Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia 744
pfb writes "From reuters, 'The world's fifth-largest quake in a century has hit southern Asia, triggering a speeding tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India, drowning hundreds, and swamping tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives.'"
Geez.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows in JAKARTA, Indonesia, were rattling, and some even broke. And that is a 2-3 hour flight away from the epicenter!
Re:Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'd like to know is - did the wave reach the east coast of Africa? Madagascar? did the Seychelles feel any of the effect? It was only this year a BBC documentary about tsunamis indicated they could easily travel across the largest oceans, but there hasn't been any news of African flooding.
Re:This is Geek news? Well ... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you need a tech discussion, here's one, "How can you get the info to the people who needed it?"
Once the earthquake hit with a sea floor epicenter, everyone with a web browser knew a tsunami was going to hit somewhere. Again, no way to tell the people who needed the information. Seemed like the only thing we could do was just wait for news of further death.
Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, you don't have much time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed. Mind boggling though.
Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure. I suppose part of this tragedy is how unavoidable it was in these nations' current states. Only Japan has invested any significant amount of money in Tsunami warning systems.
Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable. (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH I don't think Tsunami's are a common event in this region so no one is prepared. If these things travel as fast as they say you're pretty much SOL.
I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?
Re:Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:5, Interesting)
As these events are rare around this part of the world there has so far not been a need to set up a warning system.
Full Moon (Score:5, Interesting)
Energy release (Score:5, Interesting)
If MN4 were to hit, estimated release is 450-2000 MT of TNT, so how does a Richter 8.9 compare.
Steve
Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable. (Score:5, Interesting)
As the wave approaches shore, the speed changes and the amplitude increases markedly. The water had to come from somewhere - as the wave approaches, the "tide" appears to pull back - but it will be replaced.
There's a Japanese story (don't know if it's true or a legend) about a man near his grainery on a hill who saw the water rushing out. The only way to warn the people below was to set fire to his grainery. Everyone came running to put the fire out....
I live in Penang, Malaysia (Score:5, Interesting)
My mom felt the quake at around 9, I didn't notice anything though. I'm very thankful Malaysia is relatively safe from quakes, but I feel so sorry for all who were affected.
It got reported in a somewhat timely manner (Score:4, Interesting)
And this one follows that 8. something quake that hit between tasmania and antarctica just the other day.
I think this story should be taken into consideration along with the asteroid stories, as this wave was only roughly 40-50 feet high, yet by some reports it traveled up to half a mile inland in some places. Just imagine one ten times higher (something like that) from a large asteroid oceanic strike.
But ya, you would think that their would be some sort of emergency alert tied to seismographs, that would automatically get posted to various radio and television and internet sources if it was of sufficient strength, ie, danger. I know we have this alleged emergency alert system in the US that will over ride the TV and radio stations OTA broadcasts, but no idea in other nations what they have for that. Civil defense is always lesser funded than military offense in most nations it appears. What would it really cost to develop a radio based alert system for these various nations? Cost of one jet fighter or tank? And it could be tied to cellphones for that matter through the various national carriers, say, in a true natural disaster (impending or otherwise) scenario, your phone might ring with a pre recorded short message.
I realise in the poorer areas it might be problematic, but surely someone in most areas has a phone or a radio or whatever, you don't have to get the message to every single human directly, just to enough of them in any given area for word of mouth to help out a lot. Wake up and alert one dude per poor village, he can go running outside yelling his head off for that matter, like "dang evac! Tsunami coming! Move it people!" something like that anyway. The old church bells ringing hard and fast deal.
Re:From the shores of Chennai India (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is there even enough time to react? (Score:2, Interesting)
Earlier earthquake of 8.1 (Score:5, Interesting)
Massive earthquake felt in Tasmania [theage.com.au]
December 24, 2004 - 7:55AM
The world's biggest earthquake in almost four years has struck 800 km
off the coast of Tasmania, Australian seismological officials said.
Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale
hit the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am. [...]
Re:Video? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=260157 [www.vg.no]
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:2, Interesting)
Last I heard is that he lives at Barnes Place(a street) in Colombo. This is quite far from the coast, and Colombo itself hasn't been affected. So he probably should be safe.
The eastern,southern and south western coasts of Sri Lanka bore the brunt of the tsunamis. This includes a suburb of Colombo.
