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A serious accident occurred on 25 July 1979 when a nuclear device became stuck halfway down an 800-meter shaft. Since army engineers were unable to move the device, they exploded it where it was, causing a massive chunk of the outer slope of the atoll to break loose. This generated a huge tsunami, which hit Moruroa, overturning cars and injuring seven workers. After the blast, a crack 40 cm wide and two km long appeared on the surface of the island.Stanley, David (1 January 2000). South Pacific Handbook. David Stanley. p. 262. ISBN 978-1-56691-172-6. Retrieved from archive.org.

How big was that nuclear-triggered tsunami at Moruroa in July 1979?

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A quick Google search reveals multiple sources including this article which details a mathematical model of the tsunami. I infer from the fact that they had to model this that nobody measured it. (perhaps because they were too busy being swept to sea.)

USGS.gov implies that there isn't a simple "sound bite" metric for tsunami size, because it depends on several parameters.

Not entirely clear what is mean by "how big".

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    My understanding is that the authors of the article actually knew how "big" the tsunami was (i. e. "the observed water and run-up heights in the near and far fields") and wanted to draw conclusions about the size of its source, the submarine landslide. For whatever reason, the source for the observations is not obvious from the references. I suspect there is a database with raw data somewhere, but you probably would have to ask an oceanographer about that. Commented 23 hours ago

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