Liquefied gravity flow-induced tsunami: first evidence and comparison from the 2018 Indonesia Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami disasters

On 28 September 2018, a strong earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.5 occurred on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This earthquake caused extensive liquefaction and liquefaction-induced flow slides inland. Despite a strike-slip fault, which typically displaces land horizontally, being unlikely to produce significant tsunamis, the earthquake in fact caused devastating tsunamis. Our field investigations showed that there was an occurrence of extensive liquefaction in coastal areas. Significant coastal liquefaction can result in a gravity flow of liquefied soil mass that can cause a tsunami. A comparison with a past disaster of the strike-slip fault Haiti earthquake tsunami indicated that essentially the same occurred at the Palu coast of Central Sulawesi. Namely, liquefaction-induced total collapse of coastal land caused liquefied sediment flows, resulting in a tsunami. An important difference between this time and Haiti was that such total collapses and flows of coastal land due to liquefaction occurred at several (at least nine) places, resulting in multiple tsunamis. Analysis of the tidal data implied that less than 20% of the tsunami height was related to tectonic processes, and the majority was caused by the coastal and submarine landslides as characterized by liquefied gravity flows.