Sri Lanka is not a place where quakes and tsunamis happen. There were a few tremors [dailynews.lk], but not strong.There are no major faultlines near sri lanka.So the country is not prepared for this sort of thing.
Re:Energy release (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Geez.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Felt nothing here *in* Singapore myself, but guys, I can't tell you how awed by the sheer REGION this covered; there was a 2m wave in, hold your breath, Seychelles [sabcnews.com] which is about twice as far from Indonesia as the Indian sub-continent is.
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:4, Interesting)
the most affected are the squatters living in improvised huts near the beach. call me cold hearted, but they went there, they grabbed the land, refused all attempts to base them elsewhere.
atb
Suchetha
Aussie earthquake: tsunami? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious as to why a similar magnitude earthquake, also in the ocean, occurring off the coast of Australia shortly before this earthquake didn't cause a tsunami as well?
News about this earthquake here: http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11 778537%255E3462,00.html [news.com.au]
Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but I'm curious as to what the differentiating factor is between these two earthquakes which means one creates a tsunami and the other doesn't.
Re:This is Geek news? Well ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed, the last tsunami we had was in 1977, which came with a cyclone; my grandpa was involved in some heroics [which he loves to narrate whenever we go to his place in rural India ;-) ]. I don't know if this is how it is in, say, Hawaii or someplace, but the morning that tsunami hit the coast, everyone apparently went to work normally. It was only by 10AM or so that word spread that the sea was coming in (to use a vernacular phrase for 'tidal wave') and by then, all they could do was to climb onto rooftops and wait for the waters to recede.
Re:Is there even enough time to react? (Score:5, Interesting)
Realize that, like yourself, many did not associate the earthquake with a tsunami. CSI Miami (a US TV show) had a tsunami hit Florida in the program. So right now, when I hear "earthquake" and "water" my brain's primed to think "tsunami."
I imagine that a lot of earthquake people have the knowledge and training that they, too would think "earthquake." But they still may have been caught by surprise. The places that were close by could not be warned, and how many would have thought "hmmm - Sri Lanka's gonna get it?" It's a thousand miles away. Again, it may not have occurred to everyone.
For those it did occur to, there's the question "What do you do?" There may have been an assumption - "someone's got the job to issue the warning." If there is an appropriate "responder," often you can make things worse by trying to get involved and tying up resources as a result. So some may not have bothered because they thought that it would be handled. Others may simply not have known who to call.
I'm sitting here wondering. Let's say I'd been online looking at an Earthquake page when the 8.9 quit. Who would I have called to warn about a tsunami hitting Sri Lanka? I don't think I'd have thought my calling would do any good, first off. But let's say I put it all together and decided to start making calls. Who would I call? The Sri Lankan embassy? 911?
I have no freakin' idea.
This is why public safety organizations have emergency drills. Stuff like this happens and you do what you do every day. Who's job is it every day to warn the people of the Indian ocean if there's a tsunami? No one. So everyone did in the emergency what they do every day, which turns out to be just that - nothing.
The more I think of it, the more this looks like one of those events you learn from. At this point the question is, how much do you learn?
Re:I can't believe the prejudice here (Score:3, Interesting)
"So many Americans" have given their lives to rescue many parts of the rest of the world from dictatorships in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Where were you and where was your country when the Taliban were shooting women in the head on just the accusation of adultry, and Saddam Husein was killing hundreds of thousands just for sport? Perhaps you are from France, Germany or Russia, countries that were reaping big $PROFITS trading military hardware to Iraq for oil? Or, perhaps you are a Radical Islamic teaching your young to tie bombs to themselves and blow up innoocent civilians because you are too much of a coward to do it yourselves? What do you tell them, that Allah will be grateful and will give them 72 virgins in paradise?
Did you dig the graves for the bodies of the Americans who lost their lives in WWI fighting to free you, or are you the one defacing the graves of Americans buried in France because they rescued your mother and father from a life under Hitler's rule?
With the $Billions spent on the Marshall Plan in Europe following WWII the US has contributed $Trillions to the rebuilding of countries around the world. Americans have freely redistributed more of our wealth around the world than the collective contributions of all the Socialist/Marxist countries combined. The major export of those nations has been guns, bombs, violence and "revolution", and everywhere they've succeeded the result is a people even more oppressed than before.
How much money did you or your country give to the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after WWII? Did your country start a Peace Corp? Have you been sending Billions of tons of Care Packages packages around the world over the last 50 years?
