Open Board group posting on GLOBOsapiens

Like in the 17th century. What happened to our information high ways?

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andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8309 Posts: 808 Posted: 2004-12-29 15:19:00    Hello everybody, I am shocked as everybody about the tragic katastrophe in South East Asia. Tens of thousands of inhabitants and travelers have died. What I really can not understand, is how could this happen in the year 2004? Are we back to the 17th century? The earth quake took place thousands of miles of most of the affected areas. Leaving about 2 hours to alarm the governments, news agancies and other institutions. Why could not one of the guys send just a fax to reuters stating that there is a tsunami on their way ariving in 2 hours! Spread the news. I mean come on guys, two hours of time? Most news take just minutes to be picked up by the media. Of course this could not save everybody, but I am sure it would have helped a lot. Maybe I did get this wrong and somebody could shed a light on that for me. I just don't get it. Andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   rangutan Premium account Joined: Aug 04 Points: 34752 Posts: 1044 Posted: 2004-12-29 16:02:00    I agree 100% and ask the same questions, am extremely annoyed about no warning system in the Indian Ocean. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India 4-5 hours after the earthquake was registered! Tsunamis are more regular than one hears about but a 8-9 Richter-scale earthquake (detected within minutes around the whole Indian Ocean Basin) should have rang bigger bells! Also it was predicted this WOULD happen but not WHEN, just like "The Big One" is expected in California and an island mountain off the coast of Africa will collapse into the Atlantic and damage Americas coasts - these certain, perhaps only in 200 years, but within our lifetimes also likely. The Pacific, especially the Japanese, are well prepared for these kind of waves and flooding. The Philippines has just announced a budget for a similar warning system. With the help of seismologists and a simple network of email/telephone-hotlines and sirens this could have been avoided. Costs to organise: less than $1million. The detection equipment is already present and running costs only perhaps $1000 per month per state/province. Alternatively/additionaly, the bit of standby/running costs could be done by current weathermen/universities/colleges anyway. Instead now, loss of lives (those due to health-risks and reconstruction will double the current figure) and $billions in damage!!! Some will blame/ask why GOD done this? Its only a regular and REOCCURING happening on our globe - has always happened - will happen again. I am a scientist and am willing to answer any questions some may have about this natural phenomenon or always anything about our earth or geography. P.S. Please also see http://www.globosapiens.net/topic-aisian-earthquake_40_1371_0000.html [ This Message was edited by: rangutan on 2004-12-29 16:47 ] --- Rudolf "Rangutan" Graspointner Reply    Reply with quote    Contact rangutan   britman Premium account Joined: Apr 04 Points: 17984 Posts: 83 Posted: 2004-12-29 16:23:00    I understand that the ASEAN countries had recently rejected the idea of a Tsunami early warning system on (a) cost grounds and (b) it had never happened before in their living memory. To my simple mind it was a crass misjudgement - the cost is peanuts when you are living in Tsunami reach of one of the world’s largest earthquake zones - i.e. Indonesian archipelago. I hope the whole world thinks of installing Tsunami early warning systems including Europe and the Mediterranean countries. A Tsunami can, thankfully rarely, happen anywhere at any time! One never knows the day or the time! I cannot explain how numb and shocked that I feel having submitted so many pictures of Sri Lanka and it’s fishermen in my slide show just last month. I now fear that most of the people in that slide show maybe victims! The three beautiful little boys in my anthropology slide show lived with their rope making parents in a hovel on the beach of Southern Sri Lanka. Words for the first time fail me – only my hopes and prayers survive that a miracle has somehow saved them! Brit --- Cheers! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact britman   andreas Joined: May 02 Points: 8309 Posts: 808 Posted: 2004-12-29 21:50:00    How is this possible. 4-5 hours till Sri Lanka was reached? How long does it take to bring out news to the media? 1 hour, 2 hours , half a day, a day? I don't understand?! I mean.. hello!! Imagine you are sitting now infront of your computer and somebody out there knows that you will certanly be hit by a wave in 2 hours from now! I have been in Thailand and I know how many Internet Caffees there are. There is one on every corner! All those people writing, recieving e-mails, and reading news sites from home. What do you need sirenes for? It would have been enough if that would have been out there on CNN, or any other news site to spread the word in seconds! So this leaves the question why the people who knew it did not come out with their knowledge. I would really like to see a public discussion about this in the global news after the people still alive have recieved sufficent help. I wonder what they did after they saw a 9.0 Earth Quake on their screens. Maybe there is truth in the saying that there is no such news like bad news. A lot of people will make loads of money on that. As for 9/11 I know that for example one newspage in Germany did recieve tramendous traffic and lots of the people stayed on the site. It was the only one who could cope with the traffic in that