A huge seismic sea wave similar to Sunday’s killer tsunami could hit North America’s East Coast anytime without warning.

It’s happened before, but according to scientists, Atlantic Ocean tsunamis are very rare.

An earthquake touched off a landslide of glacial debris at the edge of Georges Bank near the St. Lawrence River in November 1929.

That underwater movement caused a wave that was reported to rise 40 feet. It slammed into Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula with such force that it scoured entire fishing villages from the rugged shoreline and killed at least 26 people.

Scientists say it could happen again, and point to two possible origins:

• Cumbre Vieja, an active volcano on the island of Las Palmas, one of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic off the African coast.

• Cracks found along a 25-mile section of the continental shelf in shallow seas off the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina.

The threat of Atlantic tsunamis is so real that the Federal Emergency Management Agency discusses it in material aimed at helping people and states prepare for disaster.

Such Atlantic waves have been studied by the United States Geological Survey; the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Mass.; and the University of Hawaii on Honolulu.

A group of scientists calling itself the Tsunami Society downplays the likelihood of an eruption of Cumbre Vieja, sending a seismic wave capable of flooding New York, Boston or Portland.

While the scientists note that the Canary volcano is active, they don’t believe other studies that suggest an explosive eruption could cause part of the flank of the mountain to slide into the Atlantic, triggering the massive wave.

However, they acknowledge a smaller landslide may occur.

In a 2002 paper urging development of a tsunami warning system similar to that in place for Pacific Coast states, George Maul of the Florida Institute of Technology noted giant waves are not uncommon in the Atlantic.

Most occur in either the Mediterranean or the Caribbean seas, he said, but basinwide events also happen.

Fatal tsunamis were recorded in Venezuela in 1853 and 1906, the Virgin Islands in 1867, Panama in 1882, Puerto Rico in 1918, the Dominican Republic in 1946 and Costa Rica in 1991.

Atlantic tsunamis killed a conservatively estimated 2,500 people, Maul added, noting the number is more than four times the number of people killed by tsunamis in Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. West Coast combined.

He made his pitch for the warning system shortly after Woods Hole scientists documented cracks in the seafloor off the U.S. mid-Atlantic shoreline.

Neal Driscoll, one of the scientists, said the cracks indicate the floor could slide down like an avalanche, triggering giant waves. But he said it wasn’t clear if the cracks were fossils or if they remain active. More research was planned.

Seafloor areas near Puerto Rico and the Antilles Islands are smaller and less active than similar zones in the Pacific, so the Atlantic has many fewer tsunamis, according to Dr. Gerard Fryer of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawaii,

He noted that tsunamis have hit Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a half-dozen times in recorded history – the 1918 Puerto Rico wave killed 32 people.

He said the most famous Atlantic tsunami happened on Nov. 1, 1755, when an earthquake estimated at magnitude 8.6 hit the Gorringe Bank, a ridge off the coast of Portugal. Minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami washed away much of Lisbon.

“At least three great waves about 10 meters high entered the city,” Fryer noted in Web-based page for UH students. “The waves also raked the nearby coasts of Spain and North Africa, and did extensive damage in the Azores, Madiera, and Canary Islands. Minor damage occurred as far north as Ireland and as far west as the West Indies. Gorringe Bank remains a severe tsunami threat for Portugal, and the Portuguese are now installing seafloor pressure gauges there to get advance warning.”

No travelers

Agents for Dube Cruise and Travel and Hewins Travel in Lewiston say they didn’t have any area people booked on trips to tsunami-hit regions of the world.