Why did the authorities classify the deadly tsunami in Severo-Kurilsk in 1952?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In Severo-Kurilsk, the expression “live like on a volcano” can be used without quotation marks. There are 23 volcanoes on Paramushir Island, five of them are active. Ebeko, located seven kilometers from the city, comes to life from time to time and releases volcanic gases.

In calm weather and with a westerly wind, they reach Severo-Kurilsk - it is impossible not to feel the smell of hydrogen sulfide and chlorine. Usually, in such cases, the Sakhalin Hydrometeorological Center sends a storm warning about air pollution: toxic gases are easy to poison. The eruptions on Paramushir in 1859 and 1934 caused massive poisoning of people and the death of domestic animals. Therefore, volcanologists in such cases urge residents of the city to use masks for breathing protection and filters for water purification.

The site for the construction of Severo-Kurilsk was chosen without conducting a volcanological examination. Then, in the 1950s, the main thing was to build a city not lower than 30 meters above sea level. After the tragedy of 1952, the water seemed more terrible than fire.

A few hours later, the tsunami wave reached the Hawaiian Islands, 3000 km from the Kuriles.

Flooding on Midway Island (Hawaii, USA) caused by the North Kuril tsunami.

Classified tsunami

The tsunami wave after the earthquake in Japan this spring has reached the Kuril Islands. Low, one and a half meter. But in the fall of 1952, the eastern coast of Kamchatka, the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu were on the first line of the disaster. The North Kuril tsunami of 1952 became one of the five largest in the history of the twentieth century.

The city of Severo-Kurilsk was destroyed. The Kuril and Kamchatka villages of Utesny, Levashovo, Rifovy, Kamenisty, Pribrezhny, Galkino, Okeansky, Podgorny, Major Van, Shelekhovo, Savushkino, Kozyrevsky, Babushkino, Baikovo were swept away …

In the fall of 1952, the country lived an ordinary life. The Soviet press, Pravda and Izvestia, did not get a single line: neither about the tsunami in the Kuril Islands, nor about the thousands of people killed.

A picture of what happened can be restored from the recollections of eyewitnesses, rare photographs.

The writer Arkady Strugatsky, who served as a military translator in the Kuril Islands in those years, took part in eliminating the consequences of the tsunami. I wrote to my brother in Leningrad:

“… I was on the island of Syumushu (or Shumshu - look at the southern tip of Kamchatka). What I saw, did and experienced there - I can’t write yet. I can only say that I visited the area where the disaster, which I wrote to you about, made itself felt especially strongly.

The black island of Shumushu, the island of the wind of Shumushu, the ocean hits the rocks-walls of Shumushu with a wave. The one who was on Shumushu, was that night on Shumushu, remembers how the ocean went to the attack on Shumushu; As on the piers of Shumushu, and on the pillboxes of Shumushu, and on the roofs of Shumushu, the ocean collapsed with a roar; As in the hollows of Shumushu, and in the trenches of Shumushu - in the bare hills of Shumushu, the ocean raged. And in the morning, Shyumushu, to the walls-rocks Shyumushu many corpses, Shyumushu, brought the Pacific Ocean. Shumushu Black Island, Shumushu Island of Fear. Those who live on Shumushu look at the ocean.

I wove these verses under the impression of what I had seen and heard. I don't know how from the literary point of view, but from the point of view of facts - everything is correct …"

War

In those years, the work on the registration of residents in Severo-Kurilsk was not really established. Seasonal workers, classified military units, whose composition was not disclosed. According to the official report, in 1952 about 6,000 people lived in Severo-Kurilsk.

82-year-old South Sakhalin resident Konstantin Ponedelnikov in 1951 went with his comrades to the Kuril Islands, to earn extra money. They built houses, plastered walls, helped to install reinforced concrete salting vats at the fish processing plant. In those years, there were many newcomers in the Far East: they arrived by recruiting, fulfilled the deadline established by the contract.

Tells Konstantin Ponedelnikov:

- Everything happened on the night of November 4-5. I was still single, well, a young business, I came from the street late, at two or three o'clock. Then he lived in an apartment, rented a room from a family countryman, also from Kuibyshev. Just went to bed - what is it? The house shook. The owner shouts: get up quickly, get dressed - and go outside. He had lived there for several years already, he knew what was what.

Konstantin ran out of the house and lit a cigarette. The ground trembled perceptibly underfoot. And suddenly from the side of the coast there was shooting, shouts, noise. In the light of the ship's searchlights, people were running from the bay. "War!" they shouted. So, at least, it seemed to the guy at the beginning. Later I realized: a wave! Water!!! Self-propelled guns went from the sea in the direction of the hills, where the border unit stood. And along with everyone else, Konstantin ran after him, upstairs.

From the report of the senior lieutenant of the state security P. Deryabin:

“… We did not have time to reach the regional department when we heard a loud noise, then a crackling sound from the side of the sea. Looking back, we saw a large water wall advancing from the sea to the island … I gave the order to fire from my personal weapons and shout: "There is water!", While retreating to the hills. Hearing noise and screams, people began to run out of the apartments in what they were dressed (most in underwear, barefoot) and run into the hills."

Konstantin Ponedelnikov:

- Our way to the hills lay through a ditch three meters wide, where wooden bridges were laid for the passage. Beside me, panting, a woman ran with a five-year-old boy. I grabbed the child in an armful - and with him jumped over the ditch, from where only the strength came. And the mother had already moved over the boards.

