KARACHI: Metropolitan and Industrial hub Karachi in threat of tsunami, officials said Wednesday after a drill of major earthquake in the Indian Ocean.
The test, and one carried out a day earlier simulating another quake off Indonesia, were designed to check an early-warning system.
The system was set up after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which killed more than 230,000 people.
The exercise organised by the United Nations was based on a hypothetical 9.0-magnitude quake in the Makran Trench, where the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates meet, off the coast of Pakistan.
Tauseef Alam, the chief meteorologist who was supervising the tests, told AFP, that this would create waves of 0.9 to seven metres high (3-23 feet) that could reach Karachi in one and a half hours.
Tauseef Alam shows concerns that, if the wave would be immensely powerful could wipe out the whole city.
In the event of a tsunami, real-time data would be sent to the Met Office in Karachi from Indonesian, Australian and Indian centres.
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