Another Tsunami

It was reported yesterday that a Tsunami hit American Samoa and another earthquake struck Sumatra Indonesia. News reports also indicated that even though the Tsunami warning systems are in place, they are not always effective. The article below specifically discusses Patong Beach, Phuket, Thailand.

Some of you are probably wondering why I care about a Tsunami that happened on the other side of the world from me. Well because I have been to one of these place. I walked on Patong Beach one of the areas in Thailand that took a direct hit. Sumatra is just to the south.

Map of Southeast Asia (You can see Phuket and the olive area below it is the Sumarta region)

In 2004 the Tsunami struck killing hundreds of thousands and leaving those left behind to fend for themselves. In Thailand the government doesn't send in FEMA to clean up your house or rebuild it. You do. The locals refer to it as the "Big Wave" and they not very interested in talking about it or dwelling on it. They began rebuilding that very day and neighbor helped neighbor and life went on. On our trip to the Tropical forest we saw a navy ship sitting the middle of a farmers field about 10 miles inland from the ocean. It had been brought there and left there by the Tsunami.

Phuket is a very mountainous area. So with proper warning people (residents and thousands of tourists) could feasibly make it to higher ground. With techinology being as advanced as it is you would think that they could create reliable warning systems. As the article below states, that is not the case.

Here is a pic of Patong Beach (notice the mountains in the background)

This is what Patong Beach looked like when I visited:

This is the same beach in 2004 three years earlier. The locals indicated that the waves came over the tree tops which could have been as high as 33 ft.

When you hear reports about the Tsunamis or the Typhoons don't just dismiss it as something that is happening a world away. These are people like you and me who face a devastion you cannot imagine. Yes, Katrina was awful. But those people had warnings, they had time to flee and they escaped with their lives. This event completely blindsided the locals and tourists who had just finished celebrating Christmas. I have met some of these people, spoken with them, laughed with them and shared their home with them for 15 days. It's a beautiful place full of some of the kindess people you will ever meet. Let's just hope that if this happens to them again they have a chance to escape to higher ground.

Here is the article from Foxnews.com
The latest tsunami in South-east Asia raises again the real fear in this region of another horrific disaster. But will the warnings save lives if a killer wave again strikes? Any warning will help some people have time to escape to higher ground, but the reality is that lives are still in danger the current warning systems.

For example, The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center immediately sent out an e mail statement today when the earthquake happened off Sumatra, warning that "there is a possibility of a destructive regional tsunami in the Indian Ocean." That message goes immediately to emergency services and the media who can issue warnings. But it seems difficult to clear the beaches and coastal towns and villages in time.

Thailand, for instance, recently held a massive tsunami evacuation drill across six southern provinces. Yet many villagers failed to hear the alert from the 79 warning towers that have been installed along the coast since the tsunami struck in Christmas of 2004. Instead, local officials resorted to hand-operated sirens and even car horns to alert villagers to the danger.
Some people have warned this could be dangerous in the event of a real tsunami.

A series of tsunami detection buoys have also been installed across the region by the US Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They are supposed to inform people about a tsunami before it hits shore.

In Thailand’s case, a buoy off the popular tourist destination of Phuket, which was hit hard by the 2004 tsunami, is not working properly. It was launched in December 2006 but stopped transmitting for a month in mid-June this year.

According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the buoy is now operating on a back-up battery and will likely stop transmitting for good sometime next month. Thai authorities say they will replace it as soon as they can.

It's nevertheless frightening that at the moment, an area such as Phuket full of thousands of tourists is dependent on a faulty tsunami buoy for early warning about a potentially killer wave