Unbelieveable Tsunami pictures and articles

**COUNTRYBUMPKIN** · 01-04-2005, 08:19 AM

Unbelievable Tsunami Pictures Give Clearer Picture

Click on link to pictures:
http://coreykoberg.com/Tsunami/

No warning given: See below two article references:

http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=518

12/28/2004
Swedish paper reports tsunami warning halted out of
concern for tourist industry

Tsunami warning halted ‘for tourist industry’

This from the Swedish paper Expressen. Translation by
RAW STORY excerpted here.

Just minutes after the earthquake in the Indian
Ocean on Sunday morning, Thailand’s foremost
meteorological experts were sitting together in a
crisis meeting. But they decided not to warn about the
tsunami “out of courtesy to the tourist industry,”
writes the Thailand daily newspaper The Nation.

The experts got the news around 8:00 am on Sunday
morning local time. An hour later, the first massive
wave struck. But the experts started to discuss the
economic impacts when they discussed if a tsunami
warning should be issued.

The primary argument against such a warning was
that there had not been any floods in 300 years. Also,
the experts believed the Indonesian island Sumatra
would be a “cushion” for the southern coast of
Thailand. The experts also had bad information; they
thought the tremor was 8.1. A similar earthquake
occurred in the same area in 2002 with no flooding at
all.

One expert The Nation spoke with also noted that
the department had only four earthquake experts among
their
900-strong meteorological department. A second
told The Nation that a tsunami warning was discussed
but that because of the risk, they opted not to issue
a warning.

“We finally decided not to do anything because the
tourist season was in full swing,” the source said.
“The hotels were 100 percent booked. What if we issued
a warning, which would have led to an evacuation, and
nothing had happened. What would be the outcome? The
tourist industry would be immediately hurt. Our
department would not be able to endure a lawsuit.”

This story was first noted and originally translated
at Democratic Underground.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
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1.

I have been holding my breath expecting to hear
something like this as we live in a society that
values money above human lives.

I’m sick over the loss of life, and disgusted
and angry over the GREED in this world!!!

Comment by Vonnie Holmes — 12/28/2004 @ 6:44 pm
2.

So when did you learn to speak Swedish?

Editor’s Note: The translation was compiled from
another translation with additional sections
translated with help of online translator services and
Swedish-English dictionaries. Feel free to contact us
if any sections are inexact. We’re confident the story
itself is accurate, as it was referenced in short form
in a Washington Post article. We’re also trying to get
translation of the original Thai Nation piece.

Comment by flou — 12/28/2004 @ 7:26 pm
3.

Unbelievable. The greed-heads were worried about
a lawsuit. Now there are untold numbers of people who
have lost their lives. Shame…

Comment by Pete — 12/28/2004 @ 7:37 pm
4.

(Not in ANY way making light of this)…But
reading this, I kept hearing the voice of the Mayor in
“Jaws” in my head..can’t scare the tourists, after
all. Their $$ is more important than their safety.

My chests feels very heavy. It makes me
heartsick.

Comment by rhyfeddu — 12/28/2004 @ 9:12 pm
5.

imperfect information + an aversion to false
warnings and unnecessary panic does not equate valuing
human lives below money.

Comment by d_lete — 12/28/2004 @ 9:14 pm
The primary argument against such a warning was
that there had not been any floods in 300 years. Also,
the experts believed the Indonesian island Sumatra
would be a “cushion” for the southern coast of
Thailand.

The experts also had bad information; they
thought the tremor was 8.1. the department had only
four earthquake experts among their 900-strong
meteorological department.

“We finally decided not to do anything because
the tourist season was in full swing,” the source
said. “The hotels were 100 percent booked. What if we
issued a warning, which would have led to an
evacuation, and nothing had happened. What would be
the outcome? The tourist industry would be immediately
hurt. Our department would not be able to endure a
lawsuit.”

LAME, LAZY, STUPID, GREEDY!!!!!!!!!!

Those fools WILL have a lawsuit now!!!

Comment by phantomstarchild001 — 12/28/2004 @
10:00 pm
Typical.

Comment by ~A! — 12/28/2004 @ 10:05 pm
Let’s see if I have this right.

The primary argument against such a warning was
that there had not been any floods in 300 years.

