[angelize56]

I feel due to the tragic magnitude of this disaster, this event merits it's own thread. My heart goes out to all the dead, injured, displaced people, survivors, those missing, families and friends of those affected by this major tragedy in Asia. In a brief moment's time so many have lost their lives...over 15,000 people. My thoughts and prayers are with all affected....and I worry people we know from here at TSG could be among the affected...


Asia quake death toll tops 15,000
Monday, December 27, 2004 Posted: 3:28 AM EST (0828 GMT)

CHENNAI, India (CNN) -- As dawn broke Monday across the Bay of Bengal, countries struck by tsunamis in the wake of the most powerful earthquake the planet has seen in 40 years focused on relief and rescue efforts, and said the death toll from the giant waves -- already more than 15,000 -- is expected to rise further.

The tsunamis also left thousands injured, thousands missing and hundreds of thousands homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

A Sri Lankan forecaster warned of a "remote possibility of small tidal waves" caused by aftershocks Monday.

Some of the tsunamis reached as far as 1,600 kilometers (91,000 miles) from the epicenter of the 9.0 magnitude quake, which was located about 160 kilometers (100 miles) off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

The quake struck about 7 a.m. Sunday (midnight GMT Saturday), according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Center.

It is the fourth-largest earthquake since such measurements began in 1899, according to the NEIC, tying with a 1952 quake in Kamchatka, Russia.

More than 4,500 people have been reported dead in Sri Lanka. Most of them, authorities said, were in the eastern district of Batticaloa. Thousands were missing and more than a half million displaced.

In southern Sri Lanka, 200 prisoners escaped when the waves swept away a high-security prison in Matara.

Witnesses in the eastern Sri Lankan port city Trincomalee reported 14 meter (40-foot) waves hitting inland as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles).

The Sri Lankan government declared a state of emergency, and, along with the government of the Maldives, has requested international assistance, the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported.

The United Nations has warned of epidemics within days unless health systems in the affected areas can cope.

"This may be the worst natural disaster in recent history because it is affecting so many heavily populated coastal areas ... so many vulnerable communities," the U.N.'s Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland told CNN.

As the sun rose, 20,000 Sri Lankan soldiers and naval personnel launched relief and rescue efforts. India sent six warships, carrying supplies, along with helicopters.

Priorities including identifying the hardest-hit areas and air-dropping supplies, along with shepherding stranded people to safer areas.

Sri Lankan authorities imposed a curfew overnight, and many residents remained concerned about the possibility of additional tsunamis.

The country has been in the throes of a civil war, and land mines uprooted by the waves were hampering relief efforts.

Some tourists, meanwhile, had been evacuated from the hard-hit eastern coasts to the capital, Colombo, on the west coast and unaffected.

At first light, many Sri Lankans ventured out to scour the debris for belongings or to search for information on missing family members.

Although India was giving aid to Sri Lanka, that country also was reeling from the aftermath of the quake and tsunamis. India's official government news agency, Press Trust of India, said at least 6,000 Indians were killed, and more bodies were being recovered.

A resident of Chennai (formerly Madras) in Tamil Nadu district -- India's hardest-hit area -- said he saw several people being swept out to sea.

Along India's southeastern coast, several villages appeared to have been swept away, and thousands of fishermen -- including 2,000 from the Chennai area alone -- who were at sea when the waves thundered ashore have not returned.

Along the coast, brick foundations were all that remained of village homes. In Tamil Nadu state, 1,725 people have been confirmed dead, and officials feared many more died on the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, where dozens of aftershocks were centered, but communication with the mainland was cut off.

CNN correspondent Ram Ramgopal said authorities had confirmed 2,000 deaths on those islands.

Efforts to provide survivors with food and shelter were hampered by the overwhelming magnitude of the damage.

Thai authorities said more than 400 people are dead, and hundreds are missing.

One witness said Phuket's famed Laguna Beach resort area is "completely gone." The area provided 40 percent of Thailand's $10 billion annual income from tourism.

Among the missing were scuba divers who had been exploring the Emerald Cave off Phuket's coast.

