Re: tsunami warning system:::The US angle
"Lakshmikanth.C" <[email protected]> Fri, 31 Dec 2004 15:12:03 +0530
| Newsgroups | gmane.culture.region.india.general |
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This is another fact
Why US ?
What were these Indian buggers doing ?
Dont we have satellites ...better shut down isro
see Indian Express News....
*Thursday, December 30, 2004*
*Front Page*
*Govt got wind 1 hr before waves hit Chennai*
/Disconnect between agencies: Met runs late, guess where first alert
mistakenly sent? Home of Murli Manohar Joshi!/
*SHISHIR GUPTA, SONU JAIN & AMITAV RANJAN*
*NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 29** At 7.50 am on Black Sunday, more than one full
hour before the tidal waves hit the Tamil Nadu coast, the top brass of
the Indian Air Force knew that the Car Nicobar Air Base had been
inundated. *
But it was only 41 minutes later--during which time the waves were
heading west--that the first communique went out from the Indian
Meteorological Department (IMD) to the Government. And the Crisis
Management Group, the Government's nodal emergency response unit, met at
1 pm by when the tsunami had come, killed and gone.
And guess who got this first IMD communique? It was sent at 8.54 am to
the residence of Murli Manohar Joshi, former Science and Technology
Minister rather than his successor Kapil Sibal.
It's always easier to find faults with the benefit of
hindsight--especially in an unprecedented disaster like this one--but an
investigation of the sequence of events after the quake hit Sumatra at
6.29 am shows a glaring disconnect between different agencies of the
Government. And highlights how precious time--that could have been used
to issue warnings and maybe save some lives--was lost.
Consider the sequence of events:
. ''At 7.30 am, we were informed by our Chennai unit that coordinates
the logistics for the Car Nicobar base about a massive earthquake near
Andamans and Nicobar,'' Air Chief S Krishnaswamy told /The Indian
Express/ today.
''But communication links went down in the Island Territories, the
Chennai unit could only raise Car Nicobar base on the high frequency set
at 7.50 am ... the last message from Car Nicobar base was that the
island is sinking and there is water all over.''
. At 8.15 am, the Air Chief says, he asked his Assistant Chief of Air
Staff (Operations) to alert the Defence Ministry.
Now cut to the civilian establishment.
. Unaware of its fax goof-up, the IMD, as per routine, sent another fax
to the Disaster Control Room in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) at
9.14 am.
. Eight minutes later, Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi's private
secretary was also brought into the loop.
. At 10.30, the director of the Control Room T. Swami informed Cabinet
Secretariat officials.
. By then the tsunami had hit the Chennai coastline and another
earthquake measuring 7.3 struck 60 miles west of Indira Point at 9.53 am.
What happened between 6.29 am and 8.56 am in the IMD is also telling: it
shows how the country's premier met agency works in isolation during an
unprecedented emergency.
So even as IMD stations in Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata began
started receiving after-shock signals within minutes of the main
earthquake, and while the rest of the world had already issued the exact
epicentre of the earthquake--and the Pacific warning system had sounded
a tidal wave alert--the IMD was doing its own calculations to find out
the magnitude and epicentre of the earthquake.
Not helping the IMD was the fact that the Andaman station in Port Blair
runs on an old, analog system rather than a digital one. In other words,
in the event of a large earthquake and frequent after-shocks, what it
registered was a ''clipped seismograph'' --a blank sheet of paper
instead of zig-zag lines.
This is exactly what happened.
''For computing the exact epicentre, we need data from three stations in
three directions. With Andamans out of operations, it took us longer
than expected,'' explained the duty officer.
By then, the after-shocks had begun at Andamans. The first one was at
7:19 am of magnitude 5.9 on the richter scale. It is not clear whether
that was enough to sound the warning bells.
''Tsunamis are never recorded in Indian history, so it did not occur to
us,'' said R S Dattatrayam, director seismology at IMD, who arrived
after 8.30 am to the station after being informed. ''I don't recall the
exact sequence of events.''
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61766
© 2004: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved
throughout the world.
>
>
> Yamanoor Srihari wrote:
>
>> Friends,
>>
>> I disagree with the whole theory. If a country has the gall to
>> spend money on nuclear bombs rather than its peoples' safety, it
>> cannot blame others for its mishaps. I don't see how the agency
>> could have warned about the tsunami without a system in place.
>>
>> We should not try to cover up, or help cover up or immoral lack
>> of concern for infrastructure. This tsunami has been a humbling
>> lesson for us, lets not miss the point.
