Coastal Engineering Journal

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The 2018 Sulawesi tsunami in Palu city as a result

of several landslides and coseismic tsunamis

Rafael Aránguiz, Miguel Esteban, Hiroshi Takagi, Takahito Mikami, Tomoyuki

Takabatake, Matías Gómez, Juan González, Tomoya Shibayama, Ryo
Okuwaki, Yuji Yagi, Kousuke Shimizu, Hendra Achiari, Jacob Stolle, Ian
Robertson, Koichiro Ohira, Ryota Nakamura, Yuta Nishida, Clemens
Krautwald, Nils Goseberg & Ioan Nistor

To cite this article: Rafael Aránguiz, Miguel Esteban, Hiroshi Takagi, Takahito Mikami, Tomoyuki
Takabatake, Matías Gómez, Juan González, Tomoya Shibayama, Ryo Okuwaki, Yuji Yagi,
Kousuke Shimizu, Hendra Achiari, Jacob Stolle, Ian Robertson, Koichiro Ohira, Ryota Nakamura,
Yuta Nishida, Clemens Krautwald, Nils Goseberg & Ioan Nistor (2020) The 2018 Sulawesi tsunami
in Palu city as a result of several landslides and coseismic tsunamis, Coastal Engineering Journal,
62:4, 445-459, DOI: 10.1080/21664250.2020.1780719

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21664250.2020.1780719

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COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
2020, VOL. 62, NO. 4, 445–459
https://doi.org/10.1080/21664250.2020.1780719

The 2018 Sulawesi tsunami in Palu city as a result of several landslides and
coseismic tsunamis
Rafael Aránguiz a,b, Miguel Esteban c, Hiroshi Takagi d, Takahito Mikami e, Tomoyuki Takabatake c,
Matías Gómez a, Juan González b,f, Tomoya Shibayama c, Ryo Okuwaki g, Yuji Yagih, Kousuke Shimizug,
Hendra Achiarii, Jacob Stolle j, Ian Robertsonk, Koichiro Ohiral, Ryota Nakamura m, Yuta Nishidac,
Clemens Krautwald n, Nils Goseberg n and Ioan Nistor o
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile; bResearch Center for Integrated
Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN), Chile; cDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan;
d
School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan; eDepartment of Urban and Civil Engineering, Tokyo City
University, Tokyo, Japan; fDepartment of Geological Sciences, Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile; gGraduate School of Life
and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan; hFaculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba,
Japan; iDepartment of Ocean Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung City, Indonesia; jCentre Eau Terre Environnement,
Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Quebec, Canada; kDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Hawaii
at Manoa, Honolulu, USA; lJERA Co., Inc., Tokyo, Japan; mDepartment of Engineering, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan; nDepartment of
Architecture, Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, Technical University of Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany; oDepartment
of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The September 28 2018 Palu tsunami surprised the scientific community, as neither the earth­ Received 19 November 2019
quake magnitude nor its strike-slip mechanism were deemed capable of producing the wave Accepted 6 June 2020
heights that were observed. However, recent research has shown that the earthquake generated KEYWORDS
several landslides inside Palu bay. The authors conducted a post-disaster field survey of the area Palu city; landslide tsunami;
affected to collect spatial data on tsunami inundation heights, nearshore and bay bathymetry, numerical simulation
and carried out eyewitness interviews to collect testimonies of the event. In addition, numerical
simulations of the tsunami generation and propagation mechanisms were carried out and
validated with the inferred time series. Seven small submarine landslides were identified along
the western shore of the bay, and one large one was reported on the eastern shore of Palu City.
Most of these landslides occurred at river mouths and reclamation areas, where soft submarine
sediments had accumulated. The numerical simulations support a scenario in which the tsunami
waves that arrived at Palu city 4–10 min after the earthquake were caused by the co-seismic
seafloor deformation, possibly coupled with secondary waves generated from several submarine
landslides. These findings suggest that more comprehensive methodologies and tools need to be
used when assessing probabilistic tsunami hazards in narrow bays.

1. Introduction which resulted in ~450 casualties (Heidarzadeh et al.

On September 28, 2018, an earthquake of moment mag­
nitude Mw. 7.5, with its epicenter located at 0.18°S and
119.85°E, occurred in Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. Tsunami
waves were reported in several areas inside Palu Bay only
a few minutes after the earthquake, with unexpectedly
large inundation heights observed at Palu City (Mikami
et al. 2019; Omira et al. 2019) (Figure 1). There were over
4300 casualties,1 and 537,000 people were affected (Song
et al. 2019). Moreover, buildings and lifeline infrastructure
experienced severe earthquake- and inundation-induced
damage (Paulik et al. 2019). This event was the second
deadliest in recent times in Indonesia, after the 2004
Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami
(Heidarzadeh, Muhari, and Wijanarto 2018). In addition,
another deadly tsunami took place in December 2018,
caused by the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano,
2020; Takabatake et al. 2019). Recent research indicates
that the Palu earthquake ruptured at supershear velocities
(Socquet et al. 2019; Bao et al. 2019) and additional non-
tectonic sources contributed to the generation of the tsu­
nami, including landslides and liquefied gravity flows
(Heidarzadeh, Muhari, and Wijanarto 2018; Takagi et al.
2019; Sassa and Takagawa 2018; Pakoksung et al. 2019;
Carvajal et al. 2019; Arikawa et al. 2018; Gusman et al. 2019).
Ten possible locations where coastal landslides could have
taken place have been identified around the bay (Omira
et al. 2019).
Landslides are frequent in narrow bays and fjords, and
can generate significant tsunami amplitudes (Lastras et al.
2013; Levin and Nosov 2009; Higman et al. 2018) that
devastate coastal communities (L’heureux et al. 2011). In
addition, narrow bays can experience large tsunami wave
amplification due to energy focusing and resonance