Phuket's airport -- which closed when its runways flooded -- reopened, but most roads in the area remained closed, as officials tried to assess the damage.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in Phuket and declared the situation "under control." He told CNN he planned to direct rescue and relief efforts overnight.

Witnesses reported guests drowned in their hotel rooms near the coast as 10 meter (30-foot) waves washed ashore.

Others reported narrow escapes -- including a Spaniard who had been aboard a boat when the wave approached.

The captain began screaming and turned the boat directly into a nearby shore, where he beached it.

As those aboard jumped from the craft and scrambled up the steep beach, they turned back to see the waves crush their boat, the Spaniard said.

Communication difficulties

More than 500 people have been confirmed dead in Indonesia -- many of them in Aceh, in northern Sumatra, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the quake's epicenter, according to local reports.

The quake also inflicted heavy damage on the area, which is a hotbed of rebel activity, before two tsunamis slammed the coastline.

Access and communications were difficult if not impossible; the death toll remained a mystery on the west coast of Aceh, where communications had been completely wiped out. News agencies in the country have reported more than 4,000 dead.

The tsunamis struck with no warning to those in coastal areas, as no warning system exists for the Indian Ocean, said Eddie Bernard, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine and Environmental Labs in Seattle.

Staffers at warning centers that cover the Pacific Basin and the U.S. West Coast were aware of the quake and the possibility of tsunamis, said Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"They were able to make contact, but they did not have the proper government officials to notify," she said. "They'll be working on this in the future."

The earthquake is classified as "great" -- the strongest classification given by the NEIC.

NEIC geophysicist Don Blakeman said the tsunamis were triggered by the initial massive jolt.

"The damage is just phenomenal," said Jan Egelund, U.N. emergency relief coordinator. "I think we are seeing now one of the worst natural disasters ever."

Aftershocks

There was disagreement over whether the threat was over. Waverly Person, Blakeman's colleague at NEIC, said the tsunamis are "long over" and residents and visitors should not worry about further tsunamis.

Bernard, however, said the aftershocks are strong enough to produce more tsunamis.

One such aftershock, measuring 7.3 in magnitude, struck about 300 kilometers (200 miles) northwest of Banda Aceh -- on Sumatra's northernmost tip -- more than four hours after the initial quake, according to the NEIC.

The center expects the quake to produce hundreds of smaller aftershocks, under 4.6 magnitude, and thousands smaller than that.

"A quake of this size has some pretty serious effects," Person said.

The quake represented the energy released from "a very large rupture in the earth's crust" more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) long. The rupture created shock waves that pushed the water at speeds of up to several hundred kilometers per hour.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit anywhere on Earth since March 1964, when a 9.2 quake struck near Alaska's Prince William Sound.

The strongest recorded earthquake (and records go back to 1899) registered 9.5 on May 22, 1960, in Chile.

Sunday's quake hit a year after the 6.6-magnitude quake in Bam, Iran, which killed more than 30,000 people, injured another 30,000 and destroyed 85 percent of the buildings in the southeastern Iran city.

[angelize56]

I just heard on TV that there are looters...some people have no shame!!!

Asia Tsunami Kills 15,500, Rush to Find Bodies

Reuters 12-27-04

By Chamintha Thilakarathna

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Soldiers searched for bodies in treetops, families wept over the dead laid on beaches and rescuers scoured coral isles for missing tourists as Asia counted the cost on Monday of a tsunami that killed more than 15,500.

Idyllic palm-fringed beaches across southern Asia were transformed into scenes of death and devastation by the waves unleashed from the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra early on Sunday.

International aid agencies rushed staff, equipment and money to the region, warning that bodies rotting in the water were already beginning to threaten the water supply for survivors.

"Death came from the sea," Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry, India, told Reuters. "The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?"

The wall of water up to 10 meters (30 ft) tall flattened houses, hurled fishing boats onto coastal roads, sent cars spinning through swirling waters into hotel lobbies and sucked sunbathers, babies and fishermen off beaches and out to sea.

Worst affected were Sri Lanka where 4,890 were killed, India where officials reported as many as 5,600 could be dead, northern Indonesia with 4,500 drowned and the southern tourist isles of Thailand where as many as 430 were feared to have lost their lives. Many of the dead were foreign tourists.