>>
>> Srihari
>>
>>
>>
>> Help with the Tsunami Relief
>>
>> http://www.yamanoor.com <http://www.yamanoor.com/>
>>
>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tsunami-relief/
>>
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> **
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This is another fact<br>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Why US ?</span> <br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">What were these
Indian buggers
doing ?</span> <br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Dont we have
satellites
...better shut down isro</span> <br>
<br>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">see Indian Express
News....</span> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Thursday,
December 30, 2004</span></b> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span
style="font-size: 24pt; font-family: Georgia;">Govt got wind 1 hr
before waves hit Chennai</span></b> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Disconnect
between agencies: Met runs late, guess where first alert mistakenly
sent? Home of Murli Manohar Joshi!</span></i> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">SHISHIR
GUPTA, SONU JAIN & AMITAV RANJAN</span></b> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">NEW DELHI,
DECEMBER 29</span></b><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Georgia;"> At 7.50 am on Black
Sunday, more than one full hour before the tidal waves hit the Tamil
Nadu coast, the top brass of the Indian Air Force knew that the Car
Nicobar Air Base had been inundated. </span></b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">But it was
only 41 minutes later—during which time the waves were heading
west—that the first communique went out from the Indian Meteorological
Department (IMD) to the Government. And the Crisis Management Group,
the Government’s nodal emergency response unit, met at 1 pm by when the
tsunami had come, killed and gone. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">And guess
who got this first IMD communique? It was sent at 8.54 am to the
residence of Murli Manohar Joshi, former Science and Technology
Minister rather than his successor Kapil Sibal. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">It’s always
easier to find faults with the benefit of hindsight—especially in an
unprecedented disaster like this one—but an investigation of the
sequence of events after the quake hit Sumatra at 6.29 am shows a
glaring disconnect between different agencies of the Government. And
highlights how precious time—that could have been used to issue
warnings and maybe save some lives—was lost. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Consider
the sequence of events: </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> ‘‘At 7.30 am, we were
informed by our Chennai unit that coordinates the logistics for the Car
Nicobar base about a massive earthquake near Andamans and Nicobar,’’
Air Chief S Krishnaswamy told <i>The Indian Express</i> today. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">‘‘But
communication links went down in the Island Territories, the Chennai
unit could only raise Car Nicobar base on the high frequency set at
7.50 am ... the last message from Car Nicobar base was that the island
is sinking and there is water all over.’’ </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> At 8.15 am, the Air
Chief says, he asked his Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations) to
alert the Defence Ministry. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Now cut to
the civilian establishment. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> Unaware of its fax
goof-up, the IMD, as per routine, sent another fax to the Disaster
Control Room in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) at 9.14 am. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> Eight minutes later,
Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi’s private secretary was also brought
into the loop. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> At 10.30, the director
of the Control Room T. Swami informed Cabinet Secretariat officials. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">•</span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> By then the tsunami had
hit the Chennai coastline and another earthquake measuring 7.3 struck
60 miles west of Indira Point at 9.53 am. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">What
happened between 6.29 am and 8.56 am in the IMD is also telling: it
shows how the country’s premier met agency works in isolation during an
unprecedented emergency. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">So even as
IMD stations in Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata began started
receiving after-shock signals within minutes of the main earthquake,
and while the rest of the world had already issued the exact epicentre
of the earthquake—and the Pacific warning system had sounded a tidal
wave alert—the IMD was doing its own calculations to find out the
magnitude and epicentre of the earthquake. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Not helping
the IMD was the fact that the Andaman station in Port Blair runs on an
old, analog system rather than a digital one. In other words, in the
event of a large earthquake and frequent after-shocks, what it
registered was a ‘‘clipped seismograph’’ —a blank sheet of paper
instead of zig-zag lines. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">This is
exactly what happened. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">‘‘For
computing the exact epicentre, we need data from three stations in
three directions. With Andamans out of operations, it took us longer
than expected,’’ explained the duty officer. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">By then,
the after-shocks had begun at Andamans. The first one was at 7:19 am of
magnitude 5.9 on the richter scale. It is not clear whether that was
enough to sound the warning bells. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">‘‘Tsunamis
are never recorded in Indian history, so it did not occur to us,’’ said
R S Dattatrayam, director seismology at IMD, who arrived after 8.30 am
to the station after being informed. ‘‘I don’t recall the exact
sequence of events.’’</span> <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">URL:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61766">http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=61766</a></span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><br>
<span style="font-size: 7.5pt;"><br>
© 2004: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. All rights reserved
throughout the world. </span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="[email protected]" type="cite"><br>
<br>
Yamanoor Srihari wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid20041230170524.54694.qmail-zAb78M5kvM2A/[email protected]"
type="cite">
<div>
<blockquote class="replbq"
style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px;">
<p>Friends, </p>
<p>I disagree with the whole theory. If a country has the gall to
spend money on nuclear bombs rather than its peoples' safety, it cannot
blame others for its mishaps. I don't see how the agency could have
warned about the tsunami without a system in place.</p>
<p>We should not try to cover up, or help cover up or immoral
lack
of concern for infrastructure. This tsunami has been a humbling lesson
for us, lets not miss the point.</p>
<p>Srihari</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div><font color="darkblue">
<p align="left">Help with the Tsunami Relief</p>
</font></div>
<div><font color="darkblue">
<p align="left"><a href="http://www.yamanoor.com/">http://www.yamanoor.com</a></p>
<p align="left"><a
href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tsunami-relief/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tsunami-relief/</a></p>
</font></div>
</div>
</div>
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