Posted on 01/01/2005 2:14:42 AM PST by bd476
Did you see cockroahes swarming with no earthquake?
I would move out of that hotel.
If the initial larger earthquake didn’t produce a wave, the aftershocks won’t. I think people who were just hit are now aware of the danger a few days later.
I think that the best way to prevent huge loss of life is to stop breeding. Otherwise death is 100% certain. ;^)
According to another thread, when the ocean receads from the beach, you have ten minutes to reach high ground. If everyone know what a ten year old british girl knew, three-fourths of the victims could be alive today, simply by running.
If you combine that knowledge with an earthquake warning, you could have many people watching for the signs, and the more cautious already withdrawn from the beach.
"I think that the best way to prevent huge loss of life is to stop breeding. Otherwise death is 100% certain. ;^)"
True. It is sad to me that any death that is hidden like deaths from malaria and abortion is ok with most people, but if they see it on CNN...
Using the Hawaiian tsunami alarm system as an example: What if there was a tsunami approaching Hawaii, a tsunami alert was issued by the appropriate Hawaiian authorities and still people died? Then what caused these peoples to die? It wasn't presence or absence of a tsunami alarm system - it was the freakin' tsunami.
Japan has a wide-spread tsunami alarm system with a population who is very educated on how it functions, yet Japanese people still die in tsunami.
7/12/1993 - "The Hokkaido-Nansei-Oki earthquake on July 12 produced one of the largest tsunamis in Japan's history. At 2217 local time (1317 UTC), the Ms-7.8 quake rocked the west coast of Hokkaido and the small, offshore island of Okushiri in the Sea of Japan, generating a major tsunami. Within 2-5 minutes, extremely large waves engulfed the Okushiri coastline and the central west coast of Hokkaido....As of July 21, 185 fatalities were confirmed, with 120 attributed to the tsunami."
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/okushiri_devastation.html
Within 2-5 minutes, extremely large waves engulfed the Okushiri coastline and the central west coast of Hokkaido....
I don't believe that there is any system conceivable that would save people that are so close that they are within a tsunami's first 2-5 minutes of existence. Within that very tight time-frame, they are very likely going to be trying to just escape the effects of the shock itself, much less trying to escape a possible tsunami.
It's like Florida: roaches are everywhere in humid Japan, no matter what kind or class of structure you may be in. Actually, it was an office building in downtown Tokyo. I was almost alone in the building, because I was finishing up a project on a Sunday. Thta meant no other disturbances that could have caused roaches to suddenly start swarning out from their cracks and burrows.
bump! bttt!
This example shows no matter how technically advanced your nation, you might not get enough warning to make a difference. BTW - Japan has warning systems for their active volcanos as many are very close to inhabited areas. 
Satellite image showing an erupting Sakurajima volcano, Japan, taken on 9/19/2001.
If there was a Mt. St. Helens type of explosion here, the volcano would wipe out 500k people.
Yeah, I know. I have spent some time in various Asian countries and Haiti. I worked in entomology for the USDA for a short time (I am a biology major). Before I went to Nam, I was going to become an entomologist and was studying glands in large tropical roaches.
Roaches aren't so bad once you get to know them. EEEEWWWWW!
;-)
Governments put in warning systems like this to pretend they are doing something. It allows them to shift blame, but the expenditure is wasted.
Pure speculation, but if each of the 4 pilots had been armed on 911, would 3,000 lives have been lost.
The total cost of 4 hand guns @ $500 each, $2,000.
Could 67 cents per life saved the victims?
Not speculation, inference based on experience.
I am for arming pilots, but that has no relationship to warning systems.
My point is that governments throw our money at problems and expensive projects when PERHAPS low tech simple warning systems are available.
Civilian radio, and TV are used here in the United States for Civil Defense, weather and other warnings.
The rest of the world is equal or not that far behind us when it comes to communications. Satellites, Cell phones are only two examples.
Once a warning of any type is issued, perhaps and I an only saying perhaps it could be spread by the every day instant communication equipment already in place and in daily use.
The saying Keep It Simple Stupid (not directed at you) or KISS is an old common sense approach , with the funds available, to a problem or danger.
I will be the first to admit I am not smart enough to solve the warning problem, but there are people who are.
They may not be able to afford to move to Florida to escape the cold of winter, but they can cut fire wood for a heating stove is an example of a low tech solution that works.
About 1860 a volcano exploded, earthquakes, tsunamis followed and an estimated 60,000 people died. The worlds commutation systems have come along way since then, I hope we are wise enough to use them in the aftermath of 150,000 + deaths.
Experts fend off accusations tsunami warning was too slow
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050101/TSWARNING01/TPInternational/Americas
By PAUL KORING
Saturday, January 1, 2005 - Page A11
A widely published initial response from Charles McCreery, the geophysicist in charge of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, didn't help. "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world," he said two days after the epic disaster, suggesting that a lack of telephone numbers prevented a timely warning reaching the threatened coasts.
In fact, the rarity of catastrophic tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and the absence of an appropriate international detection system, rather than any sluggishness at the U.S. centre in Hawaii, made a timely warning impossible, according to outside experts.
The magnitude of the earthquake is crucial. Anything less than 9.0 is unlikely to produce tsunamis capable of devastating coastlines and causing widespread casualties and damage, said Brian Atwater, a U.S. Geological Survey expert in major earthquakes and tsunamis.
In the crucial hour after the massive undersea shift off Sumatra at 00:59 Greenwich Mean Time on Sunday, the watch keepers at the Pacific warning centre believed they were dealing with a magnitude 8.0 quake -- 10 times less powerful. Within minutes of receiving the first seismic data, eight minutes after the earthquake, it issued its first bulletin.
By then, the massive tsunamis were already pounding the Sumatra coast.
The centre, with its web of buoys in the Pacific Ocean, has no direct means of detecting tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.
"We have no eyes or ears in the Indian Ocean," Scott Smullen, a NOAA spokesman, said yesterday. "Our people did everything they could do with very little information."
Even with a state-of-the-art tsunami detection system such as the one that exists in the Pacific, where 90 per cent of tsunamis occur, getting warnings out in time to save lives on a nearby coast is impossible.
"It wouldn't have made any difference in Sumatra," where the worst of the death and destruction occurred, said Jim Whyte, manager of operations for Provincial Emergency Programs in British Columbia.
[Snip]
But while the tsunamis struck Sumatra within minutes, and the Thai coast in less than an hour, it was about two hours before they raced across the Indian Ocean and slammed into Sri Lanka and India.
Nations bordering the Indian Ocean haven't established a warning and detection system. The last significant tsunami in the Indian Ocean, one of the largest on record, killed an estimated 30,000 people after the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa erupted in 1883.
Last weekend, U.S. and Japanese experts worked frantically trying to figure out where and when a tsunami might strike, depending on the size of the offshore quake and imperfect models of the Indian Ocean seabed.
Not until an hour after the earthquake did seismic data reach the tsunami centre, indicating an 8.5 magnitude. That prompted a second advisory, flashed to all 26 Pacific Rim countries, including Indonesia and Australia.
It warned of a possible tsunami near the epicentre and said there was no risk of a Pacific tsunami.
Working frantically and independently on opposite sides of the Pacific, two of the world's foremost tsunami experts attempted to build computer models of what might be happening in the Indian Ocean.
[Snip]
Sounding the Alarm on a Tsunami Is Complex and Expensive
Tell that to those who perished, and those who survived. I wonder what they will think about the price. Once the initial shock has worn off, the people should string up their gov't leaders.
You can sign up with the USGS to receive notification of seismic events by email, or even your cell phone. Cost: 0 dollars.
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