"This is a massive humanitarian disaster and the communications are so bad we still don't know the full scale of it. Unless we get aid quickly to the people many more could die," said Phil Esmond, head of Oxfam in Sri Lanka.

The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.5 million) for emergency aid funding.

"We are not well equipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude because we have never known a disaster like this," Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who declared a national disaster and appealed for donor aid, said from holiday in the UK.

It was Sri Lanka's worst natural disaster in recorded history. Officials expected the death toll to rise as troops recovered bodies dragged out to sea or smashed on golden beaches.

ROWS OF DEAD CHILDREN

Soldiers in Indonesia searched for bodies in tree tops and in the wreckage of homes smashed by the tsunami, triggered by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of northern Sumatra island killing at least 4,491 people there.

"It smells so bad ... The human bodies are mixed in with dead animals like dogs, fish, cats and goats," said marine colonel Buyung Lelana, head of an evacuation team in Sumatra's Aceh province searching for more dead.

Volunteers laid bodies of children in rows under sarongs at makeshift morgues. Others were stacked in white fish crates. Wailing mothers clutched dead babies.

Smaller tremors followed Sunday's earthquake, the world's biggest since 1964 and the fourth-largest since 1900.

Hundreds of thousands left homeless in Sri Lanka and fearing another devastating wave sheltered in temples and schools. The southern coastal town of Galle, a major industrial hub famed for its historic fort, had been submerged by a 9-meter (30-ft) wave.

Weeping relatives scrambled over hundreds of bodies piled in a hospital in nearby Karapitiya, shirts or handkerchiefs clutched over their noses against the stench of decaying bodies.

"We are struggling to cope. Bodies are still coming in," said Karapitiya Teaching Hospital administrator Dr H.G. Jayaratne.

On India's southeast coast, thousands of villagers huddled in emergency shelters, too scared to sleep in case of another wave.

"I have been waiting for my husband and brother since yesterday," wept 38-year-old Narasamma as she stood on a beach near Mypadu, a fishing hamlet 600 km (375 miles) south of Hyderabad, capital of southern Andhra Pradesh state.

DEVASTATED REMOTE ISLES

Among the missing were 200 Hindu pilgrims who had gone for a holy dip on the beach. Hundreds scattered petals on the sea and sacrificed chickens to pray for the safe return of the missing.

"We are continuously recovering bodies. We are also seeing wrecked fishing trawlers and boats by the coast," Coast Guard Commandant Navin Chandra Pandey said in New Delhi.

One of the most devastated regions was India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands, near the epicenter of the quake and where officials said the tsunami had killed 3,000 people.

The toll in the strategic islands, most of which is barred to visitors and home to several primitive tribes, included at least 68 air force personnel and families at a base, officials said.

The tourist islands and beaches of southern Thailand lay in the path of the wave that had killed 431.On the Patong tourist beach on the island of Phuket, hotels and restaurants were wrecked and speed boats were rammed into buildings.

Belgian tourist Christian Patouraux was on the island of Kho Phi Phi, famed as the site of the Leonardo di Caprio film "The Beach," and said he narrowly escaped the wave.

"I saw lots of dead bodies and many injured people, many with cuts and broken bones," he said.

The tsunami was so powerful it smashed boats and flooded areas along the east African coast, 6,000 km (3,728 miles) away. In the Maldives, where thousands of foreign visitors were vacationing in the beach paradise, damage appeared to be limited.

With communications cut to remote areas, it was impossible to assess the full scale of the disaster, aid agencies said.

A tsunami, a Japanese word that translates as "harbor wave," is usually caused by a sudden rise or fall of part of the earth's crust under or near the ocean.

It comprises a series of waves that can travel across the ocean at speeds of over 800 kph (500 mph). As the tsunami enters the shallows of coastlines in its path, its velocity slows but its height increases and it can strike with devastating force.

[angelize56]

Shock waves picked up in Central Park

BY DEREK ROSE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

AT 7:58 P.M. New York time Saturday, a 600-mile stretch of the Earth's crust ruptured off the coast of Indonesia - and the race was on.

Within 20 minutes, shock waves from the most powerful quake in 40 years set off seismic sensors around the world - including one in Central Park.

