Just heard about the tidal wave!

“OMG! That is just awful!

I haven't read or heard much on it yet, but I wonder if weather officials/seismic experts were able to get any kind of warning off?? And how fast would that wave travel?”

“Huh??”

“Breaking News on the Mpls. Star Tribune website (which you can't get on without registering)

Last update: December 26, 2004 at 9:17 AM
Quake spawns killer tidal waves
Lely T. Djuhari, Associated Press
December 26, 2004 QUAKE1227
Page: 1 2



JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that slammed into villages and seaside resorts across southern and southeast Asia today, killing more than 7,000 people in six countries.

Tourists, fishermen, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water up to 20 feet high that swept across the Bay of Bengal, unleashed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake centered off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

In Sri Lanka, 1,000 miles west of the epicenter, more than 3,000 people were killed, the country's top police official said. At least 1,870 died in Indonesia, and 1,900 along the southern coasts of India. At least 198 were confirmed dead in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and 2 in Bangladesh.

Map shows epicenter of 8.9 quakeBut officials expected the death toll to rise dramatically, with hundreds reported missing and all communications cut off to Sumatran towns closest to the epicenter. Hundreds of bodies were found on various beaches along India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, and more were expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said.

The rush of waves brought to sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean's edge: Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away; a group of 32 Indians - including 15 children - were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day; fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and tossed away.

Tidal waves kill more than 3,800``All the planet is vibrating'' from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

On Sumatra, the quake destroyed dozens of buildings - but as elsewhere, it was the wall of water that followed that caused the most deaths and devastation.

Earthquakes's deadliest tollTidal waves leveled towns in the province of Aceh on Sumatra's northern tip, the region closest to the epicenter. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches.

Health ministry official Els Mangundap said 1,876 people had died across the region, including some 1,400 in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Communications to the town had been cut.

Relatives went through lines of bodies wrapped in blankets and sheets, searching for dead loved ones. Aceh province has long been the center of a violent insurgency against the government.

The worst known death toll so far was in Sri Lanka, where a million people were displaced from wrecked villages. Some 20,000 soldiers were deployed in relief and rescue and to help police maintain law and order. Police chief, Chandra Fernando said at least 3,000 people were dead in areas under government control.

``It is a huge tragedy,'' said Lalith Weerathunga, secretary to the Sri Lankan prime minister. ``The death toll is going up all the time.'' He said the government did not know what was happening in areas of the northeast controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels.

An AP photographer saw two dozen bodies along a four-mile stretch of beach, some of children entangled in the wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. Other bodies were brought up from the beach, wrapped in sarongs and laid on the road, while rows of men and women lined the roads asking if anyone had seen their relatives.

Around one million people were displaced from their homes, Weerathunga said.

In India, beaches were turned into virtual open-air mortuaries, with bodies of people caught in the tidal wave being washed ashore.

Another 200 died in neighboring Andhra Pradesh state, 102 in Pondicherry and 28 others in Kerala and elsewhere, according to the governments in each state.

``I was shocked to see innumerable fishing boats flying on the shoulder of the waves, going back and forth into the sea, as if made of paper,'' said P. Ramanamurthy, 40, who lives in Andra Pradesh's Kakinada town. ``I had never imagined anything like this could happen.''

The huge waves struck around breakfast time on the beaches of Thailand's beach resorts - probably Asia's most popular holiday destination at this time of year, particularly for Europeans fleeing the winter cold - wiping out bungalows, boats and cars, sweeping away sunbathers and snorkelers, witnesses said.

``Initially we just heard a bang, a really loud bang,'' Gerrard Donnelly of Britain, a guest at Phuket island's Holiday Inn, told Britain's Sky News. ``We initially thought it was a terrorist attack, then the wave came and we just kept running upstairs to get on as high ground as we could.''

``People that were snorkeling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people that were sunbathing got washed into the sea,'' said Simon Clark, 29, a photographer from London vacationing on Ngai island.

On Phi Phi island - where ``The Beach'' starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed - 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

``I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff,'' said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.

Indonesia, a country of 17,000 islands, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the margins of tectonic plates that make up the so-called the ``Ring of Fire'' around the Pacific Ocean basin.

The Indonesian quake struck just three days after an 8.1 quake struck the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica, causing buildings to shake hundreds of miles away but no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan's northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.

