Muta OK? Conditions not looking good in Southern TH.
Nothing here in PH, just a few rumbles and we're used to them.
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Lots of TV coverage of effects of quake here in Uk - Sky plus CNN. Good to hear you ok in Metroland.
Phil I
Give my best to Caterina.
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Phil indeed I will. Thanks.
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Sorry, this is a personal thread. Thanks for your concern, Growler. The tragedy was in the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea, so Bangkok and the Gulf of Thailand are unaffected apart from by the aftermath of displaced people. But this is a huge tragedy. 14,000 confirmed dead and hundreds of thousands missing. Plus the threat of disease from polluted water.
Hj
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Heard on the radio "The Americans didn't know who to warn". I hear it reached Africa hours later and there are casualties there as well - surely just looking at a map should have made warnings advisable.
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"The Americans didn't know who to warn".
Yes, I just heard that also. Seems amazing that they knew 2 hours ahead of it striking Sri Lanka etc yet didn't have the nous to contact local radio/Tv stations or even news agencies or tour operators etc. Especially since my daughter was able to ring her best friend on holiday in Phuket minutes after we heard the news and find that she and her family were safe. Glad to hear HJ Growler and fams are OK. Terrible tragedy - hope everybody else from Backroom is unaffected.
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Now new 6.5R earthquake under Andaman and Nicobar islands where 3,000 already estimated to have died.
HJ
(It later turned out that these were aftershocks of 5 to 7R along the fault line and particularly in the area of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.)
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Well I missed the Tsunami off the coast of Kerala by 12 hours, however, I got some colleagues holidaying in Phuket and Andamans and we have no contact so far. Loss around south india is devastating, mainly poor fishermen / village folk who have lost everything.
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While it sounds incredulous about the Americans not knowing who to warn, I have to ask. If you knew of a massive natural disaster heading for say...China, who in China would you call and what would you say to them (assuming you both spoke a mutually understandable language)before they thought you were mad/delusional/bored and put the phone down on you?.
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That all became clearer on the news this morning. While the American seismologists knew there had been a massive earthquake, they had no means of tracing the path of any tsunami that resulted from it because there are no sensors in Indian Ocean or the Andaman sea. But, of course, they could have warned the governments of the countries around the Indian ocean that the earthquake could cause a tsunami. Their experience should have told them that.
HJ
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As its not in their backyard, Tsunamis are very rare in that area, the Americans have no past experience to warn anybody about anything in that area.
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Not entirely true, Renault F. The US has an extensive network of pressure sensors on the Pacific sea bed for this very purpose, and has experienced tsunamis -- though with casualties in the hundreds rather than the thousands -- in Alaska and Hawaii for example.
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Read my post stripey, it says they have no experience in THAT area.
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Ah -- I get your drift. Put it down to senile decay. They'll stop me driving now.
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Only on the M1 in a scenic.
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The yanks do say however that the quake was big enough to make the earth wobble slightly on its axis at the time.
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Mégane on the M6, Renault F.
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From the Telegraph yesterday:
"Within 15 minutes of this week's earthquake, scientists running the Pacific warning system sent an alert to 26 participating countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, that destructive waves might be generated. The problem is that not all submarine earthquakes make waves."
Never let the facts get in the way of blaming the Americans for something.
V
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Later this morning the Americans were saying on air that warnings did not get through because they did not know exactly who to send them to. So one version will be true and the other version will be false.
HJ
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Vin's clip fo the Telegraph goes part way to explaining why it's probably inappropriate to blame the Americans.
But there's more. When I worked with seismographic data (more than ten years ago), the US Geological Survey (USGS) hosted a very useful online datbas of seismographic data from all around the world. Even then, lots of stations uploaded their data v quickly: I used this system to build a very rapid picture of a seismic event on the far sisde of the world, as the rapid inlfux of data from difft stations allowed a remarkably accuate assessment of the event within hours.
I would expect that system to be much more frequently updated nowadays, and it should have made the data available to anyone monitoring it all.
But I'm not so sure that 30 minutes warning would have made much difference. It takes quite a long time to evacuate a large coastal area
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"But, of course, they could have warned the governments of the countries around the Indian ocean that the earthquake could cause a tsunami. Their experience should have told them that."
These people not capable of thinking for themselves then?
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ANYONE WITH MISSING FRIENDS IN PHUKET, HERE'S A LINK TO THEIR HOSPITAL...(GIVES A LIST OF NAMES AND NATIONALITIES)
www.phuket-inter-hospital.co.th/vstoday_Forien.htm
Thanks to HarryFPea@aol.com for this
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There are three simple explanations: The American seismologists could have warned the governments of the vulnerable countries and warned the wrong department. The American seismologists could have warned the governments of the vulnerable countries and warned the correct department which did nothing. The American seismologists could have warned the governments of the vulnerable countries but did not know who to warn so did not warn them.
The only fact here is that no warnings seem to have got through to the places where people died. Obviously it could be difficult to get the warnings to some places. Some of the people through whom any warning was passed may not have taken it seriously. But no one anywhere has mentioned having receive any warning at all.
HJ
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At the risk of trivialising these terrible events, it was only a matter of time before someone blamed:-
a) President Bush
b) Al Qa'eda
c) Global warming.
We'll get all three axes ground eventually. The truth is that the planet is a dangerous place.
