NEWS: Ten Year Old British Girl Remembers Geography Lesson: Warning Saves Hundreds on Phuket Beach.

A ten year old British girl who payed attention in class is being credited for saving hundreds of people on the island of Phuket. She immediately grasped the significance of the sea pulling back and alerted her mother. She had learned about tsunamis in her geography class. The warning was enough to raise the alarm and evacuate Maikhao beach and a nearby hotel.




According to reports no casualties were reported on that beach when the waves swept the island. Its nice to see a few stories like this amidst all of the tragedy. Goes to show, you never know what may be lifesaving in a classroom.

That's a great story.

I'm suprised more people didn't know that a receding ocean is the harbinger of a tidal wave. I couldn't believe seeing the pictures of people just standing there gawking. I know in places that are more common targets of the phenomena this is commonly known.

What a couple public service announcements could have done...

PistolPete,

My thoughts exactly. Although the story with this little girl is awesome, and some of the wonderful stories we need to hear in order to keep us going in this inundation of horrific events and results, I wonder also how a little girl could understand what she was seeing and so many more not.

I wish more had...

Quote from the article:

The girl's geography teacher, Andrew Kearnay from Surrey in northern England, told the paper he had explained to his class that there was about 10 minutes from the moment the ocean draws out before the tsunami strikes.

10 minutes?

Is this true?

That seems like a long enough time to save so many people.

In a similar story, a waitress might have saved the life of a CNN reporter.She was in a cafe when the waitress alll of a sudden looked worried and said something like "the water is too high" and when people started asking what she meant by it she yelled to run and then everyone ran towards the mountain.



-Mono

.
I am guessing the 10 minute time window varies with proximity to the epicenter.

Teach the children well.

Let them sense the power and majesty of the Universe.

Give them undiluted science.

It can save lives.
.

Originally posted by UM_Gazz
That seems like a long enough time to save so many people.

Most of the casulties were it seems people on the beach or those not on high ground. You can put quite a bit of distance in 10 minutes and that may have made the difference or get into the higher stories of a large reinforced building. Ill bet alot of the hotels were built with cyclones in mind and are pretty strong.

It's pretty stupid I think if you don't know a big waves is coming when the oceans sudenly surges outwads. I saw this video of these old couple just standing there watching the waves come towards them this guy tryed to save them but unfortanitly he got taken try to save them. The guy that recorded it was a friend of the person trying to save the old people all they has to do was move about 5metres and they would of been saved. Lots of lives were lost due to stupidity sad as that may sound.

Thor,

If you looked at the videos of the event, the waves did not seems all that impressive untill they hit and the surge kept comming. Hindsight is always 20/20 Ill bet all of us go running now if if the tide suddently pulls back.

A tsunami wave is a lot different than a normall wave you can pick them in the ocean coming towards shore, altho i have never been near one. lots of buildings are still standing in even the worst areas where it hit. Common sense and a bit of education could of saved alot of lives.

Im just basing my thoughts on the videos that were shot of the event. I have never seen one either. I hope I never get that chance!

You know what this means? A 10 year old girl outsmarted 200 well respected scientists who make up the advisory board for Thailand's warning system. It's a sad day indeed, when humanity's only hope lies in the ones young enough not to be tainted and dollar thirsty.

Many of the available photos show caucasian tourists standing on the beach, watching as the wave approached. They were being practical or foolish? I'm not sure whether they decided not to run because there was no high ground to run to, or if they were actually just curious what that enormous shape on the horizon was.

On the other hand a lot of the natives can be seen in pictures running from the tsunami, but they have the most curious expression on their faces. It almost looks like they're enjoying themselves. They must have thought they would get a little wet, no big deal. I'm sure some people recognized the situation, like the little girl, and survived because of it. So the question becomes, why?

Random thought on surviving the event: Could one survive by diving into it and dolphin kicking against the current to slow down and stay out of the debris? Better to be out at sea than smashed up against a building yeah? If you could get through the initial swell, it might carry you back out to sea without pummelling you too badly.

Was it fate, or good genetics that allowed some people to survive? Did this event advance the evolution of the species in any meaningful, non-random way? The little girl knew what a tsunami looked like, because she wrote a paper on it for her class at school. Her education actually saved her life and the life of 100 of her countrymen. Amazing story in any case, thanks to FredT for posting it on this forum.

[edit on 2-1-2005 by WyrdeOne]

While the excuse for not having similar tsunami alert systems used in the pacific were bandied around as being too expensive for a very infrequent event, surely a notice posted on all beaches alerting people to leave and get to high ground if they see the tide receeding in a dramatic manner could have potentially saved thousands while not being that prohibitive cost wide. Perhaps we should have them on all beaches worldwide as all coastlines are, potentially, at risk.

You don't necessarily need a tsunami warning system if you already have an earthquake warning system. Heck, all you really need is the internet. They knew a giant quake just hit. They knew the earth was moving something fierce and displacing a lot of water. They should have ordered an evacuation of coastal areas, and they know they should have. But they didn't, because they didn't want to get reprimanded by the tourism lobby. End of story.

The initial swells weren't what did it - there was the drawback, then a flowforward, meaning the recesssion and then an advance past the old coastline, coming in with several waves - these waves were moving at almost the speed of sound, but were not large at all.

Then larger waves would have come, and a great torrent would have existed as this mass of water was drawing backwards across a place it had never been, while larger waves were ripping through it at near the speed of sound.

Then, after the 'normal', second-hand* waves had grown to immense heights, the true first-hand Tsunami would strike and cause massive damage, flowing forwards through the already advanced sea, and ripping through debris, killing many.

* By 'second hand', I mean that you are starting with a large displacement of water, causing the initial first hand Tsunami, but the second it is moving, it is affecting all of the other particles in the ocean, similarly to the way that spinning one end of a pole, the other end, no matter how far away, will instantaneously be affected, because they are in direct contact with each other.

So, within instants of the earthquake, nth-generation waves would begin affecting the shores, decreasing, and as n decreases the direct power and volume of water would increase, until generation-1, which was the first hand wave of water being directly displaced. 'Second hand' would be the water displaced by the displaced water, from the earthquake.

-- Now, as for 'seeing the waves come at them' - by the time the largest wave was on the horizon, the initial swell would have hit, and most of the people around would have been running long ago, or swept away. The waves were moving incredibly fast, and were also under the water until they came very near to the shore - it would be within 2-3 kilometers, quite closer than the horizon, that you noticed any real change in wave height/size.

At any rate, it is amazing that she warned those people. It is definitely good to see one bit of human success in this tragedy. And FredT takes the longest title he can, again.

Originally posted by Viendin
And FredT takes the longest title he can, again.

Hey now, I left a few spaces Like one or two. SHeesh

Glad to hear that there are a few smart people out there that know what it means when the ocean seems to be draining away out to sea. Fortunately in this case, the people had a place to escape to within 10 minutes (if you have 10 minutes, I thought it was less?). In some cases I saw on TV, the beaches and landscape were very flat and devastating waves destroyed everthing for I believe up to 2 km inland. It might be real hard to run that far that fast with everyone else too. That is if all the buildings are already full or only flimsy one story huts exist. I've seen tsunami TV footage from either Hawaii or Alaska and it can be fascinating to watch what I call the ocean draining away. This is a sure sign to run like crazy for your life though.

Unforunately for people not watching the ocean but inside buildings near the shore, they had no warning to see.

[edit on 2-1-2005 by orionthehunter]

Tilly was there for a reason that day. God put her there to save a chosen few.

What an angel!