So what? That made it right for them to stick
their heads in the sand and their butts in the air??

Also, the experts believed the Indonesian island
Sumatra would be a “cushion” for the southern coast of
Thailand. The experts also had bad information; they
thought the tremor was 8.1.

Those numbskulls need to research the effects of
an 8.1 tremor.
stupid idiots!!

One expert The Nation spoke with also noted that
the department had only four earthquake experts among
their
900-strong meteorological department.

piss poor planning!!!

We finally decided not to do anything because
the tourist season was in full swing,” the source
said.

Hello? Hello? Hello? They were worried about a
lawsuit of a “hurt” tourist industry? Worried about
the loss of their almighty dollar is what it
translates to me. Those dumb ass’s won’t have to worry
about a “possible” lawsuit now. HA! HA! HA! They will
HAVE one or more!!

Comment by carol brown — 12/28/2004 @ 10:14 pm

“What if we issued a warning, which would have
led to an evacuation, and nothing had happened. What
would be the outcome?”

Well, we sure know what the outcome is when you
DON’T issue a warning.

I don’t know if this is true, or not, but if it
is…what a disgrace. What a disgrace we have become.
Unbelievable.

Comment by ForCryingOutLoud — 12/28/2004 @ 10:45
pm

.
Article 2:

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO412C.html

The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/412A.html

Foreknowledge of A Natural Disaster
Washington was aware that a deadly Tidal Wave was
building up in the Indian Ocean

Michel Chossudovsky | December 29 2004

The US Military and the State Department were given
advanced warning. America's Navy base on the island of
Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean was notified.

Why were fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand
not provided with the same warnings as the US Navy and
the US State Department?

Why did the US State Department remain mum on the
existence of an impending catastrophe?

With a modern communications system, why did the
information not get out? By email, telephone, fax,
satellite TV... ?

It could have saved the lives of more than 80,000
people. And the death toll is rising.

The earthquake was a Magnitude 9.0 on the Richter
scale, among the highest in recorded history. US
authorities had initially recorded 8.0 on the Richter
scale.

As confirmed by several reports, US scientists in
Hawaii, had advanced knowledge regarding an impending
catastrophe, but failed to contact their Asian
counterparts.

Charles McCreery of the Pacific Warning Center in
Hawaii confirmed that his team tried desperately to
get in touch with his counterparts in Asia. According
to McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu, the
team did its utmost to contact the countries. (The
NOAA in Hawaii's Report at
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2357.htm ).

His team contacted the US State Department, which
apparently contacted the Asian governments. The Indian
government confirms that no such warning was received.
(The Hindu, 27 Dec 2004)

Nine (9.0) on the Richter scale: The Director of the
Hawaii Warning Center stated that "they did not know"
that the earthquake would generate a deadly tidal wave
until it had hit Sri Lanka, more than one and a half
hours later, at 2.30 GMT. (see Timeline below)

"Not until the deadly wave hit Sri Lanka and the
scientists in Honolulu saw news reports of the damage
there did they recognize what was happening... 'Then
we knew there was something moving across the Indian
Ocean,' said Charles McCreery. (quoted in the NYT, 28
Dec 2004 ).

This statement is at odds with the Timeline of the
tidal wave disaster. Thailand was hit almost an hour
before Sri Lanka and the news reports were already
out. Surely, these reports out of Thailand were known
to the scientists in Hawaii, not to mention the office
of Sec. Colin Powell, well before the tidal wave
reached Sri Lanka.

''We wanted to try to do something, but without a plan
in place then, it was not an effective way to issue a
warning, or to have it acted upon,'' Dr. McCreery
said. ''There would have still been some time -- not a
lot of time, but some time -- if there was something
that could be done in Madagascar, or on the coast of
Africa.''

The above statement is also inconsistent.

The tidal wave reached the East African coastline
several hours after it reached The Maldives islands.
According to news reports, Male, the capital of the
Maldives was hit three hours after the earthquake, at
approximately 4.00 GMT. By that time everybody around
the World knew.

It is worth noting that the US Navy was fully aware of
the deadly tidal wave, because the Navy was on the
Pacific Warning Center's list of contacts. Moreover,
America's strategic Naval base on the island of Diego
Garcia had also been notified. Although directly in
the path of the tidal wave (see animated chart below),
the Diego Garcia military base reported "no damage".

