Could we have saved some lives ?
The earthquake occurred at north-western Indonesia which is right at the continental plate boundry and usually most earthquakes happen at these boundries. I presume the Indian Geological survey team knew that.
The earthquake occurred at around 8am IST and alerts went out to all the countries in Asia right away (Including the Indian Geological survey ) . At about 10am, the huge tsunami waves hit the Indian and srilankan coast and killing thousands of people. So at about 8:30am, the Indian geological survey team knew there was a large earthquake and there could be huge tsunami’s heading towards our country.
So they had a full hour and a half to warn the people on the beaches to run inland, or to high ground. Even an emergency alert on radio and TV around south India, could have saved so many lives. I think its about time the Indian gov setup a Tsunami Warning Center like how there is one for the pacific ocean.
<update>
According to hserus, the USGS (usgs.gov) has a warning and alert system in place for earthquakes and tsunamis and there’s an international alert network. Apparently people from this network tried frantically to reach the indian authorities to warn them … and as you can guess, the folks in India were talking a nap.
</update>
Tsunami Warning Center for Indian Ocean
I absolutely agree.
I’m not aware of any tsunami warning centers for the Indian Ocean, in any of the seven affected countries. I understand that offshore earthquakes in the region are rare, but as you say, there was enough lead time to evacuate, had the warning only gone out.
Prayers for all affected and condolences to any who lost loved ones.
—
Banazir
There has never before been a tsunami in the Indian ocean, and hence, no early warning system here. The pacific has high occurence of tsunamis and has several early warning systems
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Warnings-could-have-saved-thousands-USGS/2004/12/27/1103996461578.html
The earthquake occurred at around 8am IST
Think it was something like 6:30am here… unless you mean IST == Indonesia Standard Time.
And also, I heard/read that the waves were at the Indian coastline after 5 mins of the earth quake near Sumatra, since the tremors travelled at 5KM/s.
So, there was no time to warn anyone…
Nope this is the third time in about 125 years….
You have no idea how Geological Survey of India works 😉 Am sure an alret would have been sent from Indonesia and it will hve gone nowhere. Try contacting them on a weekday. Also, they are like police in Indian movies. Will show up long after the action is over. Most importantly, it is not expected of them to alert anyone. There is to way to escalate any warnings to civilians
On Jan 27th when the quake hit Bangalore(monday morning), no one here could be contacted coz the telephone operator is always on vacation. If you dont know someone’s direct line, try calling them via the switchboard nad you will know. As far as e-mail is concerned, it gets delivered like snail mail. Someone in the “Computer division” will read ur mails and deliver it to you within a week.
This is what I was discussing yesterday with my dad. Will let you know when the official report reached em’ 🙂
The waves hit our shores about 2 hours after the tremors were felt. Ample time to atleast move people to higher ground.
What about the 8.1 the day before?
I don’t understand why this is treated as unconnected, in a news / geographic / life saving context. 8.1 is still pretty huge.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=13&u=/nm/quake_australia_antarctica_dc
If you follow the fault line south all the way round Australia, that’s where Macquarie Island is….
I must admit I am a bit concerned and cannot treat what happened the day before as unconnected.
David Currey. (Minister Against Earthquake Hypocrisy and Cover Ups)
Do we have ANY early warning system in our country?? We’re hit by Typhoons every now & then, and the ONLY time I remember the government in action (where they forcefully evacuated thousands fearing a bad storm) was somewhere in 96-97 and the typhoon changed course.
We NEVER think about how many lives can be saved, unlike so many countries worldwide. Chennai felt the tremors at 0530, the first waves hit @ 0900. The Sun TV News dude who was reading the 0530 headlines shook live on TV and moved, before coming back & completing the news. Geological stations would have pin-pointed the epicenter in a matter of minutes, but then no one even thought of the possibility of a Tsunami. It’s never happened here before, and that could be a reason.
Maybe now they’ll setup an Early Warning thingy, for all possible natural disasters that could be caused in the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean. We need one on the West coast as well.
Uh? The time the earth quake happened was at about 6:28am IST (Indian Standard Time) in Indonesia. And the First tidal waves hit the chennai shores at about 6:30 (src: my colleuge whose house is 700m from the sea in Chennai)
Now, where’s the 2 hours you guys are talking about? Am I missing something? Or is there some confusion between Indian Standard Time and Indonesian Standard time?
They actually don’t need an alert from Indonesia…their stations would have picked it up here. I don’t know if they had the required equipment to find out the epicenter etc….
Ummm, I’m not sure about the time now….and I don’t think the waves were travelling as fast as the tremors because had they been doing that, the damage would have been far far more extensive.
The waves travel at about 600KM/hour.. there was enough time. People in Chennai felt the quake early in the morning. The waves came in only later.
Apparently there was a warning sent out by usgs.gov and they could not reach anyone here in India at that time.
I spent some time at the Cyclone warning center in Vizag and they work pretty well. They sleep mostly , but when the monsoons arrive, they work full swing for many weeks just to make sure , they alert the place when a cyclone is approaching.
Even in this case apperently, the warning went out, but there was no one in India to receive the warning 🙁
Re: What about the 8.1 the day before?
