Twenty-seven dead. Staggering property losses.

Triggered by an offshore earthquake on the Grand Banks, a tsunami unleashed its fury on the coastline of the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland, killing twenty-seven people and destroying homes and fishing premises in fifty outports.

Here is the dramatic, incredible story of the South Coast Disaster of 1929, the superhuman efforts of Nurse Dorothy Cherry to save the sick and dying, and Magistrate Malcolm Hollett’s tireless campaign to rebuild shattered lives and devastated communities.

Winner of the 2005 Heritage and History Award

Shortlisted for the 2005 Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards - Rogers Cable Non-Fiction Award

"Hanrahan engrossingly tells of the tragedy and its aftermath in a fascinating mixture of re-created conversations and intensely researched historical fact."

Paul O’Neill, Author of The Oldest City: The Story of St. John’s, Newfoundland

"Hanrahan's lively and moving account dramatically recreates the lives of people who survived that fatal day."

Canadian Book Review Annual

"Using a mix of recreated conversations and historical fact, Hanrahan has crafted an affecting account of a maritime tragedy with a cruel difference."

Maclean's

"Hanrahan delivers a gripping story in a crisp, straightforward manner."

The Telegram

"Using a blend of thoroughly researched historical fact, survivor interviews (including Margaret Rennie Saint), and recreated dialogue and scenes (anthropologist Hanrahan is from the region and is familiar with the physical and vernacular landscape), Tsunami takes the reader on an emotional ride covering that fateful day and the days immediately following."

The Beaver

"The author has a gift of fluency and expression almost as if she experienced the events firsthand."

The Aurora

"Tsunami is a gripping book as well as a piece of our history."

The Reader

"Maura Hanrahan's research is painstaking. Her characters, historical figures resurrected, exude authenticity and her interpretations of the loves and times of Newfoundland outports ring hauntingly stark."

Ian McAllister, Dalhousie University

"Hanrahan immediately draws the reader into the lives of the Peninsula residents . . ."

Downhome

"By overlapping carefully reconstructed narratives, Maura Hanrahan's Tsunami: The Newfoundland Tidal Wave Disaster offers a poignant account of this singular, sad event."

Atlantic Books Today

"Author Maura Hanrahan tells this remarkable tale with compassion and power, bringing to us a bit of Atlantic history we may not have known anything about . . ."

The Chronicle Herald

"Well-written and thoroughly researched, Hanrahan's Tsunami is part intimate family memoir and part maritime history."

The Evening News

Read an excerpt from Tsunami