CONTACT Rafael Aránguiz raranguiz@ucsc.cl

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Sulawesi_earthquake_and_tsunami
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.
© 2020 Japan Society of Civil Engineers
446 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

Figure 1. Index maps. Left: Location of Palu Bay within Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. The map has been generated using available
maps in ArcGis 10.2 software. The fault lines were obtained after Bellier et al. (2006). The epicenter and the fault plane of the Mw
7.5 event is given by the USGS (United States Geological Survey 2018). Right: bathymetry of Palu Bay, inundation heights
measurements from Mikami et al. (2019), and important locations. TVRI is the location of Televisi Republik Indonesia. Bathymetry
released by the Indonesian Geospatial Information Agency.

(Didenkulova and Pelinovsky 2011; Henry and Murty 1995;
Harbitz et al. 2006). Moreover, large tsunamis may also be
generated by co-seismic seafloor displacement, coupled
with a submarine landslide triggered by an earthquake
(Favalli et al. 2009). Submarine landslides can take place
where a large amount of sediments accrue on steep
seabed slopes, which accumulate a huge amount of poten­
tial energy (Levin and Nosov 2009; Marchuk 2008) that has
tsunamigenic potential (Spinney 2014; Lee et al. 2006).
Therefore, there is widespread evidence that large tsuna­
mis in narrow bays cannot be generated solely by co-
seismic effects (L’heureux et al. 2011; Heidarzadeh,
Muhari, and Wijanarto 2018; Ward 2001). In fact, Takagi
et al. (2019) demonstrated that a landslide tsunami was
generated at the south western shore of Palu bay and
propagated as an edge wave to Palu city. In addition,
Pakoksung et al. (2019) analyzed submarine/subaerial land­
slides inside Palu bay by means of numerical simulations
and validated the model with the Pantoloan tide gauge
records. On the contrary, Ulrich et al. (2019) proposed
a rupture model which matches the Pantoloan tide
gauge, and conclude that the large inundation was the
sole result of coseismic tsunami action. On the other hand,
Heidarzadeh, Muhari, and Wijanarto (2018) simulated the
tsunami using a purely tectonic source, and while their
results are in fairly good agreement with the tide gauge
records at Pantoloan and Mumuju, the maximum wave
amplitudes are considerably smaller than those observed
along the southern shore of the bay. Moreover, Carvajal
et al. (2019) reconstructed the tsunami waveforms at sev­
eral locations inside Palu bay by combining video footage
and satellite imagery. These results were used by
Sepúlveda et al. (2020) to define possible landslide loca­
tions by means of a tsunami source inversion. They con­
cluded that a limited number of landslides in the sourthern
Palu bay are able to explain the tsunami amplitudes
observed. In addition, they highlighted that the 1-min
sampling interval of the Pantoloan gauge did not capture
well the short-period features of the Palu tsunami, and
therefore this record may not provide a realistic time-
series for this event. A recent multibeam bathymetry of
Palu Bay (Frederik et al. 2019) allowed the identification of
several submarine slumps within the bay, and despite the
fact that the data did not include shallow waters, it was
concluded that there could have been a landslide near the
mouth of Palu river.
The present study reports the results of a bathymetry
survey along the shallow part of the southern half of
Palu Bay, which were combined with numerical simula­
tions to investigate not only the location but also the
size of potential landslides that could be responsible for
the large tsunami, and the possible coupling with a co-
generation mechanism. The paper is structured as fol­
lows: Section 2 gives a general description of the

Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami, and section 3
describes the methodology. Section 4 then presents
the results, which are discussed in section 5. Finally,
section 6 provides the main conclusions of this research.
2. The 2018 Sulawesi earthquake and tsunami
Palu Bay, located on the northern Sulawesi Island of
Indonesia, has a North-South length of 30 km, an East-
West width of 6–7 km and maximum depths of up to
700 m (see Figure 1). The bay is bisected by the Palu-Koro
transform fault (Bellier et al. 2001; Watkinson and Hall
2017). This fault belongs to the Makassar Strait seismic
region, which has previously generated the highest fre­
quency of tsunami events in Indonesia. Fourteen of these
phenomena have been recorded in Sulawesi Island
between 1820 and 1982 (Prasetya, De Lange, and Healy
2001).
The earthquake on September 28, 2018, took place
at 10:02 UTC (18:02, local time) and had a moment
magnitude of Mw 7.5. The hypocenter of the earth­
quake was located at 0.256°S and 119.846°E at 20 km
depth (United States Geological Survey 2018). It has
been noted that the earthquake probably ruptured at
supershear velocities (Socquet et al. 2019; Bao et al.
2019), and that not only a segment along the Palu-
Koro fault to the north moved, but also a northwestern
segment offshore (Song et al. 2019).
Our international research team visited Sulawesi
Island to survey the areas affected by the earthquake
and tsunami and recorded inundation heights and max­
imum runups (Mikami et al. 2019), while investigating
the impact of the tsunami on the coastal communities
and associated infrastructure. Interviews were con­
ducted with the local population with the intention to
establish the most probable arrival time of the tsunami
waves at various locations. In addition, a bathymetric
survey was conducted along coastal zones, together
with an aerial survey using a Phantom 4 pro drone.2
Results from the field survey show that the largest
inundation heights were observed at the southern
shore of the bay (Mikami et al. 2019). At the western
side of Palu River mouth, maximum inundation heights
of up to 6 m were measured, while along the eastern
shore water marks of approximately 4.5 m (at the location
of TVRI Palu, Figure 1) were observed. Inundation heights
decreased toward the entrance (north) of the bay, reach­
ing values of only 1.5–2 m (Mikami et al. 2019)
(see Figure 1), which is in good agreement with other
field surveys (Omira et al. 2019; Syamsidik et al. 2019;
Arikawa et al. 2018). According to eyewitnesses, the first
wave at Loli Dondo arrived from the direction of Palu
approximately 4 min after the earthquake. At Buluri, 3
waves arrived within 3–5 min. The first wave at Silae
arrived 10 min after the earthquake, while the second
2
https://www.dji.com/phantom-4-pro
COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 447
arrived 15–20 min after the previous wave. At TVRI Palu
three tsunami waves arrived with a time difference of
5 min, with the first one reaching the area within 5 min of
the earthquake. At Wani, local residents indicated that
waves arrived about 4–6 min after the earthquake.
A video captured by CCTV just inland from Wani port
shows the leading tsunami wave arriving exactly 3 min
35 s after the start of the earthquake. The CCTV camera of
Kampoeng Nelayan Hotel in the Talise area shows that
the first tsunami wave arrived only 2 min after the earth­
quake started. In a similar manner, a CCTV camera in
Pantoloan port recorded ~2 m of water retreat and
a rise of water of ~4 m only 3 min after the earthquake
(Carvajal et al. 2019). All these observations, together with
the backward tsunami ray tracing conducted by Carvajal
et al. (2019), provide strong evidence that at least part of
the tsunami energy was released inside Palu Bay (Sassa
and Takagawa 2018; Carvajal et al. 2019; Heidarzadeh,
Muhari, and Wijanarto 2018; Frederik et al. 2019).
3. Methodology
3.1. Bathymetry survey
The bathymetric surveys were conducted from 28 to
October 30, 2018, using a Garmin GPSMAP 585 echo­
sounder which was mounted at the side of a speedboat
(the instrument was inside the water at all times, and
care was taken to ensure that turbulence was not
interfering with the measurements). Figure 2(a, b)
shows the type of speedboat used. The speed of the
boat was kept below 15 km/hour, given the opera­
tional limitations of the instrumentation (which usually
stopped recording after this velocity was reached). In
fact, while measuring the bathymetry, the speed of the
boat was usually less than 10 km/hour, and in some
cases when wind waves become higher, it was as low
as 5–6 km/hour. The bathymetry data collected was
analyzed using QGIS 3.2 software, and interpolated
using the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method,
with contour lines being extracted from these interpo­
lated data. The coastline was extracted from aerial
images after the tsunami event from the Copernicus
Emergency Management Service (EMS) Mapping, and
Figure 2(c) was produced with the help of ArcGIS.
3.2. Identification of landslides
The differences between the bathymetric data from
2014 (provided by the Indonesian Geospatial
Information Agency) and that collected by the authors
after the 2018 earthquake and tsunami enabled the
identification of areas where a submarine landslide
may have occurred. Based on the characteristics of
the submarine landslide bathymetry described in pre­
vious research (Yamamoto 1991; Canals et al. 2004;
Longva et al. 2003; Yalciner et al. 2014), the extraction
448 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

Figure 2. (a) Bathymetry survey around Palu. (b) Speedboat used in bathymetric survey (photo taken in Karang, Donggala city,
28th of October 2018). (c) Interpolated contour lines obtained from batymetry survey.

Table 1. Characteristics of the submarine landslide bathymetry.
Scarps Steep slopes expanding downward in the form of
horse’s shoe and semi-circular planar shapes.
Steep slopes with smooth shapes without
irregularity in plain, with a certain inclination.
Sedimentary Fan-shaped portions at the base of scarps or
sections tongue-shaped hills.
Separate hills and convex topography.
Long thin tongue shapes, or plateau shapes in
some cases.
method for the present bathymetry took into account
that it consists of scarps and sedimentary portions and
that, for the case of thinner landslides, only the scarps
are recognizable (see Table 1). The Paraview software3
was used to visualize such scarps and sedimentary
sections.
To further verify that these landslides actually took
place, the authors resorted to searching for other
evidence, such as footage of the event or the testimo­
nies of witnesses. The first such piece of evidence was
the video taken by Mr. Ricosetta Mafella, pilot of the
Batik 6321 flight (Carvajal et al. 2019; Takagi et al. 2019;
Sepúlveda et al. 2020), and other online videos of the
event, such as those taken from barges on the west
side of the bay (see Table 2). For the first time, these
videos captured the initial moment when the tsunami
waves were generated by multiple submarine land­
slides. Figure 3 shows the landslides identified by the
pilot’s video. The second source of information were
the reports of witnesses of the event. While the inun­
dation surveys were being carried out, the authors also
interviewed residents of the affected areas, asking
them about the characteristics of the wave and arrival
times (see previous section). According to such infor­
mation, the bathymetric survey focused on the west

