Tsunami Warning etc

Here is the link to the actual warnings from the Hawaii center

As for the foreign bodies like Pacific..NOAA and newsmedia like BBC and CNN, they are spreading wrong information too, stressing too much on the Membership in the Warning setup. It appears that they are more interested in the MEMBERSHIP and the money it generates, rather than avoiding a disaster.

In the current case even the PACIFIC NOAA failed to read the disaster. Charles McCreery who appeared on BBC, DID NOT admit this. Instead NOAA is trying to give the impression that they did evrything possible when say that The centre issued a bulletin at 0114 GMT when it detected the temblor off the coast of Indonesia, but with no early warning system in place in Asia, scientists had no choice but to begin working their phones.

Not entirely true. The center still grossly UNDER-estimated the damage when they said "THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER." Near the epicenter? Tsunami reached as far as Tanzania, Seychelles, Mauritius...

They never issued any warnings. Not on the Web. Whom did they call? Neither Reuters, nor AP were informed. Note that the International Tsunami Information Centre was created in 1965 as part of Unesco, the UN science and education agency, to better prepare Pacific countries against the giant waves. So they do have a global resposibility on calamities like this, even if not on day-to-day warnings!

SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY all over the world should admit a huge a miss - because it was the first incident of its kind in recent history. Also it hit a very heavily populated vast region, unlike the small island of the Pacific.

Tsunami Disaster and 'Warning Claims'!

McCreery of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre appeared on TV and news media claiming that "The absence of an alert system in Asia meant the information could not be sent out fast enough to save any of the more than 23,000 lives that were lost in the catastrophe.

Charles McCreery
Geophysicist, Director of
Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

"We did what we could to warn Asian nations of the likelihood of a tsunami," said Charles McCreery of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Honolulu, adding that the centre did not have direct contacts with Indian ocean nations. " The centre issued a bulletin at 0114 GMT when it detected the temblor off the coast of Indonesia, but with no early warning system in place in Asia, scientists had no choice but to begin working their phones.

"We knew that the whole coast of Sumatra was capable of large, damaging earthquakes and large tsunamis," said US Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut.

We will see that this is not true at all. In fact, the NOAA site itself never highlighted the danger. They never informed the proper agencies. None of the main news bureaus like Reuters, AP or AFP were alerted. We do not say that Mr McCreery did naything wrong; but with all his knowledge, he too misjudged the earthquake was just inefficient as anyone else in the disaster region whose knowledge on tsunami was much limited.

The following letter was sent to [email protected] at the NOAA Center in Hawai

Hello Mr McCreery,

In the wake of the Asian disaster, news media is full of talk about lack of any warning system in Asia and its disastrous consequences ... It is true that there is no tsunami warning system as such in the region. But the Earthquake is monitored and based on the magnitude 8.5 (later 9.0), scientists should have still predicted huge tidal waves and warned people. For countries like India and Sri Lanka, they had about 3 hours time to take action.

This was not done from Asia. More importantly no other monitoring center (Earthquake or Tsunami) has issued any warning about impending waves. Why was this not done? The Earthquake was picked up in European center within 10 minutes. TV News show that a huge earthquake being registered in the Pacific center itself. No one issued any warning! Not even the guys who are supposed to be knowledgeable about tsunami!

http://ioc.unesco.org/itsu/contents.php?id=132 says that
ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004 COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 8.5

EVALUATION
REVISED MAGNITUDE BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MANTLE WAVES.
THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE
TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR THE PACIFIC BASIN BASED ON HISTORICAL
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.
THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER.

This is gross understatement. This was the 4th largest earthquake since 1899. And the tsunami reached more than 1700 km to the West Coast of India and even further to African coast. Judging that as simply "THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER. " was totally wrong!!!

And considering this as a global calamity some warnings could have been issued either to the US Govt Authorities or News bureaus. Nothing was done. Even a simple Web Warning was missing. All these would have cost nothing!

Hiding all these misses, it was improper for you and others to come in the TV and talk about the lack of a Tsunami warning system.

Best Regards
Observer,
Keralaforum International
[email protected]

NOAA washes their hands! Agency answers critics over no tsunami warning

NOAA washes their hands! Local Copy (Courtesy: CNN)

Many of the claims here are bogus. Reality of the matter is that they in Honolulu grossly underestimated the impact and strength of the tsunamis. This way, with all the equipments and experience on tsunamis, they did nothing better than the earthquake monitoring centers in the Indian Ocean Rim.

