Obama signs disaster declaration for California after March tsunami

[News_Editor]

Obama signs disaster declaration for California after March tsunami

2011-04-19 04:23:56 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday signed a disaster declaration for the State of California after a tsunami struck its coastlines in March, the White House said.

The tsunami that struck California and other western U.S. coastlines on March 11 was the result of an enormous 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck off northeastern Japan. The tsunami killed one person in California, and resulted in heavy damage to local ports.

As a result of the presidential disaster declaration, federal funding is now available to State and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the tsunami waves in Del Norte and Santa Cruz Counties.

The fatality in California was 25-year-old Dustin Douglas Weber, whose body was found on April 2 in Oregon. He was swept out to sea while making photographs of the tsunami waves, despite tsunami warnings and evacuations being in place for several U.S. states.

The large tsunami most notably devastated the eastern coast of Japan, killing at least 13,800 people and leaving more than 14,000 others missing. In addition to the fatality in California, a person was also killed in Indonesia.

Weber was the first person to be killed on the U.S. West Coast as a result of a tsunami since March 1964, when more than a dozen people were killed when a large tsunami struck parts of the U.S. coastline. The waves were generated as a result of an enormous 9.2-magnitude earthquake in southeastern Alaska.

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