Table 2. List of videos which were analyzed to identify landslide location, wave arrival time and direction. All hyperlinks were
available as of December 7 2018.
Video N° Location Description Link
1 Shopping center, Arrival of first wave at Palu City https://www.youtube.com/
0°53ʹ1.75”S watch?v = mOEfs2Foh7E
119°50ʹ38”E
2 Shopping Center: Arrival of second wave at Palu City https://www.youtube.com/
0°53ʹ1.75”S watch?v = uCr5MgP5VVs
119°50ʹ38”E
3 Antena at TVRI area Generation of landslide tsunami at East side of Palu Bay https://www.youtube.com/
0°53ʹ12.83”S watch?v=xplXjWMf7QM
119°51ʹ49.16”
4 Kampoeng Nelayan Hotel, Talise Earthquake and Arrival of first wave at Talise area (Palu City) https://www.youtube.com/
0°51ʹ55.07”S watch?v=w6FYVCq3-as
119°52ʹ38.81”E
5 Barge, 0°50ʹ31.4”S 119°49ʹ02.0”E Generation of landslide tsunamis at the west coast of Palu Bay https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=61ItBglP-YM
6 Vessel inside the bay: location Generation of landslide tsunami in some point inside the bay https://www.youtube.com/
unknown watch?v=KtQUntAHjE4

3
https://www.paraview.org/
 COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 449

Figure 3. Waveforms generated by underwater landslides. Images taken by Mr. Ricosetta Mafella, Batik 6321 flight, minutes after
take-off (just after the earthquake). The red arrows indicate the existence of waves produced by large submarine landslides (Lw1-
Lw4). The blue arrows indicate smaller landslides, generated by reclaimed land used for storage and loading of gravel into large
barges, which were identified from another publicly available video (Video 5 in Table 2).

Figure 4. Bathymetry and cross-sections in Palu bay for definition of landslides parameters. LW means landslides at the west side
of the bay, while LE correspond to landslides at the east side.

side of the bay, as well as the Talise area. Once the
landslides locations were identified, cross-sections of
the 2014 bathymetry were analyzed by means of
GlobalMapper software, which allowed the authors to
define relevant parameters such as length, thickness,
depth, and slope angle (see Figure 4). LW represents
landslides located at the west side of the Palu bay,
while LE are those located on its east side. These land­
slides locations were also compared with possible
landslides identified by Frederik et al. (2019), and land­
slides LW2-3 coincide with those detailed in the cross
sections 5a and 5b of those authors. However, Frederik
et al. (2019) analyzed a deeper bathymetry segment of
the bay, with steeper slopes. In addition, they acknowl­
edged the difficulty in estimating the volume of sedi­
ment due to uncertainties regarding the scarp as well
as the possibility that additional sources may be
located in shallower areas (which are not covered in
their bathymetry). Moreover, from the estimated
volume of displaced sediment, a possible would
appear to be located near the mouth of Palu river
(Frederik et al. 2019), which coincides with source LE
shown in Figure 4 (which for simulation purposes was
divided into three different landslides in the present
work)
3.3. Numerical simulations and setup
Tsunami numerical simulations of both co-seismic and
landslide tsunamis were performed separately, using
two different well-known numerical models. The for­
mer was simulated by means of the NEOWAVE model
(Yamazaki, Kowalik, and Cheung 2009; Yamazaki,
Cheung, and Kowalik 2011), which solves the nonlinear
450 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

shallow water equations and uses a vertical velocity
term to account for weakly dispersive waves and the
non-hydrostatic component of pressure. The latter
used two different but integrated models, GEOWAVE
to generate the landslide’s tsunami initial condition
(Watts et al. 2003, 2005) and FUNWAVE (which uses
fully non-linear Boussinesq equations) to propagate
the waves.
The simulation of the co-seismic tsunami with the
NEOWAVE model used three-level nested computa­
tional grids, with resolutions of 60-arcsec (~1850 m),
15-arcsec (~460 m) and 3-arcsec (~90 m). The level-1
and level-2 grids were built using the GEBCO database
(resolution 30-arc seconds), while the level-3 grid was
built from detailed bathymetry and topography
released by the Indonesian Geospatial Agency (resolu­
tion of 180 m (Pakoksung et al. 2019)), Figure 5(a,c)
show the nested grids used in the NEOWAVE numerical
simulations. The landslide numerical simulations with
GEOWAVE used one grid of 50 m resolution in UTM
coordinates. This grid included the entire Palu bay, as
shown in Figure 5(d).
The co-seismic tsunami was generated from the
finite fault model (Okuwaki, Yagi, and Shimizu 2018),
by using the method of the vertical component of 49
teleseismic P waveforms (Fig, 6a), downloaded via the
Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology Data
Management Center (IRIS DMC). The instrumental
responses were removed and converted into the velo­
city waveforms at a sampling rate of 1.0 s. Green’s
functions were computed based on the method of
Kikuchi and Kanamori (1991) with the near-source
velocity structures adopted from the CRUST1.0 model
(Laske et al. 2013). A rectangle model-fault plane strik­
ing at 385° and dipping at 69° was used, with a length
and width of 240 km and 30 km, respectively, with the
possible source nodes distributed with grid intervals of
5 km and 5 km along the strike and dip directions,
respectively. The initial rupture point was assumed to
have taken place at 0.178°S, 119.840°E, at a 12-km
depth. The slip on each source node was represented
along the model-fault plane, with five-basis double-
couple components (Kikuchi and Kanamori 1991),
based on the extended framework of the inversion