All eyes on Pacific tsunamis from Hawaii

Tuesday December 28, 2004 07:13 - (SA) http://www.suntimes.co.za/zones/sundaytimesNEW/basket7st/basket7st1104210827.aspx

LOS ANGELES - An alert centre in Hawaii that warns Pacific countries about approaching tsunamis had detected the earthquake that generated killer waves across Asia, but had no way of raising the alarm.

The absence of an alert system in Asia meant the information could not be sent out fast enough to save any of the more than 23,000 lives that were lost in the catastrophe.

"We did what we could to warn Asian nations of the likelihood of a tsunami," said Charles McCreery of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Honolulu, adding that the centre did not have direct contacts with Indian ocean nations.
The centre, set up by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1949 after a huge wave killed 159 people in Hawaii, tried desperately to warn Asian nations through US embassies in their capitals.

"From our instruments we can detect any large earthquake in the Pacific, usually within two to three minutes of the occurrence of the earthquake, and warn any country that is threatened," he said.

The centre issued a bulletin at 0114 GMT when it detected the temblor off the coast of Indonesia, but with no early warning system in place in Asia, scientists had no choice but to begin working their phones.

"We knew that the whole coast of Sumatra was capable of large, damaging earthquakes and large tsunamis," said US Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut.

"There was sufficient time between the time of the quake and the time of the tsunamis hitting some of the affected areas to have saved many lives, if a proper warning system had been in place," he said.
The NOAA's information bulletin said there was a possibility of a tsunami near the earthquake's epicentre, but that no destructive threat existed in the Pacific.

But huge tidal waves swept across the Indian Ocean killing at least 23,000 people in nine countries from Indonesia to Somalia.

The tsunami is believed to be the first in the Indian Ocean since 1883, possibly explaining why coastal inhabitants of the region were so unprepared for the disaster.

"Because they are such a rare occurrence, perhaps the tradition of warning about the hazards of tsunamis is no longer handed down from generation to generation," Hudnut said.

Records dating back to 1509 show that Indian Ocean tsunamis have never hit more than one place at one time, Eddie Bernard , director of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, told The Wall Street Journal.

"There do not seem to be any tsunamis that were Indian Ocean-wide," Bernard said.

There are almost no tsunami alert systems for the Indian Ocean to give populations sufficient time to flee the deadly waves, the NOAA said.

The International Tsunami Information Centre was created in 1965 as part of Unesco, the UN science and education agency, to better prepare Pacific countries against the giant waves.

The United States has a second tsunami warning centre in Alaska that was established in 1967, following a 1964 earthquake that unleashed a tsunami responsible for 122 deaths.

The US tsunami centres get information from the National Data Buoy Centre, whose network of buoys measure the size of waves.

US earthquake experts say that in an age of booming international travel and tourism, people all over the world should be aware of what to do in the case of a major earthquake that could spawn a tsunami.

"People who spend any time at all - even vacations - in coastal communities should know that when there is a major quake they should make their way to high ground as quickly as possible because a tsunami could soon follow," Hudnut said.

"Being prepared for such calamities is part of being a savvy traveller," he said.

AFP

The Tsunamis the Pacific Center has been monitoring!

The http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/abouttsunamis.htm gives

Examples of some recent tsunamis are shown in the table below:

Date	Magnitude	Max Ht	Killed	Location	Comments
9-2-92	7.2	10 m	170	Nicaragua	Measured Pacific-wide
12-12-92	7.5	26 m	1000	Flores Island
7-12-93	7.6	30 m	200	Hokkaido
6-2-94	7.2	14 m	220	Java
10-4-94	8.1	11 m	11	Kuril Islands	Measured Pacific-wide
11-14-94	7.1	7 m	70	Mindoro
02-21-96	7.5	5 m	12	Peru
07-17-98	7.0	15 m	2000	New Guinea
06-23-01	8.3	5 m	50	Peru	Measured Pacific-wide

We can see that none of them are compared to the the recent Earthquake (9.0) and the Tsunamis it created! Until now, the world has not heard of a tsunami that travel this far and still ferocious. Also it hit a very ehavily populated vast region, unlike the small island of the Pacific. The catch is that the entire world failed to read the disaster.

That much common sense, competence and timely action was missing from all the Earthquake Warning Centres around the world - India, Asia, Europe, the USA and Hawai!

Instead they cry about tsunami warning system. Earthquake magnitude should have been enough to predict a tsunami catastrophe.