---


Associated Press reporters Dilip Ganguly and Gemunu Amarasinghe in Colombo, Sri Lanka, K.N. Arun in Madras, India, and Sutin Wannabovorn in Phuket, Thailand, contributed to this report”

“"Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away;"

Whoa, I have not seen any news in the last few days!!”

“They had a 8.1 in Tasmania the day before yesterday. I hope it stops, they are going from big to huge.”

“I think this just happened. Man, what an awful disaster! I was wondering about any type of warning because, say, if you were vacationing and laying on that beach that you made a joke about MarkO (groaner joke, too, might I add. ;-P), at what point would you be able to determine a giant tidal wave was coming at you by looking at the horizon on the ocean? How much time would you have to attempt to get away?

7,000 dead is horrible. Prayers go out to people in that area!
last edited: 12/26/04 11:04:57 AM”

“for future reference....

West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center
http://wcatwc.arh.noaa.gov/message.shtml”

“Tilt, that's for US-- as in both us and U.S.-- but does Asia have one? Or would the U.S. one send out a warning for them?”

“Like I said... "for future ref"...


More to the current situation --

Worldwide Earthquake Activity in the Last Seven Days
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/bulletin.html

The Big One off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/”

“I know this just happened, but I'm curious when this happened exactly. As I read the article I didn't see a reference to a specific date. Or did I miss it? Isn't that bit of information usually in the first two paragraphs or so? The fact that there are already tallies implies that some time has passed to give time for a count and that this didn't happen hours ago.”

“from that last link...

"00:58:50 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004."

'Universal Time, Coordinated' (not to be confused with Uncle Tom's Cabin) is like GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) so subtract 5 hours to get East Coast time... 4 when Dayilight Savings Time is in effect...

so... It was about 1 am Sunday in Greenwich... 8 pm Eastern, 7 Central, 6 Mountain and 5 Pacific.


It still seems like they got those numbers out really quickly. They must be rough estimates.”

“Yeah, I found it hard to figure out when it happened. Plus, it's on the other side of the International Date Line, right?

Just saw this from a story on MSN, regarding warning for the tidal wave:

Warning system studied
Scientists said the catastrophic death toll across the region might have been reduced if India and Sri Lanka had been part of an international warning system designed to advise coastal communities that a potentially killer wave was approaching. The system relies on a network of earthquake seismic sensors and tidal gauges attached to buoys in the oceans.

Indonesia, a country of 17,000 islands, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the margins of tectonic plates that make up the so-called Ring of Fire around the Pacific Ocean basin.

The Indonesian quake struck just three days after an 8.1 quake struck the ocean floor between Australia and Antarctica, causing buildings to shake hundreds of miles away but no serious damage or injury.

Quakes reaching a magnitude 8 are very rare. A quake registering magnitude 8 rocked Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003, injuring nearly 600 people. An 8.4 magnitude tremor that stuck off the coast of Peru on June 23, 2001, killed 74.”

“Go to MSNBC home page and on the right hand side you can hear a reporters first hand account of what the wave looked like. He was in Puckat with his family on vacation and was on the beach when the wave headed toward land.”

“I was reading about this an hour or two ago...my primary reaction was horror and deep sadness, but interestingly I had the same questions you have mentioned here, exactly when did this happen, and why was there no warning. The quake was apparently 1000 miles away, if I read and remember correctly. Seems it would take some time for a wave to travel that far.”

“As the article said some of these countries aren’t part of the early warning system. I also heard that many people on the beaches made the fatal mistake of walking out onto the exposed ocean floor where the water had been drawn out by the approaching waves.”

“I read one scientist said the quake was strong enough to disrupt the earth's rotation. Wow. I saw that at MSNBC.”

“So how long from the time the earthquake happened to the time the waves hit? As Fritz said, I'd think that would take some time. Now I'm curious. Minutes? Hours? Day?”

“So how long from the time the earthquake happened to the time the waves hit?

I think it all depends on your distance from the epicenter of the quake, but I believe these things can cover great distances very quickly.”

“CNN's story stated the waves travelled over a hundred miles an hour.”

“HOW FAST?

