'Tsunami bomb' tested off New Zealand coast
The United States and New Zealand conducted secret tests of a "tsunami bomb" designed to destroy coastal cities by using underwater blasts to trigger massive tidal waves.
Photo:
ALAMY
The tests were carried out in waters around New Caledonia and Auckland during
the Second World War and showed that the weapon was feasible and a series of 10
large offshore blasts could potentially create a 33-foot tsunami capable of
inundating a small city.
The top secret operation, code-named "Project Seal", tested the doomsday
device as a possible rival to the nuclear bomb. About 3,700 bombs were exploded
during the tests, first in New Caledonia and later at Whangaparaoa Peninsula,
near Auckland.
The plans came to light during research by a New Zealand author and
film-maker, Ray Waru, who examined military files buried in the national
archives.
"Presumably if the atomic bomb had not worked as well as it did, we might
have been tsunami-ing people," said Mr Waru.
"It was absolutely astonishing. First that anyone would come up with the idea
of developing a weapon of mass destruction based on a tsunami ... and also that
New Zealand seems to have successfully developed it to the degree that it might
have worked." The project was launched in June 1944 after a US naval officer, E
A Gibson, noticed that blasting operations to clear coral reefs around Pacific
islands sometimes produced a large wave, raising the possibility of creating a
"tsunami bomb".
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