FLOODS along the Bristol Channel killed nearly 2000 people in 1607, but experts still can鈥檛 agree on what caused Britain鈥檚 worst natural disaster.
The prevailing view blames a storm on 30 January 1607. However, Edward Bryant of the University of Wollongong in Australia thinks a tsunami was the real culprit. He says the tsunami hit when 鈥渢he storm had peaked [and] people were beginning to go about their business鈥�. Bryant and his colleagues studied the movement of boulders, coastal erosion and the sculpting of bedrock along the channel, and believe they could only have been caused by a tsunami (The Journal of Geology, vol 115, p 253).
Kevin Horsburgh of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, UK, disagrees. He says that the storm coincided with 鈥渢he highest tide for a century鈥�, and the resulting surge breached the channel鈥檚 embankments. Once this happens, the water 鈥渨ill move cows, houses and rocks鈥�, says Horsburgh. 鈥淭he hydrodynamics of inundation does not care about the provenance of the water.鈥�
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