Where the ocean is over 6,000 m deep, unnoticed tsunami waves can travel at the speed of a commercial jet plane, over 800 km per hour (~500 mi per hour). They can move from one side of the Pacific Ocean to the other in less than a day. This great speed makes it important to be aware of the tsunami as soon as it is generated. Scientists can predict when a tsunami will arrive at various places by knowing the source characteristics of the earthquake that generated the tsunami and the characteristics of the seafloor along the paths to those places. Tsunamis travel much slower in shallower coastal waters where their wave heights begin to increase dramatically.

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/itic/library/pubs/great_waves/tsunami_great_waves_5.html”

“Hmmmm...

http://www.pep-c.org/tsunamis/

"As a result of their long wave lengths, tsunamis behave as shallow-water waves. A wave becomes a shallow-water wave when the ratio between the water depth and its wave length gets very small. Shallow-water waves move at a speed that is equal to the square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s/s) and the water depth - let's see what this implies: In the Pacific Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4000 m, a tsunami travels at about 200 m/s, or over 700 km/hr. Because the rate at which a wave loses its energy is inversely related to its wave length, tsunamis not only propagate at high speeds, they can also travel great, transoceanic distances with limited energy losses."”

“Yikes --


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/

about midway down the page...

"Off the west coast of northern Sumatra, the India plate is moving in a northeastward direction at about 5 cm per year relative to the Burma plate. Preliminary locations of larger aftershocks following today's earthquake show that approximately 1000 km of the plate boundary slipped as a result of the earthquake."”

“Compare this earthquake/geologic event to the Krakatoa volcano explosion and its effects on the ocean/atmposhere (Krakatoa was at the other (south) end of Sumatra, where it meets Java):

Krakatau erupted in 1883, in one of the largest eruptions in recent time. Krakatau is an island volcano along the Indonesian arc, between the much larger islands of Sumatra and Java (each of which has many volcanoes also along the arc). There is a very fine book about the Krakatau eruption by Tom Simkin and Richard Fiske, so if you really want to know about the eruption you should go to the nearest bookstore or library to find that.

Here are some highlights from their summary of effects:

1. The explosions were heard on Rodriguez Island, 4653 km distant across the Indian Ocean, and over 1/13th of the earth's surface.

2. Ash fell on Singapore 840 km to the N, Cocos (Keeling) Island 1155 km to the SW, and ships as far as 6076 km WNW. Darkness covered the Sunda Straits from 11 a.m. onthe 27th until dawn the next day.

3. Giant waves reached heights of 40 m above sea level, devastating everything in their path and hurling ashore coral blocks weighing as much as 600 tons.

4. At least 36,417 people were killed, most by the giant sea waves, and 165 coastal villages were destroyed.

5. When the eruption ended only 1/3 of Krakatau, formerly 5x9 km, remained above sea level, and new islands of steaming pumice and ash lay to the north where the sea had been 36 m deep.

6. Every recording barograph in the world ducumented the passage of the airwave, some as many as 7 times as the wave bounced back and forth between the eruption site and its antipodes for 5 days after the explosion.

7. Tide gauges also recorded the sea wave's passage far from Krakatau. The wave "reached Aden in 12 hours, a distance of 3800 nautical miles, usually traversed by a good steamer in 12 days". That's 320 miles/hour.

8. Blue and green suns were observed as fine ash and aerosol, erupted perhaps 50 km into the stratosphere, circled the equator in 13 days.

9. Theree months after the eruption these products had spread to higher latitudes causing such vivid red sunset afterglows that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration. Unusual sunsets continued for 3 years.

10. Rafts of floating pumice-locally thick enouth to support men, trees, and no doubt other biological passengers-crossed the indian Ocean in 10 months. Others reached Melanesia, and were still afloat two years after the eruption.

11. The volcanic dust veil that created such spectacular atmospheric effects also acted as a solar radiation filter, lowering global temperatures as much as 1.2 degree C in the year after the eruption. Temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.”

“In WA, we have Tsunami evacuation routes from the Pacific Coast.

We get "sneaker" waves, which are similar to a tsunami in that they can come in low and suck you out to sea or roll a log onto you and pin you down until you drown. Our beaches are loaded with huge dead deleafed trees that kill every so often by rolling onto unsuspecting people. There are no warnings for sneaker waves. You just can't turn your back on the beach.

