Tsunami could ‘wipe out’ Pakistan’s largest city

The United Nations organised a drill designed to check an early-warning system set up after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 230,000 people. The test was simulating a hypothetical 9.0-magnitude quake in the Indian Ocean. “This could wipe out the city as the waves would be immensely powerful,” said Tauseef Alam, the chief meteorologist who was supervising the test in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, home to around 18 million people.

Karachi was hit by a tsunami in 1945 that killed at least 4,000 people. “The city is vulnerable because there is a chance of another tsunami in the same vicinity but we dont know when,” Alam said.