"One of the few places in the Indian Ocean that got
the message of the quake was Diego Garcia, a speck of
an island with a United States Navy base, because the
Pacific warning center's contact list includes the
Navy. Finding the appropriate people in Sri Lanka or
India was harder." (NYT, 28 Dec 2004, emphasis added)

Now how hard is it to pick up the phone and call Sri
Lanka?

According to Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific
Tsunami Warning Center.

"We don't have contacts in our address book for
anybody in that part of the world."

Only after the first waves hit Sri Lanka did workers
at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre [PTWC] and others in
Hawaii start making phone calls to US diplomats in
Madagascar and Mauritius in an attempt to head off
further disaster.

"We didn't have a contact in place where you could
just pick up the phone," Dolores Clark, spokeswoman
for the International Tsunami Information Centre in
Hawaii said. "We were starting from scratch."

These statement on the surface are inconsistent, since
several Indian Ocean Asian countries are in fact
members of the Tsunami Warning System.

There are 26 member countries of the International
Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System ,
including Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia. All these
countries would normally be in the address book of the
PTWC, which works in close coordination with its
sister organization the ICGTWS , which has its offices
in Honolulu at the headquarters of the National
Weather Service Pacific Region Headquarters in
downtown Honolulu.

The mandate of the ICGTWS is to "assist member states
in establishing national warning systems, and makes
information available on current technologies for
tsunami warning systems."

Australia and Indonesia were notified. The US Congress
is to investigate why the US government did not notify
all the Indian Ocean nations in the affected area:
"Only two countries in the affected region, Indonesia
and Australia, received the warning"

"Although Thailand belongs to the international
tsunami-warning network, its west coast does not have
the system's wave sensors mounted on ocean buoys.

The northern tip of the earthquake fault is located
near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and tsunamis
appear to have rushed eastward toward the Thai resort
of Phuket.

"They had no tidal gauges and they had no warning,"
said Waverly Person, a geophysicist at the National
Earthquake Information Centre in Golden, Colorado,
U.S., which monitors seismic activity worldwide.
"There are no buoys in the Indian Ocean and that's
where this tsunami occurred."" (Hindu, 27 Dec 2004)

The issue of the Ocean sensors is a Red Herring

We we were not able to warn them because we had no
sensors in the Indian Ocean: This argument is a Red
Herring.

We are not dealing with advanced information based on
the Ocean sensors, but on an emergency warning
transmitted in the immediate wake of the earthquake.
The latter took place at 00.58 GMT on the 26th of Dec.
That information was sent to The State Department and
the US Navy.

With modern communications, the information of an
impending disaster could have been sent around the
World in a matter of minutes, by email, by telephone,
by fax, not to mention by live satellite Television.

Coastguards, municipalities, local governments,
tourist hotels, etc. could have been warned.

According to Tsunami Society President Prof. Tad Murty
of the University of Manitoba:

'there's no reason for a single individual to get
killed in a tsunami,' since most areas had anywhere
from 25 minutes to four hours before a wave hit. So,
once again, because of indifference and corruption
thousands of innocent people have died needlessly."
(Calgary Sun, 28 Dec 2004)

Key Questions

1. Why were the Indian Ocean countries' governments
not informed?

Were there "guidelines" from the US military or the
State Department regarding the release of an advanced
warning?

According to the statement of the Hawaii based PTWC,
advanced warning was released but on a selective
basis. Indonesia was already hit, so the warning was
in any event redundant and Australia was several
thousand miles from the epicentre of the earthquake
and was, therefore, under no immediate threat.

2. Did US authorities monitoring seismographic data
have knowledge of the earthquake prior to its actual
occurrence at 00.57 GMT on the 26th of December?

The question is whether there were indications of
abnormal seismic activity prior to 01.00 GMT on the
26th of Dec.

The US Geological Survey confirmed that the earthquake
which triggered the tidal wave measured 9.0 on the
Richter scale and was the fourth largest quake since
1900. In such cases, one would expect evidence of
abnormal seismic activity before the actual occurrence
of a major earthquake.

3. Why is the US military Calling the Shots on
Humanitarian Relief

Why in the wake of the disaster, is the US military
(rather than civilian humanitarian/aid organizations
operating under UN auspices) taking a lead role?