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At the risk of trivialising these terrible events, it was only a matter of time before someone blamed:- a) President Bush b) Al Qa'eda c) Global warming. We'll get all three axes ground eventually. The truth is that the planet is a dangerous place.
>>
Come on Stripey. Everyone knows it was Blair's fault.
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There is one simple explanation.
The countries around that area decided NOT to implement a tsunanmi warning system. How the hell can you blame the Yanks?
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Looks like they already wanted to extend the system to include the Indian Ocean
www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&s...4
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This news came as a terrible shock to me and the wife. We were away in Egypt for Christmas so heard very little news as we left Egypt on the day it happened.
We were in Penang just 6 weeks ago and we have just read an eyewitness report of a holidaymaker who was staying in the same hotel as we did - needless to say he saw total carnage, but fortunately he was in his car on the cliff top road when the wave hit. The hotel is on the beach and we would no doubt have been in the grounds sunbathing when the killer wave approached.
As for the comments about warnings, a tsunami expert who was on the radio as we drove back form teh ariport at 2am Monday morning (!) said the risk of a tsunami occuring in this area of ocean were so low (one has never been experienced before) that preparing for a disaster was deemed unecessary. No doubt this will be revised, but a risk assessment has to be made on the facts known at the time.
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Just been reunited with my mother - took her 72 hours to get home from Sri Lanka.
She had a lucky escape, having to jump from a boat into waist-deep mud before climbing upwards through a mangrove swamp to reach high ground. Being chased by a wave. At the age of 72.
Meanwhile we tried 'phoning the FCO number about 50,000 times
and didn't get through.
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Great to hear that news!
I'm sure I speak for all of us here.
Have a great new year.
Hugo
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said the risk of a tsunami occuring in this area of ocean were so low (one has never been experienced before) that preparing for a disaster was deemed unecessary
It has been experienced, but how much time and or money can you put into something that only happens once in a lifetime (or more).
Krakatoa 1883
Tsunami waves from the eruption were recorded or observed throughout the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the American West Coast, South America, and even as far away as the English Channel.
www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP134319.htm
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Warnings, had they been possible, would have been fruitless. Unless you have been to these places you cannot appreciate the communication and mobilisation challenges in relatively primitive highly populated communities with limited infrastructure: simply impossible. The recent mudslides in Quezon Province are an example and they were relatively localised.
Thankfully the Philippines was spared: everything took place to the West. We are a country of 80m people and 7,107 islands all low-lying so thank goodness for that. I just got the usual strange feeling of disorientation, feeling slightly faint and the sense that something was pushing me from underneath, but put it down to just another tremor. The city where I live straddles the Marikina Fault Line and offshore from the island of Mindoro not far to the South is the Manila Trench, (gave us a 6.2 in October) but we all live in denial. 50 storey condos are still going up in the city. Tremors are a regular occurrence, but one day the big one will happen. It almost did when half the city of Baguio was wiped out in the 1980's. look at the Mt Pinatubo eruption of 1991. It changed the world's weather for 2 years and caused the Americans to entirely rethink their military strategy in Asia. Surrounding areas have still not recovered. On my nightly walk I can still see the glistening fragments of lava dust in the road blown there by the wind.
This is Nature asserting herself and reminding us how puny we really are. There is no effective pre-emptive action Man can take against her unexpected whims and the nimby eco-freaks have no solutions, because there aren't any.
My own sister would have been in Phuket about now; it's her annual habit. For some reason this year she decided to go to Jordan at the invitation of some friends of mine there, thank goodness.
Moddies thanks for indulging this thread for so long from a simple enquiry to what is in danger of turning into something else! Now I have an oil change to see to (motoring).
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"Moddies thanks for indulging this thread for so long from a simple enquiry to what is in danger of turning into something else! Now I have an oil change to see to (motoring)."
I think HJ will certainly agree that this subject is important to most of us here, if only because it is likely to be the most catastrophic natural disaster that most of us I hope will see in our lifetimes.
If HJ, Dave and ND agree I'll monitor this thread to make sure that it continues to serve a useful function in answering the many questions that may arise in the next few days. Any comments that appear not to fit will be taken out.
Hugo
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If you want to help you can donate on-line via www.dec.org.uk
HJ
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& another opportunity to donate, WITHOUT PARTING WITH YOUR OWN £$£$£$
www.moneysavingexpert.com click on the item on the left of the page, it'll take 20 minutes & no catches/scams/costs or anything.
The site is Martin Lewis, the money guy from tv/radio.It was featured a month or 2 back, on series 'Should I worry About ... DEBT', presented by Richard Hammond (motoring link).
Also, whenever there is a motor topic raised there, I point them over to us, here.
Worth the effort for the disaster, obviously, but again, for your own reading.
VB
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just been watching videos here
www.waveofdestruction.org/videos/torrents/
you need a torrent downloader.
try googling for abc torrentt downloader.
i am absolutly gobsmacked, i cannot believe the power and force of the water, it has left me feeling a little unsettled.
poor poor people. my heart goes out to them.
please use above link to give using martins page, if you cant afford to give.
i myself have given a £100 donation
nothing more to say, feeling pretty damnn lucky to be alive at the mo.......
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A tribute needs to be paid to the Reporters out there. Watched the ITV special yesterday, which was riviting. John Irvine (a vetran of the Northen Ireland troubles) was brilliant a credit to his profession which is usually much malinged. Without them raising the public awareness of the scope of the disaster would we have (as a nation) contributed so much.
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