16. Oktober 2007
Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences
MC 100-23
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91125
sieh@gps.caltech.edu
= To Prof. Dr. Kerry Sieh =
Re: Tsunami Disaster Dec. 26, 2004
We are a victims’ association located in Germany.
We’re looking to shed light on the disaster of Christmas 2004. We’re unwilling to accept the official position that no warning was possible to alert the people on the beaches. We’ve been able to gather a few facts about your background and your dedicated work in and around Padang. Unfortunately we’re hitting a stonewall everywhere we have tried to receive answers to some obvious questions. It would be comforting for a change if we had more luck with you.
If there was a quake a few miles off Simeulue at 8 a.m. on 26/12/04 the tsunami must have hit the island only a few minutes later. The local people were tsunami-savvy and recognized its symptoms. Wasn’t there anybody among the islanders who had a phone, and there must have been thousands of phones there, to notify the provincial administration on Sumatra or the authorities in Jakarta? People in responsibility must have had knowledge of the quake and must have known that first question was: Did the quake trigger a wave?
The moment they knew there was a wave the immediate thing to do was issue an urgent alert. All of this could have happened within minutes. Everything that applies to Simeulue and Indonesia was equally true of the Nicobars, the Andamans, India and Thailand. There were, of course, lots of other people who should have been able to warn. Just think of the U.S. Navy on Diego Garcia (and other navies, too). Countless experts had access to satellite data. On this cloudless morning all the known signs of the tsunamis were clearly observable on the myriad beaches from Simeulue to the northern end of the Andamans.
Why didn’t anybody do something? In point of technology everything was there. Do you have an explanation? We would be curious to have your views.
Kind regards,
Jerzy Chojnowski
Chairman-GTVRG e.V.
www.gtvrg.de
***
Oct. 16, 2007
Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences
MC 100-23
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91125
sieh@gps.caltech.edu
= To Prof. Dr. Kerry Sieh =
Re: Tsunami Disaster Dec. 26, 2004
We are a victims’ association located in Germany.
We’re looking to shed light on the disaster of Christmas 2004. We’re unwilling to accept the official position that no warning was possible to alert the people on the beaches. We’ve been able to gather a few facts about your background and your dedicated work in and around Padang. Unfortunately we’re hitting a stonewall everywhere we have tried to receive answers to some obvious questions. It would be comforting for a change if we had more luck with you.
If there was a quake a few miles off Simeulue at 8 a.m. on 26/12/04 the tsunami must have hit the island only a few minutes later. The local people were tsunami-savvy and recognized its symptoms. Wasn’t there anybody among the islanders who had a phone, and there must have been thousands of phones there, to notify the provincial administration on Sumatra or the authorities in Jakarta? People in responsibility must have had knowledge of the quake and must have known that first question was: Did the quake trigger a wave?
The moment they knew there was a wave the immediate thing to do was issue an urgent alert. All of this could have happened within minutes. Everything that applies to Simeulue and Indonesia was equally true of the Nicobars, the Andamans, India and Thailand. There were, of course, lots of other people who should have been able to warn. Just think of the U.S. Navy on Diego Garcia (and other navies, too). Countless experts had access to satellite data. On this cloudless morning all the known signs of the tsunamis were clearly observable on the myriad beaches from Simeulue to the northern end of the Andamans.
Why didn’t anybody do something? In point of technology everything was there. Do you have an explanation? We would be curious to have your views.
Kind regards,
Jerzy Chojnowski
Chairman-GTVRG e.V.
www.gtvrg.de
***
Kerry Sieh <sieh@gps.caltech.edu>
Re: Tsunami Disaster Dec. 26, 2004
Dear Jerzy,
Indeed, the people of northern Simeulue island were the first to be hit by the tsunami, since they were only a few tens of kilometers from the point of initial uplift of the seabed. But there was (and for the most part still is) no phone service in the villages of the island. Only Sinabang, the capital of the island regency on the southern part of the island and more nearly 200 km from the epicenter of the earthquake, had cell phone service. By the time the first waves reached Sinabang, the first waves would already have hit the west coast of mainland Aceh, where most of the victims perished.
The west coast of mainland Aceh had only about 20 minutes to respond to a tsunami threat after the heavy several minutes of shaking from the earthquake first warned them. Many people did indeed flee to the hills as soon as they could stand. Others attempted to flee the coast, but were unable to cover the necessary kilometer or more before they were swept up by the waves.
Unfortunately, no one in authority understood what was happening in the first several hours after the earthquake. It took days, in fact, before the scope of the disaster in western Aceh was known. In hindsight, yes, more should have been done to educate both the gov't authorities and the citizenry about the possibility of a great tsunami following a great earthquake. Unfortunately, even the basic science that would have been needed to develop that understanding had not been done!
