In modern times, nine of the 10 strongest earthquakes ever recorded were accompanied by tsunami that often resulted in death and devastation for many communities taken completely unawares.
The list stretches as far back as January 1906 when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake is reported to have killed between 500 and 1,500 people in Ecuador and Colombia, 43 years before a tsunami early warning system was introduced in the Pacific Ocean in 1949.
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