American researchers realized the potential for tsunamis and tried to get the word out, calling embassies, U.S. naval bases and the State Department.

"We tried to do what we could," said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration center in Honolulu. "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

The giant surge of water was slower-moving than the subterranean shock waves, but far more deadly. The swells hit Indonesia within an hour; India was swamped within 21/2 hours. Most people had no warning.

The quake - in part of a vast volcanic region known as the "Ring of Fire" - was caused by a violent shift of the India and Burma tectonic plates 6 miles below the ocean floor. The result was a bulge in the seabed estimated at 600 miles long and 10 yards high, a ridge that roiled the Indian Ocean.

Enzo Boschi, head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute, likened its power to a million atomic bombs dropped on Japan during World War II, and said the shaking even disturbed Earth's rotation. "All the planet is vibrating," he said.

The rupture displaced a huge amount of water, said Won-Young Kim, a Columbia University earthquake researcher.

Those in ships would notice only a rocking sensation from swells of a yard or so, he said. But as the displaced water approaches coastal areas, the sea level drops. "So these high sea waves just bounce together," becoming higher and higher, Kim said. "And then it hits these coastal towns."

A Columbia University sensor buried in ground near the 96th St. transverse in Central Park registered the quake, as did other seismographs in the area.

[angelize56]

Death toll up to 20,000.....just horrible!

[ymfoster]

Originally Posted by angelize56

Death toll up to 20,000.....just horrible!

It's just devastating isn't it
I hope they get as much support as possible from all Nations, ... what a tragic way to start the New Year,
Our hearts go out to them.

[jaye944]

hi Gang,

yep woke to 20,000+

15,000 in Sri Lanka.

Purly by God's grace my familly and freinds are ok, I got TXT's last night.
They live in and around Columbo which was no too bad, go 30 miles south and its a different story.

The problem will be the knock on effect.

what really annoys me had 20,000 people died in the western world it would have been none stop covearge. This makes 9-11 look like a tea party !

If you look at all the natural disaters that happen its always the poorer nations that get hit the ones that dont have the resources or infrastructure to react.

I saw the notes on the looting.. yes its bad, but what people dont realise that in places like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan there are such wide divides and inequalities. You have the very poor and destitute and very rich. and very few (or at least now its starting to change) a middle income/class of people. But people who are born into abject poverty are pretty much stuck there.

If you've ever seen or lived in that kind of poverty you will do pretty much anything to survive and even now this is going to be even harder. And whilst stealing from the dead is unacceptable and highly taboo, you need it and they don't ! I dont condone it but I can understand it.

Of course you get looters who steal for profit and that plain wrong, I think Army and Police will shoot on sight to kill.

Anyway !

yall take care and remember how lucky we all are !

Adrian

[Shadow Bea]

Thank God Jaye944..

[jaye944]

Thankxs Bea, A total weight of my mind,
however, and didnt want to say in this thread, a freind of mine here (her sister) is in hospital pretty seriously ill, extreme high heart rate which the docs cant bring down (no drugs and none detected for over 24 hours now) so my friend and her familly are having a really rough day/days, so thats something another problem on my mind now.

Oh Lord, just give me one mountain at a time and your strength to get me through it !

BTW a mail I got from Columbo today AM

cheers Jaye


-------------------------------------------
Subject: More updates of Foursquare Pastors


A NOTE FROM PASTOR LESLIE KEEGLE


Dear Surekha and Chrishani,

You probably would already know that there are over 4500 people in Sri Lanka are reported missing due the tidal wave that hit the Eastern, Western and Southern coastal belt of our Island. Indonesia and Sri Lanka are the worst hit. The Eastern province is the worst affected in the Island. 12 families of our Batticaloa city Church were washed into the sea. The pastor' wife and his two children are lost. George's mom, his sister and niece were also attending the worship service when disaster struck. George' mom and sister escaped but his 13 year old niece was carried away. Just an hour ago her body was recovered. In two other villages two pastor' lost their spouses and children. According to unconfirmed reports I have, over 100 of our people are feared dead or missing. In the southern province we have no news of three pastors and their families. The areas where they are living are also disaster struck. The damage to human life is colossal, leaving alone the loss of property and devastation to infrastructure. I am sitting in my home praying, answering calls and coordinating relief efforts. The situation is absolutely overwhelming, will have to conduct many funerals and help people in refugee camps with food, clothing and water. People in the congregation are bringing in supplies to be sent to the most affected areas.

