Kaneohe man reflects on surviving 1946 Hilo tsunami
HONOLULU (KHON2) — Living to 96 takes a little luck and leaves you with incredible stories. A Kaneohe man just celebrated his birthday, reflecting on a life well-lived and a moment he'll never forget.
He's one of the few who survived being swept away in the deadly 1946 Hilo tsunami that claimed 158 lives.
A history of fatal Tsunamis in Hawaii
'Today if I concentrate real, real hard I can almost bring back the panic and the fright and my thoughts and my feelings of that tsunami,' explained Masuo Kino, 1946 Hilo tsunami survivor.
On April 1, 1946, Masuo's first hint that something was strange was on his bus trip along the Big Island's Hamakua Coast to school at Laupahoehoe Point.
'Halfway down the Pali Road, the county workers stopped the bus and told the bus driver, there's something fishy about the ocean and you gotta be careful not to get too close to the water.'
Masuo was a junior in high school and was a day away from turning 17. Being curious teenage boys, he and his classmates went to check it out.
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They had no warning about the massive earthquake in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Then, they saw the ocean recede.
'It literally went uphill. It climbed, withdrew for maybe half a mile, three-quarters of a mile, and all of us, we didn't know anything about tsunamis. We just stood there and watched,' Masuo said.
And they couldn't believe what happened next.
'The first time we saw the wave, it got bigger and bigger and grayer and blacker and started rolling in, and we said 'Hey this looks kind of weird and dangerous.' That's when all the boys took off. Some made it to the school grounds, some didn't make it and they're part of the 24 that died.'
Helping kupuna who are afraid, unable to speak for themselves
Masuo was swept away and taken across the playground, through the bushes and into the dry river that was flowing into the ocean.
He went through rocks and debris. At one point, he didn't know up from down.
'I grabbed some guava tree branches, they broke off and I kept on flowing and I finally got ahold of a big branch and I held on with all of my might. And then the water slowly receded and I touched ground. I could have died in many instances in the whole trip. But I didn't and I would say it's a gift of life.'
Masuo celebrated 79 years of extra life on Wednesday, April 1 for his 96th birthday.
He's been married to his wife, Alice, for 69 years and is now a father and grandfather who graduated from the University of Hawaii and earned his masters.
He's also run the Great Aloha Run 40 times.
Check out more news from around Hawaii
'In a sense, I really appreciate my life of 96 years old just by chance that I didn't die in a wave, and this is a monument at the point now. There's 24 names in there. They're students, teachers, preschool kids. 24 names and I could've easily been one of them.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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