The Nankai Trough earthquake tsunamis in Korea: numerical studies of the 1707 Hoei earthquake and physics-based scenarios

Historical documents in Korea and China report abnormal waves in the sea and rivers close to the date of the 1707 Hoei earthquake, which occurred in the Nankai Trough, off southwestern Japan. This indicates that the tsunami caused by the Hoei earthquake might have reached Korea and China, which suggests a potential hazard in Korea from large earthquakes in the Nankai Trough. We conducted tsunami simulations to study the details of tsunamis in Korea caused by large earthquakes. Our results showed that the Hoei earthquake (Mw 8.8) tsunami reached the Korean Peninsula about 200 min after the earthquake occurred. The maximum tsunami height was ~0.5 m along the Korean coast. The model of the Hoei earthquake predicted a long-lasting tsunami whose highest peak arrived 600 min later after the first arrival near the coastline of Jeju Island. In addition, we conducted tsunami simulations using physics-based scenarios of anticipated earthquakes in the Nankai subduction zone. The maximum tsunami height in the scenarios (Mw 8.5–8.6) was ~0.4 m along the Korean coast. As a simple evaluation of larger possible tsunamis, we increased the amount of stress released by the earthquake by a factor of two and three, resulting in scenarios for Mw 8.8 and 8.9 earthquakes, respectively. The tsunami height increased by 0.1–0.4 m compared to that estimated by the Hoei earthquake.