Would appreciate prayers and financial assistance, it is hard to say how much we would need.

Whatever help you could mobilize will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Leslie.

[eggplant43]

You add a real personal note to this affair. Could you provide an address for sending funds, since they are asked for?

My real concern here is what is to follow, is this a precursor to an even worse eruption of a volcanoe, such as Krakatoa? No one is talking about that aspect of this incident, and I feel they should be.

I mentioned in another thread yesterday "Krakatoa" by Simon Winchester, a fascinating read.

[buddhafabio]

i have read reports of up to 24000 so far,

may our christian brothers and sisters be with christ in heaven. as i weep with god for the lost of the ones who were not saved in christ.


i read the earth quake yesterday and assumed it was on land.

[LANMaster]

country by country toll

Officials said 21,000 people were killed in nine countries in southern Asia and Africa after massive tsunami waves smashed coastlines Sunday morning. A breakdown of the toll so far:

— Sri Lanka: A military spokesman says the death toll is 10,029 in government-controlled areas. Tamil rebels say 2,000 were killed in their areas, making a total of 12,029. More than 1 million people were displaced from wrecked villages.

— Indonesia: Government officials say about 4,991 people were killed. Aceh province on Sumatra island was near the quake's epicenter and was the hardest-hit part of the vast archipelago.

— India: An estimated 2,958 people died, the Home Ministry said. The worst-hit area was Tamil Nadu state, where 2,300 people died. Huge waves left southern beaches strewn with bodies and flipped-over boats and cars.

— Thailand: The Interior Ministry said 866 people died, another 4,100 were injured and thousands were missing, mostly in idyllic southern islands packed with tourists from around the world. Among the dead was Poom Jensen, 21, the Thai-American grandson of King Bhumipol Adulyadej.

— Malaysia: At least 52 people, including an unknown number of foreign tourists, were dead, according to official reports. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated temporarily from hotels and apartments after the Indonesian quake was felt throughout peninsular Malaysia.

— Maldives: At least 43 people were confirmed dead and 51 were reported missing in this popular tourist destination.

— Myanmar: Thirty deaths were reported, including 12 when waves destroyed a bridge in Kawthaung, fishing industry and nonprofit officials said. Myanmar's military-run regime rarely provides details of disasters in the country.

— Somalia: In this African country nearly 3,000 miles from the quake's epicenter, at least nine people were killed when a tidal wave destroyed homes, capsized boats and washed people out to sea, witnesses said.

— Bangladesh: Tidal surges killed at least two children as a boat with about 15 tourists capsized.

Source:
Fox News

[DiSaidSo]

Originally Posted by jaye944

what really annoys me had 20,000 people died in the western world it would have been none stop covearge. This makes 9-11 look like a tea party !

If you look at all the natural disaters that happen its always the poorer nations that get hit the ones that dont have the resources or infrastructure to react.

I saw the notes on the looting.. yes its bad, but what people dont realise that in places like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan there are such wide divides and inequalities. You have the very poor and destitute and very rich. and very few (or at least now its starting to change) a middle income/class of people. But people who are born into abject poverty are pretty much stuck there.

If you've ever seen or lived in that kind of poverty you will do pretty much anything to survive and even now this is going to be even harder. And whilst stealing from the dead is unacceptable and highly taboo, you need it and they don't ! I dont condone it but I can understand it.

Just wanted to clear a few things up here. The difference between this catastrophe and 9/11 is that this was not brought on by hate and man's inhumanity towards man. This is Mother Nature and try all you like, but you can't get mad at Mother Nature. She is indiscriminate. She does not target the poor. There was an 8.0 (I believe) earthquake in Japan a few months ago. People were injured but no one died because Japan was prepared with building codes, retrofitting, and education of the population. But I see your point, Jaye. Disasters like this one perpetuate that cycle of poverty. People are poor so they build shacks out of whatever they can find. A flood, tsunami, typhoon, earthquake comes and destroys what little they have. So they build another shack and wait for the next disaster. But what can you blame for that? Lack of building codes and lack of preparation. The governments of these countries had "better things to do" than prepare their citizens for the next imminent disaster. People tend not to think about disasters because they happen so infrequently. Unfortunately, it usually takes a catastrophe to get the wheels turning. Japan got their wheels turning after the Kobe quake.

