The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami struck which large Canadian island?

The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami struck Newfoundland, the large Canadian island off whose south coast the earthquake was centered.

On November 18, 1929, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake occurred beneath the Laurentian Slope, about 400 kilometers south of Newfoundland. The shaking destabilized the seafloor and triggered a huge underwater landslide, which displaced seawater and generated a tsunami.

The waves reached Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula in about two hours and 23 minutes. Run-up reached roughly 13 meters in places, and coastal communities were devastated. The disaster killed 27 or 28 people and left more than 1,000 people homeless; Saint Pierre and Miquelon were also affected.

A common mix-up is confusing Newfoundland with the nearby Grand Banks, which are underwater fishing grounds rather than an island. The tsunami also damaged or severed 12 transatlantic telegraph cables, helping scientists later recognize the role of submarine landslides in tsunami generation.