On the dais were army dugouts, where the exercises took place. It was there that people settled down to keep warm - it was November. These dugouts became their refuge for the next few days.

On the site of the former Severo-Kurilsk. June 1953

Three waves

After the first wave left, many went downstairs to find the missing relatives, to release the cattle from the barns. People did not know: a tsunami has a long wavelength, and sometimes tens of minutes pass between the first and second.

From the report of P. Deryabin:

“… Approximately 15–20 minutes after the departure of the first wave, a wave of water of even greater strength and magnitude rushed out again than the first. People, thinking that everything was over (many, heartbroken by the loss of their loved ones, children and property), descended from the hills and began to settle in the surviving houses in order to warm themselves and dress themselves. Water, not meeting any resistance on its way … rushed to the land, completely destroying the remaining houses and buildings. This wave destroyed the entire city and killed most of the population."

And almost immediately, the third wave carried away almost everything that it could take with it into the sea. The strait separating the islands of Paramushir and Shumshu was filled with floating houses, roofs and debris.

The tsunami, which was later named after the destroyed city - "tsunami in Severo-Kurilsk" - was caused by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, 130 km off the coast of Kamchatka. An hour after a powerful (with a magnitude of about 9 points) earthquake, the first tsunami wave reached Severo-Kurilsk. The height of the second, the most terrible, wave reached 18 meters. According to official figures, 2,336 people died in Severo-Kurilsk alone.

Konstantin Ponedelnikov did not see the waves themselves. First, he delivered refugees to the hill, then with several volunteers they went downstairs and for long hours rescued people, pulling them out of the water, taking them off the roofs. The real scale of the tragedy became clear later.

- I went down to the city … We had a watchmaker there, a good guy, legless. I look: his stroller. And he himself lies next to him, dead. The soldiers put the corpses on a chaise and take them to the hills, there either to a mass grave, or how else they buried - God knows. And along the coast there were barracks, a sapper military unit. One foreman escaped, he was at home, and the whole company perished. Covered them with a wave. The bullpen was standing, and there were probably people there. Maternity hospital, hospital … All died.

From a letter from Arkady Strugatsky to his brother:

“The buildings were destroyed, the entire shore was littered with logs, pieces of plywood, pieces of hedges, gates and doors. On the pier were two old naval artillery towers, they were installed by the Japanese almost at the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The tsunami threw them about a hundred meters away. When dawn broke, those who had escaped descended from the mountains - men and women in underwear, trembling with cold and terror. Most of the inhabitants either sunk or lay on the shore, interspersed with logs and debris."

The evacuation of the population was carried out promptly. After Stalin's short call to the Sakhalin Regional Committee, all nearby planes and watercraft were sent to the disaster area.

Konstantin, among about three hundred victims, ended up on the Amderma steamer, which was completely choked with fish. For the people, they unloaded half of the coal hold, threw a tarpaulin.

Through Korsakov they were brought to Primorye, where they lived for some time in very difficult conditions. But then the “upstairs” decided that the recruitment contracts needed to be worked out, and they sent everyone back to Sakhalin. There was no question of any material compensation, it is good if it was possible at least to confirm the length of service. Konstantin was lucky: his work supervisor survived and restored work books and passports …

Fish place

Many destroyed settlements were never rebuilt. The population of the islands has declined dramatically. The port city of Severo-Kurilsk was rebuilt in a new place, higher. Without carrying out that very volcanological examination, so that as a result the city found itself in an even more dangerous place - on the way of mud flows of the Ebeko volcano, one of the most active in the Kuril Islands.

The life of the port Severo-Kurilsk has always been associated with fish. The work was profitable, people came, lived, left - there was some kind of movement. In the 1970s and 1980s, only loafers at sea did not earn 1,500 rubles a month (an order of magnitude more than in a similar job on the mainland). In the 1990s, crab was caught and taken to Japan. But in the late 2000s, the Federal Agency for Fishery had to almost completely ban the Kamchatka crab fishing. In order not to disappear at all.

Today, compared with the late 1950s, the population has declined by three times. Today, about 2,500 people live in Severo-Kurilsk - or, as the locals say, Sevkur. Of these, 500 are under the age of 18. In the maternity ward of the hospital, 30-40 citizens of the country are born annually, whose place of birth is “Severo-Kurilsk”.

The fish processing factory provides the country with stocks of navaga, flounder and pollock. About half of the workers are local. The rest are newcomers ("verbota", recruited). They earn about 25 thousand a month.

It is not customary to sell fish to fellow countrymen. There is a whole sea of it, and if you want cod or, say, halibut, you need to come to the port in the evening, where the fishing ships are unloaded, and just ask: "Hey, brother, wrap up the fish."

They only dream of tourists in Paramushir. Visitors are accommodated in the "Fisherman's House" - a place that is only partially heated. True, recently a thermal power plant was modernized in Sevkur, a new berth was built in the port.

One problem is the inaccessibility of Paramushir. There are more than a thousand kilometers to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, three hundred kilometers to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The helicopter flies once a week, and then on condition that the weather will be in Petrika, and in Severo-Kurilsk, and on Cape Lopatka, where Kamchatka ends. It's good if you wait a couple of days. Or maybe three weeks …