From yesterday’s Telegraph comes this amazing story:
A 10-year-old girl saved her family and 100 other tourists from the Asian tsunami because she had learnt about the giant waves in a geography lesson, it has emerged.
Tilly Smith, from Oxshott, Surrey, was holidaying with her parents and seven-year-old sister on Maikhao beach in Phuket, Thailand, when the tide rushed out.
As the other tourists watched in amazement, the water began to bubble and the boats on the horizon started to violently bob up and down.
Tilly, who had studied tsunamis in a geography class two weeks earlier, quickly realised they were in danger.
She told her mother they had to get off the beach immediately and warned that it could be a tsunami.
She explained she had just completed a school project on the huge waves and said they were seeing the warning signs that a tsunami was minutes away.
Her parents alerted the other holidaymakers and staff at their hotel, which was quickly evacuated. The wave crashed a few minutes later, but no one on the beach was killed or seriously injured.
I missed this yesterday, but Norm Geras, linked to today by Instapundit because of another posting about Guardian foolishness, caught it, to whom thanks.
I am sure that some time during the last few months I have blogged things which have at least suggested that blogging etc. is capable of replacing the existing media. If so, apologies, and if not, lucky me. This tsunami disaster has made clear what has long been obvious, that the old media and the new media complement and feed into each other, or at any rate they ought to.
Bloggers in the right places at the right times can feed stories not just to other meta-bloggers, but to the mainstream media. A few of them were, after all, actually there. And then other bloggers, as I have just done, can point blog readers towards particularly choice mainstream media stories.
I particularly admire the way that the Guardian, for all that it is easy for the likes of us to criticise it for all kinds of other reasons, has at least learned how blogging can actually help in times like these, not just by telling the terrible story, but by helping to make it less terrible.
Now, why did the guys on the US Meteorology Station on Diego Garcia, linked on line in real time to the Honolulu outfit that published the news of an 8pt Richter Earthquake off Sumatra, not act as quickly as little Tilly ?
Perhaps those guys didn’t go to the same school…or maybe do the same projects.
Dogs that didn’t bark in the night ?
what could they do anyway?
Let me explain. There was this man called Alexander Graham Bell……
1. In the countries most effected (Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India), there was no ONE telephone number to call. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, Hawai is meant to warn PACIFIC OCEAN nations of tsunamis in the PACIFIC OCEAN. Last I looked, none of the four above named countries were part of the PACIFIC OCEAN.
2. The three geo-physicists on duty at the Pacific Tsunami Warnining Center on Christmas day DID try and warn nations in the Indian Ocean.
Earthquake monitors tried in vain to warn of problems
As is obvious in the story, there wasn’t that ONE telephone number to call in any of those countries.
3. In the future, you should do the most basic of research before commenting on how, or whether, certain people performed their jobs. Or not, but then you’ll be made to look like an ass, again.
Dear David,
I would be careful, very, very careful.
It may not have been brought to your attention amidst your intensive researches, that slap bang in the middle of the Indian Ocean, just a wee little bit below the Maldives, almost on the Equator, is the Chagos Archipelago (which we stole and shipped off the residents and gave to the US in exchange for bits of Polaris – but that is another story), part of which is the Island of Diego Garcia. The US call this the “Footrpint of Freedom”, allegedly because it bears a slight resemblance to the mark Mr Friday may have left behind in the sand.
On this island, midway between the epicentre of the earthquake and Somalia (where villages were destroyed and numberless drowned etc.,) is a vast armoury.
From these insignificant islands fly fleets of B1A and B2 bombers bound for Afghanistan and Iraq with their loads of 2,000 JDAM bombs. Plus tankers, surveillance aircraft etc., and the odd camp Justice cell for “rendered” prisoners from Afghanistanm and Iraq and anywhere else they feel like hoisting people from.
A fleet lies, station ready in its lee.
