Historical tsunami records and potential tsunami scenarios near Haikou coastal region

Historical tsunami records in the South China Sea are collected and analyzed in this paper. There have been about 54 tsunamis in the South China Sea since 1076. The impacts of the transoceanic tsunamis on the southeast coast of China are weak. However, the regional tsunamis in the South China Sea bring varying degrees of influence to the south coast of China, which occurred about 18 times. By the analysis of the potential tsunami sources in the South China Sea, numerical simulations of tsunami induced in the Manila Trench are carried out. It is found that the tsunami wave height is small near Haikou if the general earthquake tsunami occurred. But the tsunami wave height is large when a giant earthquake of M9.3 occurred. If this extreme situation arises, the impacts to the coast of Haikou will be serious.