Figure 5. Computational grids for coseismic and landslide tsunami simulations. (a) Level-1 grid with 60-arcsec resolution for
NEOWAVE model. (b) Level-2 grid with 15-arcsec resolution for NEOWAVE model. (c) Level-3 grid with 3-arcsec resolution for
NEOWAVE model. (d) Grid of 50 m resolution for landslide simulations with GEOWAVE model.
 COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 451

formulation developed by Yagi and Fukahata (2011).
The slip-rate function on each source node was repre­
sented as a linear B-spline function with an interval at
1.0 s and duration of 20 s. The maximum rupture
velocity was set at 6.0 km/s, by considering the possi­
bility of supershear rupture. The total source duration
was assumed to be 40 s. The authors resolved large co-
seismic slip zones at around 10 km and 80 km south
from the epicenter (Figure 6(c, d)). Overall, the finite-
fault model shows that the 2018 Palu earthquake is
a left-lateral strike-slip fault with a unilateral rupture
propagation toward the south from the epicenter.
However, especially for the large slip zone around
80 km south from the epicenter, the slip vectors are
not a pure strike slip, but involve dip-slip components
(Figure 6(d, e)).
The co-seismic tsunami’s initial condition was obtained
by means of the Okada (1985) formulation. Since the
vertical velocity term facilitates the simulation of tsunami
generation and kinetic energy transfer from the sea bot­
tom deformation, the simulation considered a kinetic
source model. In addition, since the fault mechanism is
a strike-slip with significant horizontal displacement, the
tsunami initial condition generation considered this
horizontal deformation, as recommended by Tanioka
and Satake (1996). Figure 7 shows the vertical and hor­
izontal deformation obtained from the tsunami source
model. The relative horizontal deformation is estimated
to be ~2-3 m inside Palu bay, which is in good agreement
with reported information (Valkaniotis et al. 2018).
The simulation of landslides with GEOWAVE consid­
ered the underwater slides as the tsunami source,
which are essentially thin slope failures parallel to the
incline. Only submarine and coastal landslides have
been reported, and therefore no subaerial landslides
were considered in the analysis. Underwater slides are
characterized by the specific gravity, landslide length
(b), thickness (T), width (w) and an incline angle (theta).
From these variables, and assuming a rigid body move­
ment with the center of mass parallel to the incline,
other variables such as the initial acceleration, theore­
tical terminal velocity, characteristic distance of motion
and time of motion are computed internally by the
model (Watts et al. 2003).
The landslide parameters were inferred from
a morphologic analysis of existing bathymetry that
were based on quantitative measurements, similar to
Pakoksung et al. (2019), combined with a sensitivity

Figure 6. Summary plots of the finite-fault model. (a) Station distribution. Star denotes the epicenter. Dashed lines show epicentral
distances at 30° and 90°. (b) The resultant moment-rate function. (c) Map view of the finite-fault model. The gray rectangle
outlines the model fault. Black line shows the top of the model fault. Star denotes the epicenter. Color represents the slip. Coast
lines are drawn as gray lines. (d) Cross-sectional view of the slip. Arrow denotes the resultant rake angle. Star denotes the
epicenter. Color represents the slip. (e) Static distribution of moment-tensor distribution in a strike-dip view. Star denotes the
epicenter. Color represents a slip amplitude. Each beach ball represents a moment-tensor solution using a lower-hemisphere
stereographic projection.
452 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

Figure 7. Coseismic deformations of the earthquake source obtained from the NEOWAVE model. (a) Vertical deformation in
meters, positive numbers denote an uplift, while negative values represent subsidence. (b) Horizontal deformation in meters,
positive deformation is from south to north while negative deformation is from north to south. The arrows indicate the direction of
the deformation.

analysis of landslide tsunami simulations. Details of this 4. Results

sensitivity analysis are presented in the Supplementary
4.1. Location of submarine landslides
Material. Due to restrictions in the grid size, the follow­
ing analysis considered a grid resolution of 50 m for all
landslide simulations, and thus the entire Palu Bay is
included in the analysis (See Figure 5(d)).
According to the interview with the pilot, 7 circular
waves could be observed on the western shore of the
bay immediately after the earthquake. From the pilot’s
video, it was not possible to observe whether any
additional waves were propagating radially from the
east side of the bay. However, the authors’ field surveys
and analysis of satellite images showed that an area in
the Talise neighborhood that was near a river mouth

