DISASTER AVOIDABLE

[Guest lazyphil]

Blame Mother Nature.

[jxxxl]

She can be a real BITCH sometimes:onfire:

[Nervous_Dog]

HT - this is one area where the company I work with has built the early warning for earthquakes in Columbia (After some big earth quake 15 years ago) and the early warning system used in South Korea.

 

They are NOT that expensive, but that said, how do you use them and maintain them.

 

One way is that they broadcast warnings at each site specfically, such as, "Ruun fast to the north up Soi Nongchai, in a few different languages.

 

This is a system we have done before, but then you have to ask, how many times has a freak tsunami hit Southern Thailand, or a earthquake?

 

Is it often enough to justify such a system?

 

My accountant would love to say yes, but I doubt it for Thailand alone.

 

Indonesia would benifit FAR more than thailand I think, which means it should be like the pacific system, which is regionally owned and maintained. Which is the real answer of course, a regionally owned system, but that is so hard to organise here!

 

System uses the Satellite systems we design which send data to individual or all sites, satellite as it is not affected by the disaster on ground, with own power supply

 

DOG

[elef]

Hi ND,

 

can your early warning system detect a tsunami just by observations from satellites?

 

I watched a TV-program yesterday where a prof told that a tsunami is just 1 m high out on the ocean and most boats don't even notice a passing tsunami. He said the way to detect those is measure the weight of water on certain places - several to be able to predict the direction.

 

Also a speed of 800 km/h (500 mph) is really dangerous.

 

elef

[itsmedave]

I read in the Nation today that there was another incident 2 years ago, where the meteorological service picked up a disturbance at sea and DID issue a warning. Fortunately, nothing serious came of the situation but the minister in question was sharply chastised by Thaksin for causing a scare that might affect tourism.

 

The article went on to say that the same ministry learned of this situation a full hour before the first wave hit. Seems the minister learned his lesson and didn't warn anybody. They surmise that this could be a contributing factor in what caused so many deaths.

[jxxxl]

That's the whole point. You have to have policies in place to enable people to verify a threat and act on it, and quickly. Even in the most developed countries, these disaster policies are work-in-progress. Add to that a completely unknown disaster and you can understand why there were no proceedures in place.

 

It's just bollocks to blame some lone guy for not being able to escalate a warning. Now, if the same thing were to happen, then you could perhaps blame the government for not having a plan in place.

[Nervous_Dog]

What happens is the system is very similar to what you ccould see in todays Bangkok post.

 

It is a seismic recorder (not ours, we dont supply that part) attached to a IP Data transmitter.

 

It sends to the Satellite the information of the incident, up to the satellite.

 

This data is then colleced from a number of units, including wave information, and sent back, in IP form, to a ceral cenre, where it pin points the incident, what is happening.

 

Then the system we installed in South Korea is used, this is simply similar system to what Ropongi was talking about. bascially loud speakers broadcasting warnings and what to do.

 

The satellite itself does not "See" the even, but our device on the ground or water takes the message and sends it up to the sattelite.

 

Uses a normal satellite too.

 

Dog

[itsmedave]

Indeed, but we're talking about a trilogy of terror here. It all started when the PM came out and said publicly that there was no SARS in Thailand to avoid a drop in tourism even though we found later that he knew there were cases. Then, having no learned his lesson he did the same thing with Bird Flu last year. Is it really hard to imagine that he didn't do the exact same thing in this case???

[Guest]

But polices, procedures should be in place for this and other acts of nature, terrorism, etc. If not in place, you can become a victim.

 

Case in point, I was on the Sky Train last week. I noticed a suitcase in one of the corners of the car. I asked the Thai lady across from me if it was hers. She said no. I asked the only other passenger in the car, another falang and he said no.

 

We decided to leave the train on the next stop. We called the guard over and explained the situation. Instead of stopping the train, etc. he did not know what to do. Fortunately nothing happened but then, it could have been a dry run. Who knows.

[chuckwoww]

Suadum is right. Not enough time to get a warning out. How could it be done anyway? TV? Radio? And what do you tell people to do? A big rush of people onto the streets in this case would have made things worse.

 

My guess is a lot of people saw the sea going out and just stood paralysed in disbelief. Obviously the best thing to do was to grab your kids, documents etc. and head for the roof of the nearest solid building. Not much help on Phi Phi or Koh Lak.