Looting is a disaster myth perpetuated by the media. People in disaster situations are NOT worried about stealing TVs to sell on eBay. They are worried about their families, their friends and where they're going to get their next meal. If someone sees a banged up corner market and they go in and get some bottled water, it's inevitable that a member of the press will be there to report widespread looting.

I'd like to hear more about this whole messing with the rotation of the Earth. That sounds like a load of BS to me. All I've heard is that one sentence quoted in every story. I mean, did it throw us off by a few seconds? Are we all going to have to reset our clocks? Yes it was huge, but messing with the rotation? I'll need more than one sentence by one scientist to convince me. Large events like this do tend to sort of ring the planet like a bell. Smaller earthquakes will resonate all over the planet, but the rotation? Come on.

This is truly a catastrophe. But if you were to rank it among the deadliest disasters of the 20th century...it would come in 77th (As of today's death toll of 22,000).

Originally Posted by DiSaidSo

Just wanted to clear a few things up here. The difference between this catastrophe and 9/11 is that this was not brought on by hate and man's inhumanity towards man.

I'm glad you touched on jayes comment. I agree wholeheartedly that there's a huge difference in the wrath of Mother Nature, versus the wrath of terrorists!
It's a tragedy all the same, but one came naturally and the other, well, we all know the story.

[DiSaidSo]

Originally Posted by eggplant43

You add a real personal note to this affair. Could you provide an address for sending funds, since they are asked for?

My real concern here is what is to follow, is this a precursor to an even worse eruption of a volcanoe, such as Krakatoa? No one is talking about that aspect of this incident, and I feel they should be.

I mentioned in another thread yesterday "Krakatoa" by Simon Winchester, a fascinating read.

Geologic events like this do tend to occur in clumps. There was a massive earthquake near Tasmania a few days ago that caused no injuries or damage and had no tsunamis. I'm not going to sit here and say that there's not going to be any more events, but IMO, the Indonesia earthquake released a lot of energy and hopefully, that will foreshadow some calm for a while. But who really knows? The shift could've pushed some magma closer to the surface or awakened a sleeping volcano. This portion of the world, at very high risk for seismic activity, had no tsunami warning system. I'm wondering how well they monitor the volcanic activity.

[DiSaidSo]

Asia Officials Failed to Issue Warnings:

By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writer

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Asian officials conceded Monday that they failed to issue broad public warnings immediately after a massive undersea earthquake in Indonesia, which could have saved countless lives from the subsequent giant waves that smashed into nine countries as far away as Africa.


India said it would consider establishing a warning system, and Australia and Japan said they would help build it. One Australian official said it would take at least a year to set one up. A basic, regional monitoring system would cost tens of million of dollars.


Also, Thailand's Meteorological Department said the country lacked an international warning system and proper coordination to get messages of impending disasters sent across the country.


"If we had the international warning system, we could give real-time warning to people," said Seismological Bureau official Sumalee Prachuab.


Governments around the region insisted they did not know the true nature of the threat because there was no international system in place to track tidal waves in the Indian Ocean — where they are rare — (are there common disasters? ) and they cannot afford to buy sophisticated equipment to build one.


And what warnings there were came too little, too late.


"No one ever told us that these things can be predicted and we can be told about them," said Sumana Gamage, a shopowner in Colombo, Sri Lanka. "Next time I hope our government can do this."


Retired Sri Lankan air force chief Harry Goonetilleke said, "There should have been such an arrangement for the region. This is absolutely not acceptable."


The magnitude 9.0 earthquake — the largest in 40 years — shifted huge geological plates beneath the sea northwest of Sumatra island, causing a massive and sudden displacement of millions on tons of water.


Indonesia villages closest to the temblor's epicenter were swamped within minutes, but elsewhere the waves radiated outwards, gathering speed and ferocity until they made landfall. The waves moved at speeds topping 500 mph.


