,500 people killed. The earthquake generated an unusually large tsunami for its size; a submarine landslide may explain this phenomenon. Submarine rockfall was observed near the site of the earthquake. Observed runups (height above normal sea level) were mostly around 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft), with higher runups on Babi Island, Bou-Tanabeten, and Riangkroko village.
The earthquake was caused by slip on the Flores Thrust fault. This fault dips to the south underneath Flores Island, and is part of the back-arc thrust of Indonesia. The epicenters of most earthquakes on the Flores Thrust are on Flores Island. The area often experiences large earthquakes, with multiple impacting the area since 1992, such as the 2018 Lombok earthquakes, which were produced by the Flores thrust. The Flores thrust itself has produced at least six tsunamigenic earthquakes since 1800.
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This entry incorporates text from “1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.