Phuket (on Thailand) is a big tourist destination for it's beach.

CNN is reporting the deaths are heading toward 10,000 and rising.”

“These fatality numbers seem to be wild estimates and I wouldn't be suprised to see that number double again.

And if you look at the pictures, you can get a small glimpse of the misery and destruction faced by vast numbers (millions) of survivors.”

“It's horrific, prolly 10,000 dead by the end of it. So I've just found the story, and a surf the news channels to find it on, and I go past fox and it says:
"Thousands dead after massive tsnami, will it effect your vacation?". I say again "Will it effect your vacation."

Anyhow, awful story.
last edited: 12/26/04 2:04:46 PM”

“puts things into perspective. scared the crap outta me when i read the part that said "6 asian countries."
batman luke is still in japan. fortunately (although still unfortunately) it was south asia.”

“Y2... god, WTF is up with Fox???! That is just ridiculous for a headline and their apparent top concern!”

“Crimped vacations, indeed......

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-world-10-l1&flok=FF-APO-
1104&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041226%2F1428626302.htm&sc=1104&photoid=20041226TOK320


On Phi Phi island - where "The Beach'' starring Leonardo DiCaprio was filmed - 200 bungalows at two resorts were swept out to sea.

"I am afraid that there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea and also my staff,'' said Chan Marongtaechar, owner of the PP Princess Resort and PP Charlie Beach Resort.”

“Surf's up!”

“The newscast I saw said the deathtoll was already up to 11,000, and rising by the hour. Sickening to think about.”

“Unfortunately, I suspect it's going to get lot worse.

It's time we counted our blessings and prayed for those that can't.”

“Tsunami's is the proper name for the earthquake-generated waves.

8.9 is one he11 of a quake!!!”

“I heard about it early this morning..I sleep listening to the BBC....I suspect the death toll will be well above 20,000..here's a good link that updates regularily:
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_newsheadlines.asp?pageid=71

I know that part of the world..it's heartbreaking...”

“It is heartbreaking.

I don't know that part of the world well at all, but the magnitude of this and the ongoing human suffering, it is just horrible to contemplate.”

“Just found out on the local news this evening that one of our city council members was at Phuket when this occurred. No news on whether or not he survived.”

“Just found out tonight when I watched the news...the killer wave hit the beaches on Christmas Day. Just terrible news.

As someone said above; the speed of the wave was estimated to be about 800 kph...the speed of a jetliner.

Some beaches were hit with a 20 meter wave (about 60 feet) and went inland for a kilometer (.6 of a mile).

The death toll is up to 13,000.”

“That would be 30 feet high wave (about 10 meters). The news anchor said 20 meters....sorry.”

“I had a dream about a tidal wave last night! Hadn't heard about this. Although the dream was after the fact it was prior to any knowledge of the happening. To see this thread today is truly bizarre seeing as I've never had a dream of that nature before.

How terrifying and sad.”

“horrible, i heard the death toll is now over 20,000.”

“Yeah, they're now reporting at least 22,000 deaths.

Also, there is a tsunami warning system of some sort for the Pacific, but not for the Indian ocean, where this occurred. So lots of people were just out enjoying the beach, didn't feel or hear about any earthquake, and all of a sudden the water went way down, then the wave(s) just nailed them.”

“In all fairness to fix they prolly had the c team out on the day after Christmas.”

“Many Beach goers and residents in Thailand were warned to get the hell out in time.

The Indian/Sri Lanka areas are pretty poor.”

“y2, I assume you mean "Fox" and I appreciate your follow-up comment.

Obviously (assuming you quoted the original headline accurately, which you probably did) that was one or two clueless morons and not an indication of the network's overall level of compassion.

By the way, I don't watch Fox...and, in any case, this would definitely not be the place for a fuego about networks.
last edited: 12/27/04 10:00:11 AM”

“From what I heard, there was about 2.5 hours between the earthquake and the waves. Even with warning, there are not a whole lot of places to hide on a coral atoll.

Millions of extremely poor people left with nothing. It really boggles the mind.

Who knows where the best place(s) to contribute to the relief effort? The Red Cross is my first impulse. Anyone else?”

“The Red Cross/Red Crescent is all I have been able to find.”

“I have contacts in ARC. You can send me the money.”

“The check is in the mail, BM.”