Now this island has the most incredible m,eteorological communications network in the Indian Ocean, it is on line to Honolulu and anywhere else on God’s Earth. It forms part of the US Military chain of command which is instant inetractive every minute of every day.
Two interesting points arise. These islands report no damage, and no they don’t seem to have passed any info on to anyone.
You may in your intesive researches have found an article in the Independent on Tuesday which I helped research which brought these items to the world’s attention with reports of contacts with the US Navy etc.,
Since then it seems we are to be told that half a world away, the Honolulan busy and concerned seismologists, in the midst of pondering, recording and analysing one of the most intense seismic events they have seen for 30 years, were apparently shuffling their Rolodexes, desk diaries, Filofaxes, Yellow Pages looking for someone to call. It doesn’t work like that David…gee a kid on a beach worked it out and told everybody.
Distance in today’s communications is not a concept to consider, Military forces, Diplomatic, secret services are on line, full time. If Dubya gets shot the world will know in 120 seconds….bet they don’t have a Dead President Early Warning System… but then when you consider the frequency with which people either kill or attempt unsuccessfully to kill their President they may well have.
Call me an old cynic David, but I don’t buy it…nor do I believe everything I read in the newspapers, especially with a dateline WASHINGTON.
Why is it interesting that Diego Garcia received no damage? What are you trying to say? That the US Navy had advanced warning and was able to…what? Move the island? Jack up all the buildings onto stilts in the 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours of warning time they had? Diego Garcia received no damage for the most obvious of reasons. The tsunami’s full force missed the island. Favorable sea floor topology? Deep sea trench to the east of the island? Combination of the two? Whatever. Suffice it to say, it was nothing that the US Navy controlled that saved the island.
I think another thing that needs to be remembered is that not all earht quakes cause Tsnuami – high frequency ones do, low frequency ones don’t.
As the article mentions it was in Honlolulu that realised this, they reacted, but the Thai government didn’t.
BTW am I the only one who finds Teague just a little bit cold and odious – 100,000 people die and he uses it as an excuse to try to particpate in the plotical processes of another country. Wierd racist and nasty.
Well Giles, “Wierd racist and nasty.” that’s a heavy indictment. “Cold and odious” suggests a personal knowledge which seems improbable. Whatever, it certainly maintains the level of intellectual discussion about the major problems facing the world today, at a level that will satisfy the average viewer of the “X” factor.
What I do share ( no doubt with other weird, racist, nasty, cold and odious fifth columnists and global conspiracy theorists), is a concern about the use of US military power of the US to retain world hegemony – you might like to review…
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO412C.html
Foreknowledge of A Natural Disaster:Washington was aware that a deadly Tidal Wave was building up in the Indian Ocean. by Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca 29 December 2004
Re Ryan A, …the tsunami missed DG because of favourable topology.. did they have foreknowledge?.. that’s a pretty big assumption when you are guarding squillions of US$’s worth of aircraft, personnel, missiles, bombs, prisoners.
Now the Chagos group are not wildly dissimiliar to the Maldives, where there were deaths, damage, airport out of commission.
Now if I had been in charge of DG and had the news they had at the time they had it, I might just move a few of those aircraft out of the way, with one or two people on board.. sensible precaution ? After all the massive, spanking brand new US base at Djibouti is none too far.
Is it too implausible to believe that emergency plans for such an evacuation are well rehearsed and solidly in place? Is it that unlikely that such a plan swung into action.
After all, if that kid on the beach in Phuket could work out what to do…..
..but there I go again, ….. being cold, odious, weird, racist (?) and nasty.
Yes, there you go again. You’ll have to come up with something better than the ranting of globalresearch.ca if you want to actually convince anybody.
I fail to see how the US would benefit from withholding information on the tsunami, even if they did have advance knowledge.
The problem is one of communication – try to think about how long it would take to get the message from Honolulu to all of the millions of people living in the affected areas. The countries worst hit are not especially wealthy, and probably had no infrastructure in place to evacuate large numbers of people in a short space of time, or even to notify people of the danger.
