DISASTER AVOIDABLE

[Guest]

As the numbers keep rolling in of the number dead, I shake my head - could this have been avoidable - and my answer is YES.

 

[color:"red"] I have mentioned my feelings about this before, but the general consensus is - no it could not have been avoided. PERIOD. [/color]

 

But yesterday's Bangkok Post had in their editorial section a large article that supported the belief it could have been avoided! There was about a 4 hour advance notice of what was on its way but because of no procedures, etc., nobody could contact nobody so as to warn the people.

 

Such poor planning and lack of contingency plans has got to be examined. It is not just in areas of this tragedy that have to be examined, but in a lot of other areas which can have global impact.

 

One area I find interesting is the number of near misses the earth encounters each year from Meteors. Very little in planning and contingencies plans have been laid out on how to deal with an inpending direct hit from a meteor.

 

:: Instead of always becoming victims you would think mankind , thru such national organizations as the UN, could really look out for the interests of the people, and if proper warning systems, evaculation procedures were in place, nobody would hace died. The cost in impementing such 'systems' is a lot cheaper then the cost in lives.

[Neo]

I am outraged by one aspect of this. America saw and tracked the tsunami by satellite every inch of the way. They immediately phoned the countries that would be affected because they knew exactly where and when it would hit. But the people they called didn't know what to do with this information and not one single country acted.

 

Meanwhile completely out of the loop, the Thai Meteo-rological Department held an emergency meeting regarding a far away 7.9 earthquake and reached the logical consensus that an earthquake of that magnitude that far away was nothing to worry about as experience had shown. They thus chose not to act or evacuate areas in Thailand and I don't blame them based on what they knew at that time. The guy I wonder about is the one in Thailand who received the phone call regarding the tsunami on the way. It seems he could have saved thousands and countless more injured if he had only acted diligently. Some accidents are not preventable, but surely this seems a case where one guy let down a nation. And amazingly this same story seems to have played out in each of the other nations notified.

 

Yes of course there probably should have been better channels and preparations in place for such events, but that's no excuse for the utter failure to do anything at all in this case. A lot of people died when they didn't have to and the guy who dropped the ball and his superiors do not even seem to care as there have not been any resignations or terminations over this that I have seen.

[..]

MightyMouse said:There was about a 4 hour advance notice of what was on its way but because of no procedures, etc., nobody could contact nobody so as to warn the people.

Bloody ridiculous! a) Quake was at ~0800. Waves hit Phuket at ~0930. That's an hour and a half. No way that even in hyper-organized Japan with all the early warning systems there, they have would had barely enough time to sound an alarm, let alone get people to safety in that time-frame. And , this has never happened in the Indian ocean, so of course there is no warning system. And I highly doubt that there will be after this as there is simply not enough seismic activity that can cause a tsunami in the region. It's a little thing called "cost-benefit ratio". When one has finite resources (i.e., $$), you must spend them in the most productive manner. Since this is a super rare occurance, I could not justify an early warning system either if I were the final decision maker.

 

Yes it is a tragedy. But blaming it on someone is insane. Accidents happen. That's why they are called accidents.

 

Regards,

SD

[rickfarang]

As for the people who did not react to the telephone calls- it would not be reasonable to heap blame on them. It is not in the nature of most government workers to take initiaitve, but to respond according to established protocol. Second, it is not their collective fault (no pun) that the earthquake occured in the first place.

 

On the subject of the end of the world (back on the thread's topic):

 

Somebody sent this article to me a couple of days ago, possibly in an attempt to cheer me up, or at least show me that things could be worse. Hey, it looks like there is only a 2% chance of this one hitting. Why worry -it would be 25 years off anyway.

 

--start clipped article--

Asteroid impact odds improve

 

p2pnet.net OT News:- There's a 1-in-45 chance that Asteroid 2004 MN4, discovered in June and spotted again last week, will collide with the Earth on April 13, 2029.

 

And Yes. April 13 is a Friday (as Higgy points out ; )

 

First calculations suggested there was a 1-in-300 chance of an impact. On December 23, they were 1-in-60, but up-dated figures released today give better odds, if you can call it that.

 

The calculations, together with the asteroid's size (some 1312.34 feet, or 400 meters, in diameter) have led NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office to give the object a '2' on the 0-to-10 Torino Scale of impact risk, the highest-ever rating ever applied to an object since the scale's introduction several years ago.

 

This means impact odds, "are unusual enough to merit special monitoring by astronomers, but should not be of public concern," says NASA, adding, "Further observations are likely to diminish, if not completely eliminate, any impact risk, based on past experience."

Impact Probability: 2.2e-02

 

2.200000000% chance of Earth impact

 

or 1 in 45 chance

 

or 97.80000000% chance the asteroid will miss the Earth

 

 

The NASA bookies don't say what'll happen if they're wrong and Asteroid 2004 MN4 hits.

 

Maybe they'll wheel Bruce Willis out to fix it, as he did in Armegeddon.

 

Of course, the movie asteroid was the size of Texas so there was a little more to worry about

 

And as Higgy says, "Friday the 13th isn't that bad. Monday the 13th is."

 

--end clipped article--

 

On a different note: The excessive use of bold type is as annoying as the excessive use of capital letters.

 

Warm greetings to all for the new year. It HAS to be better than this one.