10 year old Tilly saved her family and another 100 tourists!

The Sun, London reports http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004610510,00.html

A BRITISH girl aged ten saved 100 tourists from the tsunami — thanks to a geography lesson.

Tilly Smith, who studied the huge waves in school two weeks before Christmas, realised a Thai beach was about to be swamped when the tide shot out.

She and mum Penny, of Oxshott, Surrey, raised the alarm and the sands were evacuated.

Here comes tbe bluff.

If someone says, he had not heard of tsunami we can accept that. But those who claim that they have been warning the Govt of a tsunami before, they are the biggest cheats. Because they knew about tsunami and still failed to act, failed to see that an 8.5 (9 later) earthquake would create tsunami. Why didn't they take up the phone and warn someone - media or the Govt...?

In another news TOI writes at http://timesofindia../977960.cms
that "US warns of quake, govt says nothing to fear..According to reports, scientists at the Centre for Earth Observing and Space Research in George Mason University, Virginia, said they had found aftershocks moving north along a 90-degree ridge....
However, the Met department and the National Institute of Oceanography, the Indian government agencies monitoring seismic movements, said they had not received any information from either George Mason University or the IUGG. "

This is yet another example of incompetent reporting of an incompetent false claim. Whether we got or not, what the University claims to have done was NOT a tsunami warning.
Aftershocks and tsunamis are not the same. And then there was no such aftershock as claimed.

The only meaningful specific mention of tsunami was from Hawaii. But that message did not reach India (neither Indonesia nor Thailand).

Why weren't we warned, aggrieved India asks - The Times of India SATURDAY, JANUARY 01, 2005 03:37:37 PM ]

NEW DELHI: For two and a half hours the tsunami sped towards the Indian coast, yet nobody was warned.

The waves struck Indonesia, Thailand and then submerged an air force base at Car Nicobar, 1,200 km from the mainland.

Finally, minutes before the deadly waters struck, the sea began to rapidly recede from India's eastern shore. In some places, children scurried onto the beach to pick up shells.

Faxes were sent between government departments, but still no warning was given to the public. Finally the tsunami struck, with devastating effect.

"At every stage, there was a shrinking window of opportunity to warn people. But nothing happened," said Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute, a New Delhi-based think-tank.

"A country that hopes to run the call centres of the world could not call its own people."

India's grief over Sunday's tsunami has not yet given way to anger, with most people too stunned by the awesome power of nature to blame their government. But the media are beginning to ask the question -- was the bureaucracy fatally complacent?

Reports say the top brass of the Indian Air Force knew their Nicobar air base had been submerged atleast an hour before the waves struck the mainland coast.

The Indian Meteorological Department knew of the earthquake within minutes of its occurance in Indonesia but it informed the Home Ministry only after the tsunami had struck, a ministry official told Reuters.

"The debate is on and it will go on, whether we could have reacted faster," the Home Ministry's secretary in charge of disaster management, AK Rastogi, told Reuters.

"My dear, it was a Sunday. Time was taken by the officer to get ready and get into the car -- but there was no delay."

"You have to appreciate that there has been no system like this, and now everyone is getting wiser. In future, I hope, the Indian Meteorological Department will be better."

It is certainly easy to be wise after the event, and the IMD says it had never in its "wildest imagination" expected a tsunami on this scale to strike India.

Seismologist Arun Bapat says he has been warning of the risk of a tsunami for decades, yet no one was listening.

"There have been four tsunamis in India in the last 100 years, and it is well-known that an earthquake of such a large magnitude generates a tsunami. There was no system in place."

Yet the Meteorological Department is all too convenient a scapegoat, some commentators have argued.

India was not among the 26 countries which were alerted within minutes of the earthquake, using a system of seismic sensors and tidal gauges linked to ocean buoys.

The truth, perhaps, is that India has long been more wary of its Indian Ocean neighbours than worried about tsunamis.

The final irony is that a system is in place to warn fishermen within minutes of an impending cyclone, with 500 receivers along the coast ready to broadcast in native languages.

Four days late, the government sprang into action. Saying it had picked up a warning "from a number of experts outside country" that another earthquake might be on its way, the Home Ministry issued a tsunami warning.

There was widespread panic along the coast and the aid effort was interrupted for hours as coastal areas were evacuated.

It turned out to be a false alarm.

Science Minister Kapil Sibal called it "hogwash" and relief workers called it a "cruel joke".