Of course, with hindsight it’s possible to see how things could have been done differently. But to imply that failures of communication were a result of malice, particularly malice on the part of the US, is plainly ridiculous.
If that kid in the beach had knowledge why none of the countries was alert,why none of meteorological / sismic institutions were alert, why they didnt send some recon aircraft? Why the Indian archipelagos of Nicobar and Adaman didnt(? if it happened didnt worked) warned the Indian continental land, tsunami was hours distance . Why Indonesia didnt warn other countries? they were the first to have proves of the Tsunami…
Pathetic Mr. Teague
Now that title ‘Global Research.ca’, sounds all very grand and official;
their home page
Have a look and see just what they are about, – a bunch of ‘activists’, with a bitch about globalisation, and Canadian, no less….so the anti US ranting is to be expected.
The Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) is an independent research and media group of progressive writers, scholars and activists committed to curbing the tide of “globalisation” and “disarming” the New World Order.
Now you just know you can take their word as being ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…’
The Centre’s objective is to unveil the workings of the New World Order
As averse to revealing the ‘New World Order’ of statist socialism, and failed communism. How long before Teague mentions Bush and ‘the neo-cons’.
Sounds just the sort of outfit that commands respect and has official backing, – when in reality it is just a bunch of conspiracy theorists, with a little financial backing from some geriatric, or group, with a bit of money to waste. Who knows, Theresa or the Ford Foundation may even be involved…
‘Progressive writers and scholars’, really gives the lie to the total lack of integrity of their various pronouncements, and mention of ‘the media’ immediately suggests that whatever they write will be spun to perfection, to suit their outdated conspiracy theories.
Just another bunch trying to get on the Pilger, Monbiot, Moore, Palast, et al, bandwagon… after all, it’s easy money. Take a few dubious facts, make a few more even more dubious assumptions, mix with bile, throw in the chip on your shoulder, and bingo!, you have yet another article to show your sponsors, and to prove just how diligent a researcher you are.
Playing Devil’s Advocate is always fun, and quite worthy, but these guys fall more into the category of agent provacateurs, with an entirely different agenda to the DA…
I wonder just what he would have said if the military had been more reticent, and had left the ‘first responder’ assistance to those other dilatory agencies, led by the UN…I am sure he would be just as accusatory.
Edward Teague: “..an article in the Independent on Tuesday which I helped research..”
Edward Teague: “…nor do I believe everything I read in the newspapers,”
Unless, perhaps, the newspaper is the Independent.
Edward Teague, could you perhaps enlighten as to what possible advantage the USA could glean from the actions you talk about? Sorry but I have had a lot to drink over the holidays so my brain functions are not quite up to grasping this particular conspiracy theory of yours.
Sometimes you think the Blame-America Firsters cannot get any nuttier, and then another one comes along.
Rob
“I fail to see how the US would benefit from withholding information on the tsunami, even if they did have advance knowledge.”
Jonathan
“….what possible advantage the USA could glean from the actions you talk about?” (Note. Read this when the booze wears off)
The US runs a daily trade deficit of 2$Bn, by (what the Financial Times calls) “The kindness of friends”, the SE Asian countries fund this growing debt by buying Treasury Bonds – any damage to their economies, gives the Treasury a bit more slack – maybe they are soon going to have to resort to legalistic ways not to redeem the bonds – foreign owners cannot redeem them before date, sell them to third parties, who knows. It may be, may not be true, but to currency traders, it’s plausible….. If you have a problem understanding this Jonty, I’ll send you a reading list, they don’t usually cover these topics on the sports pages.
Rob
Of course, with hindsight it’s possible to see how things could have been done differently.
I know experience would suggest otherwise but these meteorological stations are in the business of foresight, – that’s what they do. Interestingly Channel 4 News at 7 (that’s GMT)(UK Independent (ish) Channel ) has just interviewed the ex head of Thai Met, Services who lost his job by issuing a tsunami warning in ’98 when Papua New Guinea got hit. The tourist trade did not like it.
