Screenshots of wave hitting Roi-Namur dining room. The waves smashed down the dining hall's doors, knocking people down and flooding the facility as this screenshot from a video taken Saturday night shows.
Powerful waves, driven by offshore storm surges, hit an important US military installation in the Marshall Islands on Saturday night, causing damage and resulting in the evacuation of all "non-mission personnel" from the island.
Flooding caused by the waves also hit two airports at Ailinglaplap Atoll, leaving rocks, coral and debris in their wake, keeping those airports closed for weeks. Other islands reported flooding and moderate damage.
The US Army in a statement on Sunday afternoon that at approximately 9pm on January 20, "a series of weather-induced waves hit Roi-Namur which caused significant flooding in the northern portions of the island".
A video circulating from Roi-Namur, an island at the northern end of Kwajalein Atoll, shows an approximately one-metre wave hitting the Army's dining hall, breaking down doors, knocking people down and washing them from outside into the facility.
Roi-Namur houses the US Army's most sophisticated space-tracking equipment as part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site.
Comment: Update January 22
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