Figure 8. Location of landslides. Left: Map of the seabed slopes of Palu Bay and location of landslides inside the bay. Red arrows
correspond to landslides identified from the pilot’s video at the west side (LW). Blue arrows are landslides reclamation areas
identified from aerial images and other videos. Green arrow corresponds to the large landslide at East Palu (LE), which consists of 6
simultaneous submarine landslides. The red squares A, B, C, and D are shown as enlarged areas on the right-hand side of the
figure. Right: Location and dimensions of landslides. LW2 and LW3 are simulated as a single landslide.

slumped into the bay, including pedestrian and road
bridges, as well as several shops (Sassa and Takagawa
2018). Figure 8 shows a map of the underwater bay
slopes and the possible location of the 7 circular waves
inferred from the pilot’s video and other available
videos (see Table 2). Figure 8 also shows the most
important landslides identified through the bathy­
metric surveys performed prior to and after the earth­
quake. The locations of these landslides are also shown
in Figure 4, in which cross-section A-A is placed along
landslide LW1, cross-section B-B along landslides LW2
and LW3, while cross-sections C-C, D-D, and
E-E correspond to the location of landslides LE1, LE2,
and LE3, respectively. Since the maximum tsunami
amplitude took place within 5 min of the earthquake
at Palu city and Talise, landslide LW4 was not included
in the present analysis due to the fact that the arrival
time of a wave from this location would be around
10 min. Moreover, as highlighted by Sepúlveda et al.
(2020), a limited number of landslides in southern Palu
bay are sufficient to explain the tsunami inundation
height measurements. The size of the landslides and
other parameters used in this study were defined
entirely based on the available preliminary data
(Pakoksung et al. 2019), combined with the bathyme­
try survey carried out by the authors.
4.2. Tsunami simulations
To understand the local dynamics of simultaneously
occurring landslides superposed with co-seismic tsu­
nami action, numerical simulations were carried out,
with Lw2 and Lw3 being combined into one single
landslide, referred to as Lw23. The landslides in East
Palu were divided into three individual landslides. The
parameters of the landslides were defined by means of
an analysis of the bathymetry, , and a sensitivity ana­
lysis (by comparing arrival times and maximum tsu­
nami amplitudes). The results of the sensitivity analysis
are shown in the Supplementary Material. The simulta­
neous simulation of the three landslides is referred to
as LE123. Table 3 shows the landslides parameters that
were used in the numerical simulations.
Figure 9 shows the results of tsunami simulations of
the individual landslides LW1, LW23, and LE123. The
Table 3. Parameters of landslides used in the numerical simulation with GEOWAVE. x and y are the coordinates of the centroid
with reference to UTM zone 50 S, b is the landslide length, w is the width, T is the thickness, d is the depth of the centroid, Ѳ is the
slope angle, Φ is the azimuth, ao is the initial acceleration, ut is the terminal velocity, and to is the characteristic time. Landslide LE
consists of three simultaneous earthquake-triggered submarine landslides. The density of the landslide material is assumed to be
ρ = 1900 kg/m3.
X Y b w T d
Name (m) (m) (m) (m) (m)
LW1 813,978 9,907,000 550 400 30
LW23 812,571 9,911,224 500 310 30
LE1 817,980 9,902,335 600 400 30
LE2 818,710 9,902,192 450 360 30
LE3 819,412 9,902,740 470 300 30
COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 453
left column shows the tsunami generated from each
landslide. The GEOWAVE model computes a different
characteristic time of motion for each landslide, which
depends on the parameters provided in Table 3. The
central column shows the maximum tsunami ampli­
tude. Even though the landslides generate large tsu­
nami amplitudes, the effects are mainly local (around
the immediate vicinity of the place where the landslide
was generated). Thus, LW23 generates limited effects
for Palu City. The right columns show the tsunami
waveforms at Palu City and Talise. These locations
were selected due to Palu being the study area of the
present research (as it had the maximum inundation
heights recorded throughout Palu Bay) and the CCTV
camera at Talise recorded the arrival time. Landslide
LW23 generates tsunami amplitudes of less than
50 cm, while LW1 and LE123 reach up to 1 m and
3 m at Palu City, respectively. Therefore, the following
analysis is mainly focused on those landslides.
Figure 10 provides the results of the co-seismic and
landslide tsunami numerical simulations. The latter con­
sidered the two simultaneous landslides described
above. It can be observed that the coseismic tsunami
initial condition induces an initial amplitude of ~0.3 m
and a water level decrease of ~60 cm at the south-eastern
side of the bay (Figure 10(a)). Figure 10(b) shows that
maximum co-seismic tsunami amplitudes reached up to
1.5 m at the southern shore of the bay (with the first
tsunami wave reaching an amplitude of 0.7 m, 7.2 min
after the earthquake, as seen in Figure 10(c)). The max­
imum tsunami amplitudes at the southern end of the bay
are characteristic of U-shaped bays, due to energy focus­
ing (Didenkulova and Pelinovsky 2011).
The lower panel of Figure 10 shows the results of the
landslide simulations, though only LW1 and LE123 (see
Table 3) were considered as simultaneous landslides. As
previously mentioned, the effects of the other landslide
(Lw23) had relatively limited effects on Palu City (see
Figure 9). All the simulated landslides (Lw1 and LE123)
were considered to have started at the same time (t = 0)
in the simulation. Although the time when the largest
wave arrived depends on the location and size of the
landslide sources (Figure 10(d)), large amplitudes (~5 m)
were obtained at the southern and south-eastern shores
Ѳ Φ ao ut to
(m) (°) (°) (m/s2) (m/s) (s)
100 20 290 1,003 49.74 49.60
50 7 290 0,3576 28.31 79.17
55 10 345 0,509 37.02 72.73
75 10 10 0,509 32.061 62.99
35 10 65 0,509 32.765 64.37
454 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