Waves began pummeling southern Thailand about one hour after the earthquake. After 2 1/2 hours, the torrents had traveled some 1,000 miles and slammed India and Sri Lanka. Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, and Bangladesh were also hit. Eventually they struck Somalia, on the east coast of Africa, where hundreds were reported killed.


The death toll Monday topped 22,000, with millions left homeless.


Indonesian officials said they had no way to know that the earthquake had caused the earthquake-driven waves, or tsunamis, or how dangerous they might have been.


"Unfortunately, we have no equipment here that can warn about tsunamis," said Budi Waluyo, an official with Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. "The instruments are very expensive and we don't have money to buy them."


But Thammasarote Smith, a former senior forecaster at Thailand's Meteorological Department, said governments could have done much more to warn people about the danger.


"The department had up to an hour to announce the emergency message and evacuate people but they failed to do so," Thammasarote was quoted as saying in The Bangkok Post newspaper. "It is true that an earthquake is unpredictable but a tsunami, which occurs after an earthquake, is predictable."


Kathawudhi Marlairojanasiri, the department's chief weather forecaster, said it issued warnings through radio and television beginning at 9 a.m. Sunday about a possible undertow along the southwest coast of Thailand, where tens of thousands of foreign tourists were vacationing.



But the warnings came after the first waves hit. A Web site warning went up three hours later — but by then, at least 700 people had died in Thailand, including a jet-skiing grandson of revered monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra refused to answer reporters' questions Tuesday about tsunami alerts.

But Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would investigate what role his country could play in setting up an Indian Ocean warning system.

The head of the British Commonwealth bloc of Britain and its former colonies called for talks on creating a global early warning system for tsunamis. Five Commonwealth countries — India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia and Bangladesh — were among those struck by the massive waves.

"Modern technology would say you should know about these things anywhere in the globe instantly and, therefore, be able to respond to them," Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Harley Benz of the U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites) national earthquake information service in Golden, Colo., said a basic system of seismic sensors and tide gauges could be set up within two years.

"Putting in the sensors is the easy part," Benz said. "The difficult part here would be coordination between emergency response agencies in the region. Then, you have to deal with education, preparedness and training issues." Someone with a plan!!! He knows it will be hard, but he also knows what it's going to take.

Scientists said seismic networks in the region recorded Sunday's earthquake, but without ocean sensors tracking the path of the waves, there was just no way to determine the direction a tsunami would travel.

"If they had tidal gauges and a tsunami warning system, many people who died would have been saved," said Waverly Person, director of the USGS (news - web sites) earthquake information service.

"They could have tracked the waves. They won't tell you how high the waves will be, but they can tell you when they will hit. Local authorities can warn citizens to get off the coast."

Such a system presumes, however, an organized communication system and widely understood procedures and discipline by hotel operators, fishing villages and local authorities to clear the coastline quickly in case of a coming disaster.

Most of developing Asia lacks such infrastructure, and casualties were by far highest in three highly impoverished areas (and densely populated)— the coasts of eastern Sri Lanka and southeastern India, and the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island.

An international warning system in the Pacific was started in 1965, the year after tsunamis associated with a magnitude 9.2 quake struck Alaska. It is administered by the U.S-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Member states include all the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America, as well as the Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand.

Tsunamis occur only occasionally, but they are much rarer in the Indian Ocean than the Pacific, where one occurs every few years.

In Japan, a network of fiber-optic sensors records any seismic activity and passes that information to a powerful computer at the Meteorological Agency, which estimates the height, speed, destination and arrival time of any tsunamis. Within two minutes of the quake, the agency can sound the alarm.

Phil McFadden, chief scientist with the government-funded Geoscience Australia, said places close to the epicenter of the earthquake would have been hit so quickly that any warning would have come too late.

But if there had been a Pacific-style alert system covering the Indian Ocean, "there would have been time for people in Sri Lanka, across in the Maldives or somewhere like that to have done something about it," he said.

Lots of could'ves, should'ves and would'ves. Let's hope that this attitude of change doesn't get lost during this recovery stage. The most powerful mitigation usually begins in the aftermath of a disaster.