Deadly Caribbean tsunami risk overlooked

Deadly tsunamis threaten Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the rest of the Caribbean and are an overlooked hazard in the region, geologists reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union here last week. The Caribbean's beautiful tropical islands and coral reefs are strung along the junction of several major and minor tectonic plates. Many sit above a subduction zone, where two plates meet and one slides protestingly under the other, down into Earth's mantle. Other islands, like Haiti, straddle strike-slip faults, where plates slide side by side. The last decade's devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra have brought increased attention to the Caribbean, and scientists at the meeting compared the setting to that of Sumatra, Indonesia, both for its complexity and the risk of tsunamis and giant earthquakes. 
Two studies presented at the AGU meeting unearthed historical reports that show the eastern Caribbean's 1843 Lesser Antilles earthquake was as intense as Sumatra's 2005 Nias earthquake, a magnitude 8.7, which killed 1,300 people in Indonesia. 

Source: NBC News