days. That leaves the question if there are possible material interests in keeping news in the pipeline since there is a bunch of bucks waiting to be made. I know this is a bit harsch to think or even write down, but this thought might not be that far from the truth. However, I hope that those who have survived will be able to rebuild their lives and homes. Please do have a look on GLOBO's main page and pick a help organisation where you can help those people even from far away. I did remove the commercial parts on the main page and replaced them with info on help organisations. I hope this will be of some help for those who survived the terrible katastrophe. Andy Reply    Reply with quote    Contact andreas   britman Premium account Joined: Apr 04 Points: 17984 Posts: 83 Posted: 2004-12-29 22:40:00    Andy, I understand your bitterness – we all feel this bile! I am not defending others omissions. There can be no defence. Neither am I familiar with the location of the seismologists around the Indian Ocean or in other parts of the world and their global efficacy or early warning methods. However, I surmise but certainly don’t excuse, the relevant human factors that were probably missing at the timing of this happening. They may prove to be crucial in this unfortunate catastrophe which may turn out to be the world’s worst human disaster. The earthquake triggering the tsunami occurred on possibly the quietest day in the world’s calendar for human interaction! Namely on Boxing Day, Sunday, 26th December 2004, the morning after Christmas Day and very early in the morning, The chances are that most public and government officials, scientists, newspaper and media reporters in fact the vast majority of the world would not be working then, and those in Indonesia – sleeping! Almost all organisations would be operating if at all, on a skeleton staff. Almost everyone would be taking holidays or days off on the Sunday or all over Christmas!! Either way staffing would be non existent and not normal. Even if the seismologists were working, the chances are that radio, TV, newspaper news gatherers, editors etc would certainly not be working. Consequentially, no one would be in situ or in an everyday station to warn people of the imminent danger erupting. It may be that the poor people near the epicentre of the earthquake of the coast of Sumatra were devastated, annihilated or whatever and unable to raise any alarms. Indeed, there is no landmass between them and where the tsunami reached. I believe also that the tsunami itself is not apparent in the ocean – so shipping would not detect the danger until it reached the shore or coastal regions. I consider myself to know a bit of geography and geology but I honestly had no idea of what a tsunami could do, I didn’t know that the tide recedes before the huge wave comes crashing into land. I didn’t realise that it could travel the oceans for thousands of miles before unleashing its terrible force. Perhaps now we will all be educated and money will be spent (such a relatively a tiny amount in universal terms). We need that investment worldwide to detect and raise alarms internationally along all coastlines. Certainly good news is no news. News is about bad news! So the media is having a field day fuelled by its audience who are hungry for news of disasters. Hungry because it may affect the audience in a personal way, affect someone that they know or, somewhere that they have visited – again human nature! Our emotion of anger is natural following such a disaster. Our search to blame others is natural and omnipresent. We must remember though that the natural forces of nature are more powerful than man can ever be. Finally alone words fail me to express my sorrow, grief and sympathy to all those affected. --- Cheers! Reply    Reply with quote    Contact britman   italian-link Premium account Joined: Jul 04 Points: 673 Posts: 11 Posted: 2004-12-31 05:28:00    I agree with you 100%. Well, many claim the cost to putting in an ocean warning system, like they have in the Pacific, would be prohibitively expensive. I can't imagine nowadays with our wireless internet, and satellite, and cell phones, that it would be that expensive to put in place. I know a lot of those countries are 3rd world, but still. Hopefully we all can learn from this tragedy, and save lives in the future. Larry --- "Linking you to the world of Italy" http://www.Addicted2-Italy.com Reply    Reply with quote    Contact italian-link   downundergal Premium account Joined: Jun 02 Points: 12936 Posts: 221 Posted: 2004-12-31 06:17:00    Hi all, I feel overwhelmed with disbelief and sadness the same way as everyone else is and sickened to the core. But I still cannot believe that not one person who knew a huge earthquake occurred along with the tsunamis did not think to alert either the relevant foreign embassy in their own country or contact someone in the soon to be affected country. Excuses like skeleton staff/Xmas/Boxing Day holiday just do not wash. There was hours of notice.... Unfortunately one of the saddest things is due to the rarity of tsunamis occurring in that part of the world there was a total lack of realisation of the danger of what was about to transpire. Education may have saved thousands. I am not sure if you have seen the pictures already circulating on the internet but there are people standing there with unbrellas laughing and smiling while a huge wave is about to crash over them and wash them away!!! Stories of people running down to the water to look on in curiosity. There are now plans to install an early warning system in this part of the world but too little too late. A hard lesson learnt. Kerrie --- Where to next? Reply    Reply with quote    Contact downundergal