Now, of course, awareness of tsunami dangers is far greater than it was before 2004. Other places around the world where tsunamis are possible are being recognized. Even so, it will take decades of dedicated work to substantially improve government and community responses to this hazard.
I hope this helps.
Kerry
***
Re: Tsunami Disaster Dec. 26, 2004
Dear Jerzy,
Indeed, the people of northern Simeulue island were the first to be hit by the tsunami, since they were only a few tens of kilometers from the point of initial uplift of the seabed. But there was (and for the most part still is) no phone service in the villages of the island. Only Sinabang, the capital of the island regency on the southern part of the island and more nearly 200 km from the epicenter of the earthquake, had cell phone service. By the time the first waves reached Sinabang, the first waves would already have hit the west coast of mainland Aceh, where most of the victims perished.
The west coast of mainland Aceh had only about 20 minutes to respond to a tsunami threat after the heavy several minutes of shaking from the earthquake first warned them. Many people did indeed flee to the hills as soon as they could stand. Others attempted to flee the coast, but were unable to cover the necessary kilometer or more before they were swept up by the waves.
Unfortunately, no one in authority understood what was happening in the first several hours after the earthquake. It took days, in fact, before the scope of the disaster in western Aceh was known. In hindsight, yes, more should have been done to educate both the gov't authorities and the citizenry about the possibility of a great tsunami following a great earthquake. Unfortunately, even the basic science that would have been needed to develop that understanding had not been done!
Now, of course, awareness of tsunami dangers is far greater than it was before 2004. Other places around the world where tsunamis are possible are being recognized. Even so, it will take decades of dedicated work to substantially improve government and community responses to this hazard.
I hope this helps.
Kerry
***
“Our principal current research interest is the subduction megathrust
that produced the devastating giant Sumatran earthquakes and Indian Ocean tsunamis of 2004 and 2005.”
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~sieh/
***
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~sieh/
***
= To Prof. Dr.
Kerry Sieh =
Contact Information:
Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences
MC 100-23
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91125
sieh@gps.caltech.edu
December 9, 2007
Sonntag, 9. Dezember 2007
Jerzy Chojnowski <gtvrg@wtnet.de>
Re: We need more info about what seismologists knew
Contact Information:
Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences
MC 100-23
1200 E. California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91125
sieh@gps.caltech.edu
December 9, 2007
Sonntag, 9. Dezember 2007
Jerzy Chojnowski <gtvrg@wtnet.de>
Re: We need more info about what seismologists knew
immediately
after the quake of 12/26/04
Dear Kerry,
We were very happy to have a prompt answer from you.
Of course, you picked up our argument where it’s weakest. There would have been very little warning time for Aceh, whatever the government’s behaviour at the moment. If, on the other hand, the population had been better educated and if there had been sign-posted escape routes to higher ground or to solid elevated structures, things might have looked different and every extra minute would have been important. You mention the word hindsight. Yes, but how much hindsight does Indonesia need? It has had tsunamis every few years, and this since times immemorial. During the nineties alone it had three destructive ones, if one includes the one in 1998 right next-door in New Guinea.
Our interest, however, is principally concentrated on Thailand where the greatest number of foreign tourists died. There the authorities would have had nearly two or even more than two hours for the alert, counting from the quake to the onslaught. The seismological data together with satellite pictures of the disaster on the Nicobars and the Andamans should have convinced anyone of what was afoot. At the very latest the events in and around Aceh should have led to an instant, urgent and general alert to all coasts of the Indian Ocean.
We’re now trying to find out how much exactly seismologists knew, or could have known, or should have known, during the minutes following the end of the quake. Clearly, the eight minutes’ rumble couldn’t exclusively have originated from the epicentre off north-west Simeulue. Did scientists have definite knowledge that the quake was continuing 1200-1500 km along the fault towards the north… or towards the south-east? Or were they speculating, or surmising, or developing theories, or just groping around in the dark? Or how long did it take them to have knowledge that was approximately right?
Whatever they were thinking, the immediate reaction, so we feel, should have been the most important practical question: Did this seaquake trigger dangerous waves? Nowadays it is so easy to call up a satellite view. There are many space agencies around the world like NASA, ESA and NOAA and scientists who are watching the Earth via satellites. Military outposts in the remote areas of Afghanistan can do it on their laptops. Weren’t there any seismologists with access to military or non-military satellite data to confirm or complete their data and their surmises? It was on Dec. 26th 2004 a cloudless morning in the whole region and therefore ideal for satellite images.