Figure 9. Results of landslide tsunami simulation of individual landslides LW1, LW23, LW4 and the series of 3 simultaneous
landslides of LE (LE246). Left column: initial condition, dashed lines represent isobaths at −10, −200, −400, and −600 m. Central
column: maximum tsunami amplitudes. Right column: tsunami wave form at Palu City and Talise.

Figure 10. Results of numerical simulations. Upper panel: Results from co-seismic tsunami, (a) tsunami initial condition, (b)
maximum tsunami amplitude, (c) tsunami waveform at Palu (blue) and Talise (red). Lower panel: Results from landslides LW1 and
LE, (d) landslide tsunami propagation at time t = 73.94 s, (e) maximum tsunami amplitudes, (f) tsunami waveform at Palu (blue)
and Talise (red). The maps of co-seismic tsunamis are in Geographical Coordinates, while the maps of the landslide tsunami is in
UTM zone 50 S. Dashed lines represent isobaths at −10, −200, −400, and −600 m.

of the bay (Figure 10(e)), which is in good agreement
with the field survey measurements shown in Figure 1. It
is significant that the first tsunami wave (~2 m high)
reached Palu City only 3.9 min after the earthquake (in
good agreement with the CCTV camera at Talise, which
shows the wave arrived at ~2.1 min), while the second
(and largest) wave arrived 5.9 min after the earthquake
(Figure 10(f)).
In addition, the present results are also in very good
agreement with the inferred time series at Palu and
Talise given by Carvajal et al. (2019), as shown in
Figure 11(a, b). In fact, the inferred tsunami waveform
at Palu west indicates three waves that peaked at 3.8,
5.8, and 7.9 min, with the second wave being the largest
(See Figure 11(a)). Figure 11(c) shows a comparison of
numerical simulations with the Pantoloan’s tide gauge
time series. It can be observed that the inferred tide
gauge time series at Pantoloan proposed by Carvajal
et al. (2019) indicates that the maximum tsunami wave
took place 3.5 min after the earthquake and reached up
to ~3 m, and it was due to a landslide which in all
likelihood took place in its vicinity (Carvajal et al. 2019;
Heidarzadeh, Muhari, and Wijanarto 2018), such as land­
slide S1 given by Pakoksung et al. (2019) or Ls8, Ls9, and
Ls10 identified by Omira et al. (2019). Thus, it can be
inferred that landslides represented the main
Figure 11. Comparison of tsunami simulations of LW1+ LE123 and time series inferred from videos given by Carvajal et al. (2019)
at three locations. (a) Landslide tsunami waveform at Palu city. (b) Landslide tsunami waveform at Talise area. The NH Hotel time
series was considered for comparison in this location. (c) Tsunami waveforms at Pantoloan. Upper panel shows the coseismic
tsunami simulations and lower panel the landslide tsunami.
COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 455
component of the waves that arrived to Pantoloan
shortly after the earthquake. Since landslides around
Pantoloan area have not been simulated in the present
research (due to the fact that the bathymetry survey
conducted by the authors did not cover that area),
a good agreement cannot be expected between the
inferred and simulated time series. Furthermore, it
should be noted that since the Pantoloan’s gauge
could not reliably capture short-period landslide tsu­
nami waves (Carvajal et al. 2019; Sepúlveda et al.
2020), any numerical model validation conducted solely
using this record should be treated with extreme
caution.
5. Discussion
There is field-based evidence that the Palu earthquake
generated a series of landslides around the bay, which
is further supported by other recent findings (Sassa
and Takagawa 2018; Pakoksung et al. 2019; Carvajal
et al. 2019). This sequence of hazardous events is also
supported by other events in the past (Lee et al. 2006),
including the case of the Strait of Messina (where the
coupled effect of both co-seismic and landslides
enhanced tsunami inundation (Favalli et al. 2009)).
The landslide at East Palu (LE123) is inside the possible
456 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.