Maybe you're a self-rightous Canadian who is vitriolic about American military power but enjoys letting America pay its military protection bill? Canada has a total of only 55,000 serving in all of their armed forces combined and they depend on the protection of America's military might.
But, maybe you're right. What if, from now on, we keep to ourselves, and when you flirt with tyranny again we won't come to your rescue after you take the dicator's bait? What if we dig up our sacred dead from around the world and bring them home to rest in peace and respect here? Besides the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corp and Care Packages, we have redistributed more of our wealth via job outsourcing than any other country in the world. Everything we buy here is made somewhere else by folks who are earning 10X more than they did before. Ninty percent of all programming jobs in the USA have been shipped overseas since 2000. Americans standard of living has dropped in direct proportion to its rise elsewhere around the globe.
We even let foreign Billionaires buy citizenship and then setup websites here using disgruntled Leftists/Marxists in an attempt to influence our Presidential elections!
What if we stop outsourcing our manufacturing, programming and other jobs and stop all HB1 and other job imports, canceled free donations of food, clothing, medical supllies and money? Would that be treating othes with more respect?
Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable. (Score:2, Interesting)
Tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation was working in a project to provide early warnings / relief support in the event of tsunamis. From the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation's website (see here [clarkefoundation.org]):
Note that the test was scheduled for 2005... unfortunately a little too late. Also, they were focusing on the Pacific instead of the Indian Ocean. Given that Clarke himself lives in Sri Lanka, I wonder how the current events would affect the project. It is clear to me that the Indian Ocean has been somewhat neglected.
Re:Is there even enough time to react? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Tsunami are not a new scientific discovery
2. Tsunami happen rather frequently
3. Tsunami can be pretty fucking devastating , killing thousands and destroying billions of goddamned property
4. Seismic networks aren't science fiction or experimental genetics, but a _reality_
So I think, what the fuck is needed to make some world seismic network with early warning ? We can make ONU, but we can't make one fucking seismic early warning network which, in layman terms, is a bunch of computers with telephone or satellite lines and a couple thousand people for maintenance ?
I guess that the next days we'll hear that
a. given that the quake was a rare event ( my ass is more rare there have been 5 of that in the last 100 years)
b. that the countries involved are piss poor with poor communication infrastructure ( RADIO goddamit Marconi invented it more then a 100 ago it still works ! Even U.S. NOAA still uses radio ! )
c. that there was some bureocratic problem (there are always buro problems, no matter if republicans/dems/martians are in charge)
d. that there was some economic efficiency problem (there are always economic problems unless you're the one paying for everything, but hey we have skyscrapers full of people counting money...cute)
Therefore thousand died..and we dare call ourselves civilized and advanced, we're bloody apes.
Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable. (Score:1, Interesting)
Los Gigantos (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A drop in the sea (Score:1, Interesting)
I can easily imagine a lot of other people who lost their loved ones in a fire, quake, terrorist attack etc. The news of a big earthquake, which is repeated in mass media stirs their emotions, consciously or subconsciously.
I am sure one can think of numerous other reasons why people get so emotionally involved.
You can see why your estimates of how many people are allowed (by you) to feel sorry for the people who died are not very useful.
By simpy calling everyone who cares idiots and presuming not only that you know but also that you have the right to give orders on how people should or should not react, you are making an idiot of yourself.
Re:Los Gigantos (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting News Coverage Pattern... (Score:2, Interesting)
What was interesting was the news coverage the next morning (disclaimer: I woke up at @ 9:00). Wolf Blitzer was going off about the 10 top news-worthy things in 04 (of course 9 of them had to do with the US), Paula Zahn went off about some reverend making boatloads of money off of G and there wasnt even an obligatory mention (screen-bottom tickers don't count) of an event that resulted in (unofficial) a deathtoll close to 11,500 (last BBC estimate). The only place I got to see anything about it on TV was an obscure (to me at least) channel called News World Intl. (366 on DirectTV) where CBC and then something called the German Journal talked about this most of the time. Of course the BBC was kind enough to provide a lo-rez video feed, but I still dont understand the complete glossing over of such an incident. Is it that unless americans die, the american media wont cover it? Seems foolhardy... but then it is the US. Nothing's unexpected. And of course I still dont know why the BBC World service is not available in the US.
--
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? -- Calvin (Bill Watterson)
Home video of the wave crashing in (Score:3, Interesting)