The US Pacific Command has been designated to
coordinate the channeling of emergency relief? Marine
Corps Lt. Gen. Rusty Blackman, commander of the 3rd
Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, has been
designated to lead the emergency relief program

Lieutenant General Blackman was previously Chief of
Staff for Coalition Forces Land Component Command,
responsible for leading the Marines into Baghdad
during "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Three "Marine disaster relief assessment teams" under
Blackman's command have been sent to Thailand, Sri
Lanka and Indonesia.

US military aircraft are conducting observation
missions.

In a bitter irony, part of this operation is being
coordinated out of America's Naval base in Diego
Garcia, which was not struck by the tidal wave.
Meanwhile, "USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group,
which was in Hong Kong when the earthquake and
tsunamis struck, has been diverted to the Gulf of
Thailand to support recovery operations" (Press
Conference of Pacific Command,
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2...004122905.html
).

Two Aircraft Carriers have been sent to the region.

Why is it necessary for the US to mobilize so much
military equipment? The pattern is unprecedented:

Conway said the Lincoln carrier strike group has 12
helicopters embarked that he said could be "extremely
valuable" in recovery missions.

An additional 25 helicopters are aboard USS Bonhomme
Richard, headed to the Bay of Bengal. Conway said the
expeditionary strike group was in Guam and is forgoing
port visits in Guam and Singapore and expects to
arrive in the Bay of Bengal by Jan. 7.

Conway said the strike group, with its seven ships,
2,100 Marines and 1,400 sailors aboard, also has four
Cobra helicopters that will be instrumented in
reconnaissance efforts.

Because fresh water is one of the greatest needs in
the region, Fargo has ordered seven ships — each
capable of producing 90,000 gallons of fresh water a
day — to the region. Conway said five of these ships
are pre-positioned in Guam and two will come from
Diego Garcia.

A field hospital ship pre-positioned in Guam would
also be ordered to the region, depending on findings
of the disaster relief assessment teams and need,
Conway said. (Ibid)

Why has a senior commander involved in the invasion of
Iraq been assigned to lead the US emergency relief
program?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tsunami Timeline

Sunday 26 December 2004 (GMT)

00.57 GMT: Between 00.57 GMT and 00.59 GMT, an 8.9
magnitude earthquake occurs on the seafloor near Aceh
in northern Indonesia. (See
http://ioc.unesco.org/itsu/ and other reports)

00.58 GMT: Saturday 25 December, 2.58 pm Hawaii Time
(GMT-10) 26 Dec 00.58 GMT. US government's Pacific
Tsunami Warning Center registers the earthquake on its
seismic instruments. In other words at the time of its
occurrence at 00.58 GMT.

shortly after 01.00 GMT: Earthquake hits several
cities in Indonesia, creates panic in urban areas in
peninsular Malaysia. The news of the earthquakes is
reported immediately.

01.3O GMT: Phuket and Coast of Thailand: The tidal
wave hits to coastline shortly after 8.30 am, 01.30
GMT

02.30 GMT: Colombo Sri Lanka and Eastern Coast of Sri
Lanka, the tidal wave hits the coastal regions close
to the capital Colombo, according to report at 8.30 am
local time, 02.30 GMT (an hour and a half after the
earthqake)

02.45 GMT: India's Eastern Coastline. The tsunami hits
India's eastern coast from 6:15 a.m.(2:45 GMT)

04.00 GMT: Male, Maldives: From about 9:00 am (0400
GMT), three hours after the earthquake, the capital,
Male, and other parts of the country were flooded by
the tsunami. (more than three hours after the
earthquake)

11.00 GMT (approximate time according to news
dispatches): East Coast of Africa is hit. More than
ten hours after the earthquake

The animation below indicates approximate times at
which the tidal wave hits the coastal areas of
Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Sri Lanka,
India, Bangladesh, The Maldives. (see original link)

**COUNTRYBUMPKIN** · 01-04-2005, 03:37 PM

In the Times of India newspaper of Jan. 04, 2005, the
news is that ALL the five tribes in the Andaman
Nicobar Islands saved themselves by observing the
behavior of birds and marine animals and then going
deep into the forest.
Ratan.