They also interviewed the current head Met guy in Phuket, who said once the earthquake hit, the phones started ringing, the met/seismic world is, I guess a truly global village as anybody who followed this summer’s Caribbean / Florida / Texas Hurricane Holocaust will know. He had passed on and up to Bangkok and would not answer questions about their failure to issue a warning. (so we have proof, if required, that commercial motives affected decisions to issue warnings, both past and present).
The good news is, the dismissed head, at the request of the President will head up installing a Tsunami Early Warning Service.
For those interested they can view the bulletin issued on line in real time, available to anyone on a free subscription basis from the US Geological Service of the actual quake and tremors http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/data_services/qedpost.last. This site will give you more information about earthquakes than you ever wanted to know. There have been over 150 notifiable earthquakes globally in the last 7 days.
The “Father of earthquakes” and co-inventor of the first recording seismograph was John Milne, who was born and educated just 3 miles from where I live in Rochdale UK. It was through his methods that earthquakes were first located by position (lat. & long. And depth). He was rewarded by an honour direct from the Emperor after he retired from working in Japan.
Ernest
I’m not an apologist for Global Research, I merely point you in the direction of information, which in this case, is copious, well sourced, detailed and newsworthy. There is an Uzbek proverb. Shame on you, not for ignorance, but shame because you do not ask Similiarly applies to newpapers, even if I help to write them, trsut your judgement not the news gatherer he has, Governments to keep onside, advertisers to please – judgement can get clouded when the Editor has to make a decision. So, APL no inconsistency.
In face of the silence my thesis looks risky ….Re Ryan A, …the tsunami missed DG because of favourable topology..( for more and very convincing explanation about this see http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/diego-garcia.htm) did they have foreknowledge?.. Hmmmmm. that’s a pretty big assumption when you are guarding squillions of US$’s worth of aircraft, personnel, missiles, bombs, prisoners.
Now the Chagos group are not wildly dissimilar to the Maldives, where there were deaths (74 last official figure), widespread damage, airport out of commission. Kenya, Tanzanian and Somalian coastline villages wiped out, 100’s of deaths, damage etc.,
Now if I had been in charge of DG and had the news they had at the time they had it, I might just move a few of those very, very, expensive aircraft with their volatile cargoes, out of the way, with one or two people on board.. sensible precaution ? After all the massive, spanking brand new US base at Djibouti is none too far.
Is it too implausible to believe that emergency plans for such an evacuation are well rehearsed and solidly in place? Is it that unlikely that such a plan swung into action?
The morbid and indecently nerdish, may wish to visit http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.radio.shortwave/browse_thread/thread/d24247b0dbf15876/325c708bad18a7e8?q=%22Diego+Garcia%22&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fhl%3Den%26ned%3Dus%26q%3D%22Diego+Garcia%22%26ie%3DUTF-8%26scoring%3Dd%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dng%26&_do which gives records of intercepted and open frequency traffic at the time from DG which suggest little damage caused.
http://www.airliners.net/discussions/military/read.main/26117/ is a page on a Civilian airline pilots website that discusses damage / effects to DG Imagined / real.
Probably, on reflection there was a mixture of things that produced delays and inaction, commercial concerns, rabbits in headlights syndrome.. if I don’t make a decision, I won’t make a bad one. As they repeatedly say, in the UK when there is another train crash involving death and serious injury to passengers, we must learn lessons and make sure this never happens again…
…is that sufficiently cold, odious, weird, racist (?) and nasty.
Just one last thing. Why all this handballing stuff out of squillion $ transports ? Has nobody heard of cheap extensible, gravity fed, roller conveyors that cost umpence ?
Chagos are more like the Mauritious Islands where also, little damage was reported.
