Abstract: Tsunami is one of the most devastating natural coastal disasters. Most of large tsunamis are generated by submarine earthquakes occurring in subduction zones. Tsunamis can also be triggered by volcano eruptions and large landslides. There are many records about "sea-overflow" in Chinese ancient books, which are not proved to be tsunamis. Tectonics and historical records analysis are import to forecast and prevention of tsunami. Consider the tectonic environment of the China sea, the possibility of huge damage caused by the offshore tsunami is very small. And the impact of the ocean tsunami on the Bohai sea, the Yellow sea, and the East China sea is also small. But in the South China Sea, the Manila subduction zone has been identified as a high hazardous tsunamigenic earthquake source region. No earthquake larger than M_W7.6 has been recorded in the past 100a in this region, suggesting a high probability for larger earthquakes in the future. If a tsunamigenic earthquake were to occur in this region in the near future, a tragedy with the magnitude similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami could repeat itself. In this paper, based on tectonics and historical records analysis, we have demonstrated that potential for a strong future earthquake along the Manila subduction zone is real. Using a numerical model, we have also shown that most countries in the South China Sea will be affected by the tsunamis generated by the future earthquake. For China, it implies that the maximum wave height over 4.0 meter on China mainland, especially the Pearl River Estuary. But the island, local relief maybe influence the maximum wave. But it takes nearly 3 hours to attack China mainland, if there is the operational tsunami warning system in place in this region, should be greatly reduced losses. And the simulated results are conformable to historical records. It indicates that the tsunami hazards from Manila trench to China mainland worthy of our attention and prevention.

Key words: Manila Trench, Numerical simulation, Tsunami

摘要： 分析可能影响中国的地震海啸发生的构造环境，查明中国大陆沿海历史上有没有遭受过海啸的袭击，对于预测和预防将来可能发生的海啸灾害具有重要意义。中国大陆以东受宽阔的大陆架和一系列岛弧保护，只有南海马尼拉海沟俯冲带具备发生可能引发海啸的逆冲型地震的条件。文中在分析史料和马尼拉海沟俯冲带构造环境的基础上，利用数值模拟技术，认为对中国沿海可以产生最大达4.0m浪高的海啸威胁。历史文献记录也支持这一结论。这些结果都表明，马尼拉海沟潜在地震海啸对中国大陆影响很大，值得我们重视和预防。

关键词: 马尼拉海沟, 数值模拟, 海啸