US had advanced warning of Tsunami

ABS_CBNNEWS.COM
According to McCreery, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration�s center in Honolulu, the team did its utmost to contact the countries.

The team contacted the US State Department, which apparently contacted the Asian governments. The Indian government has confirmed that no such warning was received.

The article does say that Indonesia and Australia were warned but not the other countries. I dont think it would really have mattered much if Indonesia had warning or not, considering how close it was to the quake itself. But Australia got warning and India didnt?

Even more suspicious is towards the end of the article it talks about how there have been two aircraft carriers deployed to the region. Ive heard some on the radio that the reason is that the military are best equiped and prepared for fast response.

Yet Ive also read posts elsewhere that when the quake hit Iran (12.26.03) the US would use that as an opportunity to offer 'aid' thus begining an incremental occupation.

Why has a senior commander involved in the invasion of Iraq been assigned to lead the US emergency-relief program?

Why indeed?

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Sorry if this has been covered in another thread already. I tried to search but didnt find anything.

Not sure if covered in another thread as well. But having just come back from there, my understanding for Thailand was that they were given at least half hour warning. Somehow, it just did not filter down in time. Heads will roll.....

what is the point of this thread?

Seriously. I want to know.
What your you suggesting Xibalba?

It's amazing....the US can apparently do nothing right. We help people and it's "suspicious"....or we're trying to invade these countries....
wtf kind of crap is that?





As far as the warnings....as been said MANY times now. The Indian ocean has no early warning system for tsunamis. But anytime there's an under water earthquake the chance is there, so warnings were probably issued for the areas closest to the quake. No one knew the tsuanmi would be that bad. Without any system in place, there's no way anyone could have...

Any country with sophisticated seismic monitors would surely have picked up the largest earthquake in the last 40 years, probably within seconds. No doubt the US authorities did send out the appropriate messages, but you have to wonder about the communications and chain of command at the other end. Whether anything would have saved those on the nearest islands, I doubt. But some of the West's help must now go on putting procedures in place that get warnings to the beaches in minutes. If we don't, this scenario will sadly repeat itself.

No heads will roll...nor should they

as posted by Xibalba
But Australia got warning and India didnt?

A little searching with a search engine reveals:

"Probably the basic reason is that dangerous tsunamis are extremely rare in the Indian Ocean, so it probably was not perceived as a major hazard" by governments in the region, said Harold Mofjeld, a senior scientist at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, part of the federal government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

--snip--

India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, located across the Indian Ocean from the earthquake, did not receive the warning because they were not part of the Pacific system, said Douglas L. Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, which handles tsunami warnings.

"We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world," said Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Scientists at the center in Hawaii tried to alert officials in the region with what few contacts they had, said retired Canadian researcher Tad Murty, who is familiar with the scientists' efforts.

Across the Globe, a Warning Sounded

and:

��I have tried several times with the Indian government, but they have said they do not have enough money to sustain a full-fledged system,�� Murty told The Indian Express from Manitoba, ��it is largely seen as a Pacific country problem.��

--snip--

The Indian met office has its own explanations. ��Unless we have computer models, we cannot issue a tsunami warning after every earthquake,�� says R S Dattatrayam, director (seismology), Indian Meteorological Department. Every major earthquake in the ocean does not result in a tsunami.

There was a major earthquake on June 26, 1941, of a magnitude of 8.1 off the coast of the Andamans. But it did not result in any tsunamis, Dattatrayam says: ��It is a question of science. We cannot issue a warning causing panic, unless we can establish it scientifically.��

26 countries alerted in 15 minutes, India not one of them

Also, this may be useful:
NOAA AND THE INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI

As to your second question: Why has a senior commander involved in the invasion of Iraq been assigned to lead the US emergency-relief program?

Maybe because he has experience in these type relief measures?
The military, combining multiple branches, is invovled, thus requiring and necessitating the need for a commander, with prior experience, to handle such a military effort to get much need relief supplies to where they are intended to go? Maybe its because the U.S. relief effort is, at this moment, being lead and accomplished by way of the U.S. military efforts, being that they are the one's that prety much have all the helicopters, etc. needed to get supplies and aid to areas that are currently still isolated from other relief type efforts getting to them?

IMHO, your reading to much into this.



seekerof

Originally posted by ThatsJustWeird
what is the point of this thread?

Seriously. I want to know.
What your you suggesting Xibalba?

Well to say it bluntly, I have no doubt that there are those within government positions who would find this as an opportunity to gain a stronger foothold in SE Asia. Just as others have used tragedy and disaster to further a hidden agenda.

It's amazing....the US can apparently do nothing right. We help people and it's "suspicious"....or we're trying to invade these countries....
wtf kind of crap is that?

For the most part I think American people are very generous and thoughtful. But the US government I think is corrupt beyond measure.

As far as the warnings....as been said MANY times now. The Indian ocean has no early warning system for tsunamis. But anytime there's an under water earthquake the chance is there, so warnings were probably issued for the areas closest to the quake. No one knew the tsuanmi would be that bad. Without any system in place, there's no way anyone could have...

Yes, and I understand that, yet the scientists in Hawii notified the State Dept. and from there only Australia and Indonesia received warning of the tsunamis. Why not all of the countries in the Indian Ocean area? I am aware that the scientists continued to try on their own to alert countries not in the group of 26. Why didnt the State Dept. make the effort which would have gotten alot farther?

Seekerof
IMHO, your reading to much into this.

I hope so but I have no doubts the US military is anxious to plant itself there.

A community such as ATS should not dismiss things out of hand just because they are shocking to the sensibilities.