Part of the reason, btw the way that the disaster is so great is that many of the countries are incredibly densely populated with iffy infrastructure to start with.
And by the by , the US armed forces probably wouldn’t talk much if their stuff was damaged, till they got it fixed.
Edward,
This quote from a link on Reuters via Drudge…1/3/05
PHUKET, Thailand (Reuters) – A Thai expert said on Monday he tried to warn the government a deadly tsunami might be sweeping toward tourist-packed beaches, but couldn’t find anyone to take his calls.
Samith Dhammasaroj said he was sure a tsunami was coming as soon as he heard about the massive Dec. 26 earthquake off Indonesia’s Sumatra island that measured magnitude 9.0 — the world’s biggest in 40 years. “I tried to call the director-general of the meteorological office, but his phone was always busy,” Samith said as he described his desperate attempts to generate an alert which might have saved thousands of lives.
I do trust my judgement, and your piece comes over as very unbalanced, – your predjuce shows. A good reporter would report the facts, as is, without the predjudice, what you do is to present no more than badly written, badly informed opinion, badly presented, and in a rather odious style.
I would add a rider to your Uzbek quote, – (oh, arn’t you well read Mr. Teague!); – “Shame on you, not for ignorance, but shame on you, because you do not ask – the right questions of the right people.
The Global Research organisation does not qualify as being a good source of information. by any parameter. The same would seem to apply to the other sources that you use. I suspect that it is your judgement that is at fault…
Point taken, but to believe in a conspiracy would require believing that the scientists working for the US Govt. were actively prevented from passing on warnings, or chose not to do so out of some patriotic desire to improve their nation’s financial circumstances. Both strike me as highly unlikely, especially as you go on to provide a far more plausible explanation for the failure of communication:
The failure to issue warnings lies squarely with the governments of the affected countries. The US does not bear responsibility for their actions. I’m no apologist for US actions, but there’s simply no grounds to criticise them here.
Sadly those commercial motives were misguided – the loss of life will cause economic damage far greater than the evacuation of coastal areas would have done. The resulting loss of confidence in the safety of SE Asian countries will damage the tourist trade far more than a false alarm ever would. The fault lies not with the consideration given to commercial motives, but the ill-conceived and short-sighted nature of the decisions taken.
Oh dear. I would love to read this post and the comments, but it appears that one Edward teague has stretched the window ludicrously and I can’t abide all that side-scrolling.
Rob
There is no evidence of a US conspiracy. What we do have evidence of now is
1. In Thailand senior levels of Government were aware of the risk (and it was a risk, not a certainty) and decided not to issue a warning. It is plausible that this was essentially a commercially based decision. Which had origins in experience of previous erroneous warnings being issued. A rational decision, if in hindsight an unwise one.
2. The worldwide US military web were well aware of the risk and there is no evidence that they were effective in distributing this knowledge to SE Asian Governments / authorities – or if they did, that those authorities did not issue any warnings….but the jury is still out.
As usual though.. more cock up than conspiracy.
Ernest
You claim I am biased, prejudiced (not to mention odious etc.,) yet you totally dismiss the output of global research (and other unnamed sources I mention).
Unbalanced ?
Edward,
Dismissed because they lack any credibilty. Being balanced has nothing to do with accepting every crackpot theory put forward by groups such as GR. I have read several of their articles, and rejected their ideas and opinions as being more in the realms of science fiction.
Their opinions etc. bear no more weight or credence, than any other individual – they are no more reliable a source of information than any other group wishing to make a biased point. The name sounds very grand and official, – as it is supposed to, – like the rest of the rubbish it produces. For all that is known, it could well be a single individual, pretending to be some academic think tank, – it lacks credentials and credibility!!
One shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity … or even simple ignorance.
Lives were saved because one child actually had a clue.
Prior experience is about the only thing that could have preventedinaction … or luck. Bangladesh has had so many cyclone based floods that few folks live near the beach, and the few that do know where to run to get to high ground. They had exactly two causualties total.
