In an ocean of bad news there is some good news. At a Sri Lanka nature preserve they noticed that practically no animals have been killed. Apparently the animals can sense this sort of danger coming and get to safety. Could animals be used as an early warning system in future? In places like Indonesia where they don't have a lot of money for the expensive and sophisticated tsunami warning system like in Japan and CA. maybe they could figure out a system using local animals. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6765999/
The article mentioned "hares, rabbits and elephants". Are there really that many elephants near the beach? And I'm guessing rabbits and hares can run pretty fast when need be.
They were showing on CNN that dogs were at their former homes waiting for their masters who will never return. I hope someone is looking out for the dogs and animals in all of this.
How many deep-ocean buoys are need in the Indian Ocean? They say the ones in the Pacific have been there for decades. Certainly all of the nations threatened in the Indian Ocean could chip in for a few buoys, no?
I heard on the radio today that an early warning system is now being put in place, but that it would cost $27 million dollars and take 30 months to finish.
Only $27 million. How sad for all of these people. WRT the 30 months, I expect the local governments to respond differently if the US calls again with a tsunami warning during that time.
I'm really starting to take stock in the whole animal sixth preservation sense thing. A week leading up to the tsunami there had been a few fishermen complaining that catches were really low, and there also reports of extremely strong currents. In fact, on the previous Sunday, one guy I know who went fishing said he has never experienced a pull that strong. On the day the tsunami hit, an uncle was also telling me that apparently snails climb up trees before heavy rains, because otherwise they drown. The next day, I saw a few snails on the walls of my apartment building, and sure enough there have been torrential downpours since Tuesday, lots of flooding.
I'm actually more interested in the marine life myself. Because basically they have no where to go. I'm guessing that reef life may have taken quite a hit as those fish would have been slammed ashore or into the reef. As for deep ocean critter I can only imagine that a 500 mph surf woould not feel too good. With no reaction time, I can't imagine the marine life would have been prepared, but I'm eager to find out.
'More interested'? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you misspoke. And FWIW, the reef prob did not take a bad hit. The scuba divers and sailboats in the vicinity faired just fine.
You goofs, I'm stricly interested in the survival rate of the marine life. It will be fascinating to understand how the marine life dealt with the Tsunami given the fact that they could not outrun the current in any direction. As for using them as a detection system, I had not thought of that, but it would not be out of the realm of possibility. If for example, marine life moves inside or outside of the reef in mass it might be an indicator of what is to come. Sound travels much faster underwater and could provide some indication factors. I heard that the people on the boats suspected a tornado based on the roaring sound, and that they were told to jump into the water for safety. Unfortunately that was a tragic decision for most. But one woman told how she was lucky to be washed ashore. As for Scuba, I know 80 divers were rescued from the Phuket caves. But I would also suspect many were trapped by the current and that the open water divers would have been swept into the reef by it as well. I'll be very interested to see the numbers on the scuba divers in the end.
Also, regarding Scuba, one other interesting note would be how the divers handled the depth changes. Rapis changes in depth and pressure could lead to death very easily. I would guess that the deep divers may have been pushed into rapid depth changes for the worse. Perhaps even causing a rapid ascent or descent. The Dive computers they carry will be fascinating points of research. As the depth changes will be measured. I also wonder, if a 30 foot wave adds to your total depth of the dive.
Actually I don't think the money is really the issue here .. 27 Million is nothing and would have been put up by the UN as it is going to be now. The problem is the perceived threat, which before this tragedy was very minimal. It takes something like this for people to say, wow, we really should have a better warning system. If a bad hurricane only hit once every 100 years, we'd probably be wondering why we didn't do more to prepare for that as well. I read a story online today about the Pacific NW and how it is at risk for a similar Tsunami danger and how the current warning system is bare-bones minimum and would proviced MAYBE 5 minutes warning, which is better than nothing I guess. They have plans now to expand and improve it, but even with improvements there are doubts as to how much warning they could really get. My grandparents have a beach house in Oregon and I saw signs all over that said "Tsunami Warning" and it had a picture of some guy running up a hill while a huge wave was about to engulf him. I always laughed when I saw it, but after this devastation, it seems to be a lot more serious than I or most other people gave it credit.
