Tragic comedy.

[Gość: kuk]

Une nie wiedzialy. hahaha!!!!!...jakie to smnieszne. Znaczy une sie nie znajom
na geografii.


Scientists in USA saw tsunami coming

Tue Dec 28, 7:11 AM ET

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

Minutes after a massive earthquake rocked the Indian Ocean on Sunday,
international ocean monitors knew that a tsunami would likely follow. But they
didn't know whom to tell.

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"We put out a bulletin within 20 minutes, technically as fast as we could do
it," says Jeff LaDouce of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
LaDouce says e-mails were dispatched to Indonesian officials, but he doesn't
know what happened to the information.

The problem is that Sunday's earthquake struck the unmonitored Indian Ocean.
An international system of buoys and monitoring stations - the Pacific Tsunami
Warning Center based in Hawaii - spans the Pacific, alerting nations there to
any oncoming disasters. But no such system guards the Indian Ocean.

(There isn't one in the Atlantic Ocean because there are comparatively few
earthquakes there. LaDouce says efforts are being made in the Caribbean to set
up a warning system after last year's tsunami caused by the volcanic collapse
on the island of Montserrat.)

"Sumatra has an ample history of great earthquakes, which makes the lack of a
tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean all the more tragic," says
geologist Brian Atwater of the U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites).
"Everyone knew Sumatra was a loaded gun."

On Monday, Asian government officials, notably in India, discussed plans to
coordinate efforts to develop an Indian Ocean system. "It's a people problem,
not a technology problem," says geophysicist Teng-fong Wong of the State
University of New York-Stony Brook. "Governments just have to cooperate."

In fact, the detector buoys that monitor tsunami surges have been available
for decades. They record water heights and send measurements throughout the
Pacific network. False alarms are a concern, slowing the speed with which
bulletins can be released. A 1986 false alarm in Hawaii cost more than $30
million in evacuation costs.

LaDouce notes that warnings are of little use without evacuation plans, given
how quickly a tsunami can travel. Tsunami waves struck Sumatra minutes after
the quake and hit Thailand within an hour.

"Even if you give the tourist resorts in Thailand a half-hour's notice, it is
no easy matter to evacuate vast swaths of coastland," he says. "You have to
plan and train people. And then do it all over again."


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