MELBOURNE - Precious coral reefs and mangrove areas would have been crushed by the huge tsunami waves that have devastated southern Asia, an environmental and economic setback that could take years to reverse, experts say.
Deep sea creatures are likely to have escaped unscathed from the massive quake below the Indian Ocean, but coastal ecologies were exposed to the full force of the crushing wall of water.
"Some of the reefs around Sri Lanka and Phuket (in Thailand) would likely be pretty severely damaged because big waves hit them pretty close into shore. It's going to depend on the size of the waves that hit," said Michael Keogh, professor of marine ecology at the University of Melbourne.
"The big forces from these waves come when they get close to shore and into shallow water and they build up, they start to break, and that's where the really severe energy is," he said.
An 9.0-magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra on Sunday, one of the most powerful in a century, unleashed a devastating series of giant waves that killed nearly 70,000 people in around 10 countries.
Diving resorts popular with tourists for their superb marine life, such as the atolls of the Maldives and the southern Thai islands, were flattened by the forceful wall of water.
"If you lose some of the coral reefs then you lose the appeal to tourists and they'll go elsewhere," said Keogh.
Reef-forming coral grows only about half a centimetre (one fifth of an inch) a year.
Seafood farms in countries such as Thailand would also have been damaged, and mangrove areas that act as nursery habitats to fish and shrimp "will have been churned over pretty thoroughly", Keogh said.
"If there's been large-scale damage the recovery rate could well take quite a long time," he added.
The worst marine damage was likely to have been concentrated 100 metres to a kilometre from shore. However, the feeding, breeding and other activities of large sea mammals such as whales and dolphins probably suffered little impact.
"Dolphins can feel things like that happening in the water and they would probably head for deep water where they could be safe," said John Michel, communications manager at the government marine research department of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
"They're pretty smart and they know when things are coming," he said.
Tsunamis measured only about 7 inches (18 cm) high in deep water.
"Offshore environments would probably be totally unaffected. The only thing that would be affected would be the tidal ecologies -- the animals and sealife that live right on the shore line," Michel said.
Story by Miranda Maxwell
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