The fault skirts the Nicobars and the Andamans on the west. More than 550 islands that allowed to study from the air or from space the destructive effects of the tsunami. These were the same waves that would more than two hours later reach the Thai coast. The havoc they wreaked on the islands was clearly observable and the big picture that was developing was recognizable from early on. We appeal to you to help us to clarify what exactly happened. From what we have learned about your work there is hardly anybody on the globe more qualified. Did you know that more than 2 000 Americans were killed? This fact is seldom mentioned in America, if at all.
We would also like to profit from your personal knowledge of the Andamans and the Nicobars. You wrote to us that there were no telephones on northern Simeulue to alert the authorities in Sinabang, in Aceh and in Jakarta (which we still find hard to believe). But there must have been telephones somewhere between Great Nicobar and North Andaman, and the mainland India. There’s an Indian military base on Car Nicobar and a meteorological station for the Gulf of Bengal in Port Blair. In spite of the distractions by the customary extended Christmas celebrations there, the authorities on the mainland could have been in the picture, had they cared.
Our tentative analysis of the causes of the disaster is lack of communication. Experts in different fields and people in different positions didn’t talk with each other and didn’t share what they knew. Info, expertise, data, experiences, viewpoints, eye-witness accounts and knowledge weren’t brought together and pooled.
We would be grateful to hear from you again.
Kind Regards
Jerzy
www.gtvrg.de
gtvrg@wtnet.de
***
Dear Kerry,
We were very happy to have a prompt answer from you.
Of course, you picked up our argument where it’s weakest. There would have been very little warning time for Aceh, whatever the government’s behaviour at the moment. If, on the other hand, the population had been better educated and if there had been sign-posted escape routes to higher ground or to solid elevated structures, things might have looked different and every extra minute would have been important. You mention the word hindsight. Yes, but how much hindsight does Indonesia need? It has had tsunamis every few years, and this since times immemorial. During the nineties alone it had three destructive ones, if one includes the one in 1998 right next-door in New Guinea.
Our interest, however, is principally concentrated on Thailand where the greatest number of foreign tourists died. There the authorities would have had nearly two or even more than two hours for the alert, counting from the quake to the onslaught. The seismological data together with satellite pictures of the disaster on the Nicobars and the Andamans should have convinced anyone of what was afoot. At the very latest the events in and around Aceh should have led to an instant, urgent and general alert to all coasts of the Indian Ocean.
We’re now trying to find out how much exactly seismologists knew, or could have known, or should have known, during the minutes following the end of the quake. Clearly, the eight minutes’ rumble couldn’t exclusively have originated from the epicentre off north-west Simeulue. Did scientists have definite knowledge that the quake was continuing 1200-1500 km along the fault towards the north… or towards the south-east? Or were they speculating, or surmising, or developing theories, or just groping around in the dark? Or how long did it take them to have knowledge that was approximately right?
Whatever they were thinking, the immediate reaction, so we feel, should have been the most important practical question: Did this seaquake trigger dangerous waves? Nowadays it is so easy to call up a satellite view. There are many space agencies around the world like NASA, ESA and NOAA and scientists who are watching the Earth via satellites. Military outposts in the remote areas of Afghanistan can do it on their laptops. Weren’t there any seismologists with access to military or non-military satellite data to confirm or complete their data and their surmises? It was on Dec. 26th 2004 a cloudless morning in the whole region and therefore ideal for satellite images.
The fault skirts the Nicobars and the Andamans on the west. More than 550 islands that allowed to study from the air or from space the destructive effects of the tsunami. These were the same waves that would more than two hours later reach the Thai coast. The havoc they wreaked on the islands was clearly observable and the big picture that was developing was recognizable from early on. We appeal to you to help us to clarify what exactly happened. From what we have learned about your work there is hardly anybody on the globe more qualified. Did you know that more than 2 000 Americans were killed? This fact is seldom mentioned in America, if at all.
We would also like to profit from your personal knowledge of the Andamans and the Nicobars. You wrote to us that there were no telephones on northern Simeulue to alert the authorities in Sinabang, in Aceh and in Jakarta (which we still find hard to believe). But there must have been telephones somewhere between Great Nicobar and North Andaman, and the mainland India. There’s an Indian military base on Car Nicobar and a meteorological station for the Gulf of Bengal in Port Blair. In spite of the distractions by the customary extended Christmas celebrations there, the authorities on the mainland could have been in the picture, had they cared.
Our tentative analysis of the causes of the disaster is lack of communication. Experts in different fields and people in different positions didn’t talk with each other and didn’t share what they knew. Info, expertise, data, experiences, viewpoints, eye-witness accounts and knowledge weren’t brought together and pooled.
We would be grateful to hear from you again.
Kind Regards
Jerzy
www.gtvrg.de
gtvrg@wtnet.de
***
Our last request remained still unanswered without any result or
reaction so far.
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