Here in Oregon, and in Alaska and Japan, seacoast towns have been hit by tsunamis during the twentieth century … you can see well marked tsunami evac routes on the Oregon coast … and the town fire stations have tsunami alarms on the roofs.
Subscribe (Free)to the United States Geological Service and you get automatic, on line real time e-mail notification of earthquakes over 5.00 Richter scale. This arrived just recently. It’s that easy. So the US does aotomatically tell people … they just have to ask.
2005/01/04 09:13 M 6.0 ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION Z= 25km 10.67N 92.40E
This information is provided by the USGS
National Earthquake Information Center.
(Address problems to: sedas@ghtmail.cr.usgs.gov)
These parameters are preliminary and subject to revision.
A magnitude 6.0 earthquake IN THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA REGION has occurred at:
10.67N 92.40E Depth 25km Tue Jan 4 09:13:12 2005 UTC
Time: Universal Time (UTC) Tue Jan 4 09:13:12 2005
Time Near Epicenter Tue Jan 4 14:43:12 2005
Eastern Standard Time (EST) Tue Jan 4 04:13:12 2005
Central Standard Time (CST) Tue Jan 4 03:13:12 2005
Mountain Standard Time (MST) Tue Jan 4 02:13:12 2005
Pacific Standard Time (PST) Tue Jan 4 01:13:12 2005
Alaska Standard Time (AST) Tue Jan 4 00:13:12 2005
Hawaii Standard Time (HST) Mon Jan 3 23:13:12 2005
Location with respect to nearby cities:
115 km (70 miles) SSW of Port Blair, Andaman Islands, India (pop 100,000)
315 km (195 miles) NNW of Misha, Nicobar Islands, India
945 km (590 miles) WSW of BANGKOK, Thailand
2535 km (1580 miles) SE of NEW DELHI, Delhi, India
For maps, additional information, and subsequent updates,
please consult:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usswal.htm .
Flinn-Engdahl Region Number = 703
For the most significant earthquakes, information may also be
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Edward,
So now you are giving the lie to your original comment, and providing the proof that the US government does, and did give anyone, who was interested, the early warning of disaster, the lack of which, you were so critical of in the first place.
See what you can do when you do proper research, and from the proper sources, such as ‘the horses mouth’.
Your honesty in writing that last post does you credit…mind you , I didn’t check your sources, – this time…lol
The _Los Angeles Times_ had a long article on Sunday about the series of events, warnings, etc. Some points that I remember from the article:
1. Earthquakes don’t necessarily produce tsunamis.
2. Sometimes scientists who expect a tsunami turn out to be wrong.
3. Because of those two things, the US tsunami warning system has produced a number of false alarms.
4. Hawaiian scientists did warn the Thai government that there might be a tsunami, but the warning was ignored because it was the middle of tourist season.
5. An Indian Navy base on an island was hit by the Tsunami 30 minutes before it reached India. The survivors at the base were able to radio a distress call, but their superiors who received it didn’t realize what had happened until it was too late.
6. Indonesia was hit well before anybody else, but for obvious reasons wasn’t in a position to send out warnings.
Personally, I suspect that even if the affected governments had known for sure a tsunami was coming, they might have kept it secret. Governments have a history of leaving their citizens to twist in the wind in the name of “preventing panic.” Ultimately, the sort of local observation made by Tilly Smith is the only reliable warning.
Edward, further to your view that there was something iffy about how Diego Garcia was saved
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/01/04/tsunami.diegogarcia.ap/index.html
As your doctor told you
I would be careful, very, very careful.
about taking your medication every day.
Giles
You will find I posted this link Jan 3rd which predates, the CNN story and is far more informative. and much better written.
http//www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/diego-garcia.htm
Be very, very careful.
The US runs a daily trade deficit of 2$Bn…
I run a weekly trade deficit of US $80 with the local supermarket. Maybe I would benefit by firebombing it.