Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

The tragic December 26, 2004, tsunami in the Indian Ocean with its great
loss of life made Canadians more aware of the devastation tidal waves
can cause. For Newfoundlanders, it brought home to them memories of
their own tsunami, which hit 75 years ago. On November 18, 1929, an
earthquake registering 7.2 on the Richter scale struck Newfoundland.
Originating 250 km south of the Burin Peninsula, it greatly affected
about 50 small fishing communities and 10,000 people in the area. The
high seas lasted two and a half hours, and many area residents lost
homes, fishing premises, boats, and winter food supplies. The tragedy
resulted in 27 deaths, and property losses were more than $1 million.
The true extent of the damage would not be known to the outside world
for several days because telegraphic communications with the area were
lost.

Hanrahan’s lively and moving account dramatically recreates the lives
of people who survived that fatal day. It recounts in detail what they
were doing at the time the tidal wave first struck, and how they reacted
to it. The miraculous survival of four-year-old Margaret Rennie, for
example, is covered, as are the heroic efforts of nurse Dorothy Cherry,
who travelled on “horseback and on foot” visiting and treating
survivors before the arrival of government officials who examined the
situation and co-ordinated relief efforts under local magistrate Malcolm
Hollett. Cherry impressed upon the officials and the outside world the
full magnitude of the disaster. Assistance for those affected would
quickly come from public and private donors in Newfoundland, and from
Canada and the United States.