The infant's size struck Cotchery more than anything.
Asteroids around 200 metres in size strike the Earth about once every couple of thousand years.
The government, by contrast, estimates the possibility of an earthquake that size striking the capital at 70% in the next three decades.
An offshore earthquake of magnitude 7.0 preceded the waves, but earthquakes that size strike that area every year or two; only the 1998 one was accompanied by a tsunami.
Moving from a 3-sigma to 2-sigma "is pretty reasonable," he said, if analysis can show the likelihood of debris of the right size striking that vulnerable spot with the precise amount of force to cause severe damage is only 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000.
But if another storm that size struck today's infrastructure, she says, "there would be tremendous consequences".
For all of the small asperities, the cell size (strike, dip) is (150 km/1,024 cells, 10 km/74 cells), which is (nearly 1/4 times) smaller than Lb (0.57 km).
Fortunately, asteroids of this size strike Earth only about once every few million years, and "dino killers" only once every 100 million years or so.
Globally such events are much more frequent, many times each year, but mostly happen over the ocean and are therefore not observed". Asteroids a few meters in size strike Earth a few times each year on average, and only rarely impact a populated area.
