Posted on 12/29/2004 6:47:34 AM PST by Melpomene
Just minutes after the earthquake in the Indian Ocean on Sunday morning, Thailand's foremost meteorological experts were sitting together in a crisis meeting. But they decided not to warn about the tsunami "out of courtesy to the tourist industry", writes the Thailand daily newspaper The Nation.
The experts got the news around 8:00 am on Sunday morning local time.
An hour later, the first massive wave struck. But the experts started to discuss the economic impacts when they were discussing if a tsunami warning should be made. The main argument against such a warning was that there have not been any floods in 300 years. Also, the experts believed the Indonesian island Sumatra would be a "cushion" for the southern coast of Thailand. The experts also had bad information; they thought the tremor was 8.1. A similar earthquake occurred in the same area in 2002 with no flooding at all.
...We finally decided not to do anything because the tourist season was in full swing. The hotels were 100% booked full. What if we issued a warning, which would have led to an evacuation, and nothing had happened. What would be the outcome? The tourist industry would be immediately hurt. Our department would not be able to endure a lawsuit...
I guess I didn't realise Halibuton had an interest in the tourism industry there.
Better safe than sorry......
Let me beat the DIMS out there....
BUSH owns 90% of the tourist industry in SE Asia. He did, it's all his fault! BAD BAD BAD BAD....
</sarc>
Can they now nbe sued for not warning? They should!
bad info. There is a BIG difference between 8.1 a 9 on the ric--earthquake scale.
JAWS!!!!
I'd heard this the other day. Sad to think about the lives they could have saved.
If this is true it will most certainly be denied and covered up in the near future.
Better safe than sorry. I bet they're sorry now.
My guess is that there was not enough time to do anything anyway. Less than an hour is not much time to communicate info like that to such a wide area. The fact that none of the 24 nations that were warned did anything with the info seems to prove the point, I think.
My first thought, exactly.
Nothing good happens when government is concerned about money.
I heard this the other day...
I didn't want to believe a government could be so stupid...
it is so very sad.
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