The Mega Tsunami of 1422 – possible scenario
Para 20. Note by GM. The facts described are taken from Professor Edward Bryant’s book, Tsunami: The Underrated Hazard (C.U.P. 2001) in relation to the tsunami, and from Dallas H. Abbott, Andrew Matzen and Stephen F. Pekar of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Laboratory, who discovered the comet impact (Abbott et al., 2003, Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.)
October 1422 (G.M.’s interpretation)
A comet breaking away from the large comet (Napier and Clube) which entered the solar system about 20, 000 years ago enters the Earth’s atmosphere travelling at 216, 000 km per hour, passing over SE Australia and hits the Earth at 48.3º S, 166.4º E. It penetrates the ocean bed creating an impact crater 20 ± 2 k.m. wide, and 153 metres deep. Dallas Abbott and team have named it Mahuika crater.
The impact is about 90 k.m. from Zhou Man’s fleet. His masts are smashed off; many ships catch fire and sailors on the upper decks have their ear drums blown out by the pressure pulse. The ships are turned into helpless hulks.
A tsunami is created with waves 200 metres high, travelling at 1000 miles per hour. Zhou Man’s wrecked fleet hurled NW to Australia and N to New Zealand. When the tsunami strikes New South Wales, huge boulders are carried on top of cliffs 32 metres high. Several junks are carried over sandbars far inland (Warrnambool; Wollongong where Chinese blue and white has been found in tsunami debris far inland). One of the wrecked treasure ships is impaled in a cliff at Moeraki, 45 degree bows up, and with a 45 degree list to starboard. Two burning junks are hurled into the cliff-face at Wakanui Beach, Ashburton, where their wreckage is buried deep beneath a Tsunami formed cliff, which also covers a stone built Chinese canal. The scene in New Zealand resembles a fleet of aircraft crashing simultaneously.
The tsunami radiates across the Pacific. Waves reaching Easter Island are 10 metres high. Many people drown, civilisation, including Chinese, destroyed. Waves reaching Peru and Chile devastate society along the coast, including Chinese settlements in north Peru. Junks are wrecked. People on Altiplano escape.
Effect on New Zealand – “The Mystic Fires of Tamatea”- From Professor Bryant’s book Tsunami- The Underrated Hazard.
Comet debris strikes South Island centred at Tananui (in Maori = “the big explosion”.) The airburst flattens trees within a radius of 40-80 kilometres of Tananui. Thousands of square kilometres of forest catch fire. The Chinese colony who have been mining gold, jade and antimony since the Han dynasty are burned alive. Maori legends of the area tell about “the falling of the skies, raging winds and massive and mysterious fires, storms from space” – the Maori name for Stewart Island translates as “Glowing sky”. The sun is screened out, causing widespread death and decay. Local names describe the fireball (Ka = fire), viz. Waitepeka, Kaka Point and Oweka. Aboriginal legend describes all sorts of debris hitting the ground, and a hissing noise, which is most consistent with a comet. Song Chinese in the Catlins shelter in caves (Cathedral Bay) to avoid fireball. The flightless moa become desperate: they gather in large flocks before being burned alive. The Maori name “Manu Whakatan” translates as “the bird felled by a strange fire”.
A deluge now follows, caused by a vast tidal wave. The Apimara plains west of Invercargill are flooded as are the Chinese mine shafts. Trees are toppled by the tsunami: Maori place names inland from the ocean reflect this: Tainui, Tairoa, Paretai (Tai translates as waves).
Amidst this chaos Zhou Man’s fleet of 44 hulks is hurled ashore in the 300-mile stretch of coastline between the Banks peninsular and Catlins – the very area where death and devastation is at its worst. The survivors struggle ashore to find a burned land, the inhabitants, including their Han, Tang and Song compatriots, dead, the land but cinders, the moas gone BUT they still have horses, pigs, turkeys and an array of South American and Chinese plants aboard their fleet. The old smelters can be fired up, the mines pumped out, old canals and aqueducts can be rebuilt. They gather up the dead moa and clean, butcher and dry the flesh. Life can start again.
