Ancient 500ft Tsunami Tore Oahu Apart and Left a Trail Bigger Than Manhattan (Video)
Somewhere in the land a million years ago disaster struck Hawaii.
The Nu’uanu Slide, as it is known, ripped apart half of modern-day Oahu, sending countless amounts of sediment into the ocean and creating a massive tsunami.
Still, remnants of the ancient landslide can be seen today.
At the time, the Hawaiian Islands were one of the super landmasses now referred to as Maui Nui. And a massive landslide (perhaps one of the largest in known history) occurred on the windward side of Oahu, splitting the island in half and creating a mega tsunami.
In fact, as seen in the video above, the remains of that landslide can still be seen today.
“One of the boulders sliding down the mountain is more than 26 kilometers wide,” the narrator says in the clip above. “It’s larger than the island of Lanai. There are relatively smaller pieces of rock scattered away from it. This pattern shows the distribution of debris landing on the sea floor, like a snowball hitting the ground.”
Related: Experts Warn: Catastrophic Mega-Tsunami Will Devastate West Coast
What caused this?
“A large earthquake, probably caused by the sudden release of built-up pressure from the hot spot below,” the narrator continues. “This earthquake could literally have been in the hands of the rich” [scale]. But of course there’s no way to know for sure.”
As for the resulting tsunami wave; Although shifting underwater tectonic plates are known to create destructive waves, some of the largest surges consist of landslides. Like, for example, the largest tsunami ever recorded in Alaska’s Lituya Bay in 1958 at an altitude of 1,720 feet. And that’s like the magnitude of a million-year tsunami. It’s hard to say.
In another armchair historian video, they speculate: “The landslide had an estimated volume of 720 cubic miles of material and created a devastating Pacific-wide tsunami, with wave heights likely exceeding 500 feet in certain locations.
And are the rocks still visible due to the catastrophic landslide? Per USGS:
“The caldera was split in two due to the catastrophic collapse of the Nu’uanu landslide, which caused the accumulation of numerous blocks on the seafloor 100 miles northeast of the island. The largest of these blocks is approximately the same size as Manhattan Island.”
Today, we are talking about the big one; But the future earthquake was not the first.
Related: Inside America’s ‘Secret’ Island Deep in the Remote Pacific Ocean (Video)
This story was first published by . Surfer First appeared on April 5, 2026 News section. Add Surfer at: Preferred Source by clicking here.
