It was anything but a joke. But from… There was no warning system in place, and many died exploring the sea life flopping around on the beach after the water pulled away from the beach. Halawa Tsunami. More than 150 persons were killed principally by drowning, and at least 161 others were injured. The worst tsunami in recent times occurred in 1946, April Fool’s Day, when a large tsunami hit Hawaii and killed nearly 160 people. Seventy-two years ago Sunday, on April Fools' Day 1946, the most destructive tsunami in Hawaii's modern history barreled onto island shorelines. The most destructive tsunami in Hawaii occurred on April 1, 1946 after an earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter Scale struck the ocean floor off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. In 1946 such waves killed 73 people in Hawaii, and in 1960, another tsunami killed 61 people. It hit Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii. The tsunami which struck the shores of the Hawaiian Islands on the morning of April 1, 1946, was the most destructive, and one of the most violent, in the history of the Islands. "People know better than to be complacent," she said. On April 1, 1946, an undersea earthquake off the Alaskan coast triggers a massive tsunami that kills 159 people in Hawaii. Jeanne Branch Johnston, then six years old, was in living in Hilo in 1946. The tsunami caused damages and took lives on the other islands, but the most severe was on Hawaii Island. April 1, 1946 was no fooling for the people of Hawaii, including those of us living in Halawa. (Photo submitted by Anakala Pilipo Solatario.) ... On April 1, 1946 a major earthquake in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands generated a huge tsunami that traveled across the Pacific in 4.5 hours to wipe out the waterfront in Hilo, hitting it with waves as high as 39 feet. I was only six years old when the tsunami hit Molokai, but I … How high was the tsunami surge? Muffler says 70 years on from the 1946 tsunami, Hawaii residents are still mindful of the danger of the ocean. On April 1, 1946, there was an earthquake in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. On Wednesday night 5,000 to 7,000 residents of low-lying areas of Honolulu, on Oahu … '46 tsunami hit Windward Oahu as well. The residents of Hilo, on Hawaii’s big island, were also unaware of the danger surging across the North Pacific. But the island of Hawaii received the heaviest damages. Kai Hoee When the tsunami [kai hoee] hit, it reached all the large islands of this archipelago. In the middle of the night, 13,000 Four hours and 20 minutes after the big earthquake in the Aleutians, the first of several tsunami waves reached Hawaii. A photo looking east across the flourishing Halawa valley in November of 1938. By Eloise Aguiar Advertiser Staff Writer. Five hours later, the largest and most destructive tsunami waves recorded hit Hawaii, known as the "April Fools Day tsunami." The tsunami which devastated the shores of the Hawaiian Islands on April 1, 1946, was caused by a movement of the sea bottom on the northern slope of the Aleutian Trough, south of Unimak Island.