But the reality is, that even if there had been a decent system to inform the temporary inhabitants of all resorts and villages on the affected coastlines, the notice would have been very short and countless lives would still be lost. There is no tsunami-proofing such regions.

It's not like you can quickly scramble a jet to monitor the progress of the tidal wave, and shoot it out of the water if it does not comply with authorized commands.

i dont remember aisia calling us up and telling us that mount saint helens was gonna blow. we KNEW it was gonna explode and peolple still stayed there. the timeline for this to be a conspiracy would have to go something like this...

the article stated that the first wave hit 30 minutes after the quake.

1:00 gmt quake hits
1:01 to 1:30 the scientists analyze the data, determine that there is danger and decide not to tell certain goverments but not others.
1:30 the first wave rolls in in to thailand
1:30 to 2:30 the goverment of thiland is notified by whomever is behind the conspiracy that if they call up their neighbors to the west to warn them they will be killed. why else wouldnt thailand help their neighbors? it must be becasue they were 'in on it'.

Originally posted by jprophet4201:00 gmt quake hits
1:01 to 1:30 the scientists analyze the data, determine that there is danger and decide not to tell certain goverments but not others.
1:30 the first wave rolls in in to thailand
1:30 to 2:30 the goverment of thiland is notified by whomever is behind the conspiracy that if they call up their neighbors to the west to warn them they will be killed. why else wouldnt thailand help their neighbors? it must be becasue they were 'in on it'.

Well, you're missing and misinterpreting some of the data.

First -- SOME warning was given out. Hawaii tried to contact a lot of the countries BUT... the monitoring equipment isn't there in the Indian Ocean to confirm tsunamis as readily as it is for the Pacific.

Second -- there's not a Quake/Tsunami warning system in place. That means the officials were calling around, trying to find people to put out the alert.

Third -- there's no coordinated warning system WITHIN the countries. Sirens sound in the villages IF they get a warning from the right people. This means that someone has to be at their government job (in this case, early in the morning) and that there has to be a phone list of who to call.

Imagine that YOU got a tsunami alert in your community. How would you alert the whole area It's a darn big job. You can't just launch (for instance) a helicopter on a second's notice and wave banners all over the place.) And schools/hotels/businesses get prank calls. How do you prove who you are so that they get the warning?

At least, the communications infrastructure. Try my experiment: pc, internet connection. Google.com... 'seismology India'... found www.imd.ernet.in... , found www.imd.ernet.in... , found www.imd.ernet.in... - elapsed time, 1 minute. A high-level alert system does exist: www.imd.ernet.in... , with direct links to Moscow and Washington, and in-country coastal communication facilities. 2 minutes elapsed and I find www.imdmumbai.gov.in... with telecom links for colleagues at Mumbai, India. Duty Officer : 2215 0431. Another minute with my trusty MCI phone card and BAM! Someone in India has warning- someone with access to direct telecom links to all coastal areas. How hard was that? It took me three minutes. Say he gets word out in another three minutes. Six minutes and local authority is warned. 'Not in my address book?' SO WHAT? If you care about someone's life, you do what you have to do. So did anyone do this? If not, why not?!

As Nygdan points out below, IMD should have seen the quake on its seismographs too. While a tsunami can't be guaranteed given an undersea quake on the seismograph, the network to warn local authority does exist.

[edit on 4-1-2005 by Chakotay]

Originally posted by stevehowarth
Any country with sophisticated seismic monitors would surely have picked up the largest earthquake in the last 40 years, probably within seconds.

[
Yes, including the seismic monitoring stations in india. However, earthquake does not equal tsunami. Shortly before this tsunami producer, there was an 8. somethign quake in the region, it was feared it produced a tsunami, but there wasn't one. Knowledge of an earthquake is not knowledge of a tsunami.

No doubt the US authorities did send out the appropriate messages, but you have to wonder about the communications and chain of command at the other end.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the message couldn' get to them in time. Two hours or so to get the notice, verify that it is a tsunami, figure out who to contact over there, decide if the state department needs to be contacted or if thats stepping outside of the chain of command, and then once it gets there who is supposed to do anything with it?

Apparently, also, india has fired its state meteorologist (which I don't understand because its a geological phenom, but i guess they've assigned tsunami watch to that office) and re-hired the guy they fired seven years ago. Know what that guy was fired seven years ago? Because apparently he was 'scaring' people by advocating that an ocean tsunami monitoring system be installed. Scaring off tourists, internal and international.

SO once again, a mix of bad science and politics, or politics being used to influence/overide science, has resulted in massive loss of life and destruction of property.

Whether anything would have saved those on the nearest islands, I doubt.

I'm inclinded to agree, they'd've had minutes. Even two and a half hours seems questionable, how much of the indian thai and indonesian coastlines can be evacuated in that time? Thats not a part of the world with the best transportation system.

But some of the West's help must now go on putting procedures in place that get warnings to the beaches in minutes.

The Indians, Indonesians, sri lankans and Thailanders need to cooperate and instal a tsunami monitoring system in the indian ocean. Its not the job of the United States to create such systems for them. I agree the West should help of course. Aparently the west is helping more with the overall relief too than the surrounding countries, and certainly more so than the rich gulf states. But its the primary responsibility of the governments of the region to take care of this, and that means funding geology and science research in general and setting up the bouy system of monitors, rather than researching astrological techniques to predict earthquakes, which apparently the University of Madras conducts.

As I didn't read all the links provided in this thread, I don't know if this has been mentioned. Here is a link of a geologist's warning:

A LEADING geologist repeatedly warned Indonesian officials that an earthquake and tsunami would soon strike their shores, it emerged this weekend.

Kerry Sieh, professor of geology at California Institute of Technology, has been studying the region for nearly a decade.



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