274 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1947 



Several highway and railway bridges were destroyed. Most appear to 

 have been partly or entirely lifted from their foundations by the rising 

 of the water under them. The head of the pier at Waianae, Oahu, was 

 damaged in the same manner. At the Wailuku River, in Hilo, an entire 

 span of the steel railroad bridge was torn loose and carried 750 feet 

 upstream, passing under but not damaging a highway bridge. At 

 Kolekole Stream, 11 miles farther north, an entire leg of the high steel 

 railroad trestle was removed and carried upstream about 500 feet. 



Part of the end and much of the shed of pier 1 in Hilo was wrecked 

 by the force of the wave. Most of the damage on pier 2, however, re- 

 sulted when heavy pontoons, which had been moored nearby, were 

 washed across the pier. The wharves at Kahului on Maui were flooded, 

 but sustained little structural damage. 



The upper part of the breakwater at Hilo was about 61 percent de- 

 stroyed (fig. 8) . Blocks of rock weighing more than 8 tons were lifted 

 off the breakwater and dropped both inside and outside it. Destruc- 

 tion was limited, however, to the part above water or that only slightly 

 submerged. The average depth of water over the destroyed sections 

 after the wave was only about 3 feet. The breakwater at Kahului, 

 Maui, also suffered minor damage. At both Hilo and Kahului the 

 breakwaters appear to have reduced materially the height and violence 

 of the waves in the enclosed portions of the harbors. 



Many small boats were washed ashore and damaged. Railroad cars 

 were overturned on Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii. Many automobiles were 

 wrecked. The loose stone walls of fishponds along the southern coast 

 of Molokai were partly thrown down. The mill of the Hakalau Sugar 

 Co., situated only about 10 feet above sea level at the mouth of Haka- 

 lau Gulch on the island of Hawaii, suffered severe damage. 



Erosion by the tsunami resulted in the partial removal of some sand 

 beaches, in some places causing a retreat of the shore line for several 

 tens of feet, cutting of small scarps, and forming of large beach cusps 

 at the heads of beaches; locally, erosion caused stripping away of 

 a small amount of soil. The erosion was largely concentrated high on 

 the beach, several feet above sea level. Some of the sand from the 

 beaches was carried inland and redeposited. At Haena, Kauai, the 

 highway was buried under 4 feet of sand, and thinner layers of sand 

 covered roads on Oahu. 



Flooding caused much water damage to house furnishings and 

 personal property. 



LOSS OF LIFE AND PERSONAL INJURY 



The following table summarizes, by islands, the number of persons 

 killed, injured, or missing as a result of the tsunami. The figures were 

 supplied by the American Red Cross. Most of the deaths were by 

 drowning. By far the heaviest toll was at Hi]o, with 83 known dead 