Wow. I’m sure its the activity from the same plate. Why do I feel, even people like you and me can do a better job of this then these orgs.
Dude, the EARTHQUAKE hit India 5 minutes after it struck Sumatra. The WAVES hit India 2 hours after the earthquake hit Sumatra.
Your friend was probably referring to the relatively minor disturbances that occurred in the sea because of the local earthquake. The tsunami from the main earthquake (caused by the displacement of water) hit the east coast at around 8:30am.
I think you’re arbitrarily blaming the Indian Government. Precisely how do you get the message across to the whole coastline of India, WITHIN TWO HOURS, that a tsunami is striking? How many will understand? How many will respond?
There was nothing that could be done about it.
You missed my point. I am not saying we could have saved all the lives, but even with a TV/radio alert with say sms spam, would have atleast kept the 500 people out of chennai beach.
But ofcourse, I am sure we do not have a system in place, where gov can take over private news channels and mobile operators. So prob its a good time to think about that and have a system like this in place for the next big thing.
yeah .. that’s correct …
similar to political campaigns
remeber when you were called up by atal bihari on your cell phone.
cell phon eopertaors can setup a recorded message or sms to everyone on their network. Maybe just a protocol to do so in case of emergencies can be made mandatory by law for all cell operators. Yes fisherfolk do have cell phones.
Well said.
Re: What about the 8.1 the day before?
Gosh. That sure was scary. It’s got to be from the same plate movement!
No, you’re wrong.
You know what they did in Madras at about 10am – they blocked all access to the beach road. They could have have done *that* in quick time. The worst affected are the fisher folks, and the early-morning beach-goers. The fisher-folk may or may not have been evacuatd. But by blocking all the roads to the beach, they could have saved the lives of the many children who died while playing cricket on the beach.
This I can say from what I know of the marina, living about a mile from it. I suppose similar things could be done in cities and towns with some amount of infrastructure.
The bottom line is there is no such thing as a disaster management/recovery system in our country that can kick in on short notice. Can you imagine how our country would have coped with something like the WTC bombings? I shudder…
profit from it
It is pointless to beg the govt to do these things for you.
After all what is in it for them?
If you want to be forewarned, then in the glorious capitalistic tradition you should pay for the service.
So you would like an sms in case a giant asteroid is headed your way
or a tsunami will wipe you off the beach at your vacation ?
Well i think there is money to be made from that an I may start a dot com where you can subscribe to sms alerts and if possible get a recorded phone message warning you of disasters in advance. such a dot com woul require you to give
a) your mobile phone no
b) location or locations in case you travel a lot.
The company will subscribe to all possible alerts with operators manning it 24×7 and will sms email or call if possible to warn if you are in a danger zone.
Re: profit from it
Good idea. Prob we should ask the Indian gov to outsource their disaster management to us and I’m sure we can do a darn good job of it 🙂
and as you can guess, the folks in India were talking a nap.
Well, it was a sunday. What would you expect?
Re: profit from it
Nothing can circumvent an unforseen disaster. From my expereince (I got spared in WTC) in a real disaster, all the system will fall apart. I remember, waiting for instructions in the center of caffeteria where we were. We didn’t moved because the fire alarm didn’t went off. A maintenence person then called out after listening to radio to evacuate the place. It took almost 5 precious minute to get the evacuation signal. I was running around looking for exits, though it was right under my nose. The red lights on top of the exit doors wasn’t there (In all fire drills we did in past there were lights on exits). The guy who opened the fire exit doors even hesitated after seeing the label “alarm will sound”. It took almost 10 minutes before we were heading down the stairs. We managed to get out because we were on the 48th floor. The guys above us weren’t lucky.
I suspect the SMS wouldn’t work in case of disaster. The towers will fall for sure . Even the internet connection will be cut off. On september 11, none of the mobile networks worked. Even the ATMs didn’t worked. Gas stations didn’t worked. The pay phones didn’t worked. Thinking retrospectively you will get bright ideas, but in real disaster all system will fail.
Re: profit from it
whether systems work or not one should keep trying to innovatively build better systems … just because they failed in a calamity one cannot just sit and lose heart … one should try,exchange ideas and think of better ways, solutions to adapt or prepare against future calamities …
scary thought ~~~
Any idea abt how to be useful … to volunteer .. u know of any NGO that is working in the rescue/relief ? cant find much .. the indian red cross site is so badly outdated .. same with some of the NGO sites that i tried..
here’s a list..
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/index.htm
Re: here’s a list..
Thanks a ton ..
Or rather, there should be some system such as huge speakers atleast in big beaches like Marina which are open for public. I’m sure if there was an announcement about the same even 5 mins before the waves struck, a lot of lives could have been saved. Unfortunately, all those speakers etc get ready only during political rallies.
The public on the beaches is just a fraction of the people who died. What about the desolate fishing communities beside the sea? An existing infrastructure with mass reach (TV/radio/cellphone networks) is the best.
The problem was that the people who could have saved lives just slept thinking that since a tsunami has never hit India in their lifetime, this cannot be true. As always we learn only from mistakes.