[pattaya127]

I would agree with Suadum, if his timing records are correct. We are talking about 10 of 000 people to warn off their hotel bed, and other places, just telling them, do not ask questions, no time, just run. Such a big emptying of a resort needed organization that 90 minutes could not provide. It could have been even worse, with streets completely crowded with haggard and panicky people, in a jam that would not allow vehicles either to transport all to safety. And how to convey the message to evry room at a time when not all hotel employess ar at work, and i am talking only tourists here. Even sirens and megaphones could not exactly do the job in 90 minutes, with orderliness. No?

[buffalo_bill]

Fine. So let us imagine Thai meteorological analyst Dr. Neo sitting at his desk at8:00 a.m. highly alerted because it is Sunday. Somebody rings from America and says a giant Tsunami is hitting the Thai coastline and if he please should alert somebody. Preferably the whole county if convenient. Dr. Neo confirms the message and starts thinking what to do next . Ring the Phuket townhall and say : please evacuate Phuket , a Tsunami is coming , please evacuate the whole coastline. But unfortunately there is a tape recorder saying office closed til Monday. Dr. Neo does not give up though and tries to ring the local army after he found the appropriate tel number in the Yellow Pages under : " Evacuation , Tsunami - related " A sergeant picks up the phone and Dr. Neo asks for the nearest general to evacuate the Thai West Coast in total but we have only 50 minutes left. Everybody at the Thai army knows Dr. Neo , immediately jumps into his trousers and then does what ? Dr. Neo realises now that life is difficult because nobody listens to him and starts ringing all hotels at the Western Thai coast . He starts with the Amapuri Resort where all staff regularly on Sunday mornings throw their guests out of their 1000 Dollar bungalows because of the frequent Tsunamis. And so forth. Nuff said.

 

Neo , even if they had a red alarm button which would have woken up all of Siam in a second , are you sure you would have shown the balls to pull the trigger in reaction to something that has never ever happened before and was just unthinkable ? Maybe loose face bigtime if no Tsunami coming maybe.

 

I remember shortly after the 9/11 events they found plenty of evidence about strange Arabs doing strange things at Florida flying schools and this has even been reported to the police but nobody woke up. It is easy to judge about people after it went wrong and you have no responsibility anway.

 

BuBi

[Guest]

Hi MM,

 

This thing came out of nowhere. No reason for anyone to be suspect. We have in the Pacific, because much more likely, and importantly, Hawaii, and the west coast of US is able to afford it's maintenance, which is very expensive, from what I understand.

 

Should it be expected that poor countries be expected to build, and then maintain such elaborate defense systems? It might come to fruition now, but was never recognized as a necessity, up until now.

 

HT

[Neo]

No, I am not one of those that blame the USA one bit for not being prepared for 9/11, so please do not insinuate that. If they received a phone call 1.5 hours beforehand from a credible source saying a hijacked plane was on a 100% sure collision course for the WTC I would blame them if they had not evacuated. Can't you see this difference?

 

I also don't find any humor in your remarks as this is a very serious thing; a lot of people are dead, families shattered, other maimed because someone dropped the ball. Making Thai emergency personnel sound like a joke is in bad taste. Thai officials are not as incompetent as you make it sound and they do have the ability to act in this circumstance and an organization to orchestrate this. There was time enough for police and emergency workers on loud speakers to evacuate patong beach and warn locals so they didn't run out to collect beached fish as the tide receded. If they had just tried, it would have been great. Even if they just saved one person it would have been worth it. JUST ONE.

 

I am also apalled people are ho-hum it wasn't his job to field this kind of phone call. If peoples lives are in the balance, you should try to do something, anything when you are in that position. I think the USA did that and I applaud them. What happened in the disconnect in each country warned of a tsunami approaching surely should be scrutinized. My point is there is a big difference between trying to do something to help versus doing nothing at all. I don't understand the negative responses to this so far. Is it such a strange idea to you?

 

[Guest]

I think some are looking at this as an old picture and not looking at it as a big picture.

 

What is the cost of implementing a warning system to notify citizens of an impending terrorist attack, a tsunami or another natural disaster? NOT MUCH!

 

I based this on what it cost the US to implement polices, plans, drills, etc. in which people went thru the exercise when the sirens went off of an impending nuclear attack. Such plans, policies were also implented in many countries during World War II.

 

Today, because of possible terrroist attacks, some claim nothing can be done. NOT TRUE!

 

I receive by e-mail every earthquake 5.5 or larger. When I saw the 8.1 quake (between Australia and Antartica) about 1 week before this major earthquake, I felt there was serious concern of a real major earthquake. This should have been the wake up call. Countries should have went to a high level of alert.

 

As for alerting people to the danger, it is easy to implement sirens that sound the warning but also provide it in a format to alert the people as to the type of problem. At this point, it up to the local people to carry out notifying everybody.

 

Beaches get cleared almost the same way as beaches are cleared for shark warnings, etc. by word of mouth.

 

People should not wait till something 'bad' happens before they can take actiion, but should be looking at ways of reducing loses, etc. If proper planning was done in regards to warning people, the loss of life would have been minimal.

 

Besides, warning people of a tsunami can also be used for other things such as impending terrorist attacks, etc.

 

 

We should have learned from the World Trade Center disaster that we do not have to sit around waiting to become victims. With policies that were in place, the planes should never had hit their targets.

[buffalo_bill]

Neo,

 

all I am saying is that it needs a genius with a built in radar antenna to react properly to seomething that he has never heard of. I do not say Thai officials are incompetent .

 

BuBi