area identified by Carvajal et al. (2019), Gusman et al.
(2019) and Frederik et al. (2019), and coincides with
sources S3 and S4 defined by Pakoksung et al. (2019).
In a similar manner, Lw1 and Lw2 have also been
identified in recent works (Sassa and Takagawa 2018;
Pakoksung et al. 2019). However, the present analysis,
which was calibrated using the time series from
Carvajal et al. (2019), indicates that the landslides that
took place were probably much smaller than the ones
proposed by Pakoksung et al. (2019). In general, the
landslides along the western side of the bay took place
in areas with steep slopes that run parallel to the Palu-
Koro fault. Moreover, the land surveys revealed that all
these possible landslides took place at river mouths or
land reclamation areas (for the local quarry industry
(Mikami et al. 2019)).
Another interesting finding from the present results
regards the influence of the bathymetry on tsunami pro­
pagation. Figure 12 shows snapshots of the simultaneous
landslide tsunami propagation due to LW1 and LE123. In
this figure, the influence of the bathymetry in the immedi­
ate vicinity of Palu City is clear (see, for example, wave
propagation at t = 3.30 min and t = 3.79 min as the first
tsunami wave arrives at Palu City). The shallow water

Figure 12. Tsunami wave propagation from landslides LW1 and LE123 at different times. Dashed lines represent isobaths at −10,
−200, and −400 m. Competing Interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

bathymetry in the southwestern side of the bay, com­
pared to the much deeper southeastern side, resulted in
refraction and shoaling of tsunami waves (see also Takagi
et al. 2019), which explains why video evidence and
witnesses in Palu reported that waves arrived from var­
ious directions, with the largest being from the northeast.
Moreover, large tsunami amplification was observed
along the southern shore of the bay due to energy focuss­
ing (Didenkulova and Pelinovsky 2011). In addition, if
landslides took place shortly after the earthquake
ended, the maximum tsunami amplitudes of both the co-
seismic components and that due to landslides would
have coincided. Hence, future work should consider non-
linear effects of the interactions between co-seismic and
landslide tsunamis, which have been neglected in the
present study.
The tsunami inside Palu bay demonstrated that tsu­
nami waves may arrive within a few minutes after an
earthquake and that warning systems may not be able
to alert local communities in due time. Therefore, resi­
dents and visitors to these tsunami prone areas need to
be made aware that any earthquake can trigger
a landslide-induced tsunami. There is also a clear need
for more comprehensive methodologies and tools to be
developed for assessing tsunami hazards in such areas.
Recent tsunami hazard maps of Sulawesi summarized
tsunamigenic earthquakes and other potential tsunami
sources, such as submarine slumping (Prasetya, De
Lange, and Healy 2001). However, due to difficulties in
associating return probabilities, the latest probabilistic
tsunami hazard assessment for Indonesia considered
only submarine earthquakes as tsunami sources
(Horspool et al. 2014), and thus submarine landslides,
submarine volcanic eruptions, and meteorite impacts
were not included in the analysis. Finally, there is also
a need for improvements in tsunami awareness and self-
evacuation in order to save lives (Monecke et al. 2008),
particularly in areas with very short arrival times.
6. Conclusions
Results from the study highlight the complexity of
tsunami generation and propagation in Palu Bay, sug­
gesting that this event resulted from the occurrence of
several landslides in addition to co-seismic deforma­
tion. The effects of landslides were significant during
the first 10–15 min, and manifested as a series of short
period waves. While the first wave observed at Palu
City was generated by a series of submarine landslides
at East Palu (LE), the second and largest wave may
have been generated by a combination of co-seismic
effects and a series of landslides from both the west
and east sides of the bay, with the energy focusing due
to its shape and the particular offshore bathymetry.
These findings suggest that the potential for complex
landslide-induced tsunamis needs to be quantitatively re-
assessed in many areas of the world, particularly along
COASTAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL 457
narrow bays and fjords in earthquake-prone areas, includ­
ing a probabilistic approach that investigates cascading
effects and multi-hazard risks. In addition, communities
residing in these tsunami prone areas need to be made
aware that any earthquake can trigger a landslide-
induced tsunami with short arrival times.
Acknowledgements
The field survey was financially supported by Penta Ocean
Co. Ltd. and by New CC Construction Consultants Co., Ltd.
Part of the present work was performed as a part of the
activities of Research Institute of Sustainable Future Society,
Waseda Research Institute for Science and Engineering,
Waseda University. The authors would like to thank ANID
(Chile) for its FONDAP 15110017 grant, and the
Postgraduate program of Universidad Catolica de la
Santisima Concepción for its support. This research was also
partially funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science (JSPS KAKENHI 16KK0121, JP19K15104,16J00298 and
19J00814). The authors also thank Dr. Valkaniotis Sotiris for
sharing bathymetry data, Dr. Yoshiki Yamazaki for guidance
on the application of kinematic tsunami initial condition as
well as horizontal deformation, and the two anonymous
reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science [19K15104]; Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science [16KK0121]; Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science [19J00814]; Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science [16J00298]; ANID/FONDAP [15110017].
ORCID
Rafael Aránguiz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0638-7344
Miguel Esteban http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3032-499X
Hiroshi Takagi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3668-688X
Takahito Mikami http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1611-0549
Tomoyuki Takabatake http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6181-
1216
Matías Gómez http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4493-9661
Juan González http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7200-1024
Tomoya Shibayama http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2348-
244X
Ryo Okuwaki http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7149-4763
Jacob Stolle http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0902-9339
Ryota Nakamura http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0587-3970
Clemens Krautwald http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8928-
1352
Nils Goseberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1550-3001
Ioan Nistor http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8436-4781
458 R. ARÁNGUIZ ET AL.
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