posted January 14, 2005 10:18 AM              

quote:

---

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.. Yet the tsunami took as long as two hours to reach some countries, and NOAA's critics say timely even unofficial warnings might have allowed people in coastal areas to flee."

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is "exploring and looking into why NOAA was not able to provide this valuable, life-saving information to the 11 affected nations," (quoted in Boston Globe, 29 Dec 2004)

---

Foreknowledge of A Natural Disaster

also is the unprecedented build-up of U.S. military in southeast asia since the tragedy, in place of humanitarian aid...

posted January 14, 2005 02:50 PM            

I think our policy should be to

1) Let these other countries take care of their own people

2) If they can't get their crap together to institute a warning system, then let them deal with it on their own.

Sorry, but the US is giving 4 times the aid of other countries. We do everything possible to be this entity that tries to help and all we get is conspiracy theories and a big slap in the face. I would rather we become isolationists and STOP giving money to other countries and start focusing on ourselves. Do you SEE anyone helping us with what is going on here with our flooding or the past hurricane season?

posted January 14, 2005 06:54 PM              

I also was told that Australia has given the most aid.

posted January 14, 2005 09:11 PM            

I think it is a joke to say that we should be held responsible for informing people or that we should have done a better job..how many Tsunami's have hit on our lifetime? How prepared are we when it comes to having to watch out for other countries?

According to this website it was in 1960 that we had the last deadly Tsunami -

Tsunami, «tsoo NAH mee», is a series of powerful ocean waves produced by an undersea earthquake, landslide, or volcanic eruption. In the open ocean, the water level may rise and fall several feet as a tsunami passes by. However, tsunamis frequently go undetected by ships because the water takes about 10 to 30 minutes to reach its highest level and fall back down. As a tsunami approaches a coastline, it can form a deadly wall of water that rises more than 100 feet (30 meters) high. The word tsunami is a combination of Japanese words meaning harbor and wave.

A tsunami that is caused by an undersea earthquake is also called a seismic sea wave. Scientists can calculate where and when a given undersea earthquake occurred and predict when the resulting seismic sea wave will reach shore. The scientists base their calculations on data provided by instruments called seismographs. These instruments detect vibrations called seismic waves that the earthquake sends through the rock beneath the ground.

Seismic waves travel through the earth much faster than a tsunami travels through the water. The speed of a tsunami depends on the depth of the water. In the Pacific Ocean, for example, a tsunami travels at a speed of up to 600 miles (970 kilometers) per hour. As the tsunami comes close to the shore, however, the speed that it is moving drops to about 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.

In 1960, a tsunami generated near the coast of Chile caused major damage across the entire Pacific Ocean. In Chile, it killed more than 5,000 people and caused widespread property damage along the coast. About 14 hours later, it reached Hawaii, where it killed 61 people and caused millions of dollars in property damage. Nine hours after that, the tsunami struck Japan, killing 150 people.

In late 2004, a powerful undersea earthquake created a tsunami that began near the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The tsunami's towering waves pounded coastlines throughout the Indian Ocean, killing more than 130,000 people and causing millions of dollars in property damage. The greatest number of deaths occurred in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.

http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wb/Article?id=ar569220&st=Tsunami

In 1998 a Tsunami swept over Papau New Guinea and nearly obliterated the island.

Before the Tsunami in 1998, one of that magnitude had not hit since 1975.

This is a cool website: http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/historic/historic.html

It is not like our state of the art Hurricane detection system. Look at the information concerning how fast the waves and travel, which depends on the depth of the water. We also have to keep in mind that "Technology of today is NOT what is was in 1975 or 1960" It takes years to invent and implement systems that can detect such devasation.

This latest Tsunami is going to possibly be labeled as the "Most Destructive Tsunami in History". Had we not had the technology that we do, MORE people would have been killed as a result of this event.

Tink,

While I think the US does have an excellent record for the detection of Hurricane's it is quite different than Tsunami detection. It is apples to oranges. Even Earthquakes on land are different that those that occur underwater.

___________________________________

One more telling bit of information that I found to be very insightful is that fact that according to National Geo:

"Tsunamis have been relatively rare in the Indian Ocean. They are most prevalent in the Pacific. But every ocean has generated the scourges. Many countries are at risk. "

"Scientists say that a great earthquake of magnitude 9 struck the Pacific Northwest in 1700, and created a tsunami that caused flooding and damage on the Pacific coast of Japan."

"The most damaging tsunami on record before 2004 was the one that killed an estimated 40,000 people in 1782 following an earthquake in the South China Sea. In 1883 some 36,500 people were killed by tsunamis in the South Java Sea, following the eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa volcano. In northern Chile more than 25,000 people were killed by a tsunami in 1868."

"The Tsunami Warning System (TWS) in the Pacific, comprised of 26 member countries, monitors seismological and tidal stations throughout the Pacific region. The system evaluates potentially tsunamigenic earthquakes and issues tsunami warnings. There is no international warning system for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. "

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1228_041228_tsunami.html

posted January 14, 2005 11:16 PM              

"Do you SEE anyone helping us with what is going on here with our flooding or the past hurricane season?"

posted January 14, 2005 11:33 PM              

if you read the article, it illustrates that the knowledge of the devastation was there, and that it could have prevented so much tragic death. it discusses why simply having inadequate telephone numbers is not really an excuse.

posted January 14, 2005 11:48 PM              

quote:

---

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 thousands of people.

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 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 ).

We started thinking about who we could call. We talked to the State Department Operations Center and to the military. We called embassies. We talked to the navy in Sri Lanka, any local government official we could get hold of," Hirshorn said. "We were fairly careful about who we called. We wanted to call people who could help."

(quoted in http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/29/ln/ln05p.html )

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 001 [initial warning]
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS ISSUED AT 0114Z 26 DEC 2004

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN: THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004 COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA

MAGNITUDE - 8.0

EVALUATION: THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS BASED ON HISTORICAL EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI

DATA. THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/olderwmsg

To consult Bulletins: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/olderwmsg

Note the tone of the first Bulletin above. It downplays an imminent catastrophe. It points to a Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake, subsequently revised to 8.5 and then 9. (See the texts of all three Bulletins in annex to this article).

The Bulletin fails to underscore the seriousness of the situation. It states in a routine fashion. "There is no Tsunami Warning or Watch in Effect" [in the Pacific]. It does not make any statement as to what might happen in the Indian Ocean. Neither does it acknowledge that the country which is worst hit, namely Indonesia, is a member of the Pacific tsunami warning system along with Thailand and Singapore.

In fact, the Bulletin is grossly misleading on the extent of the catastrophe caused by the earthquake and the tsunami which had already hit Indonesia prior to the release of the Bulletin (01.14 GMT), on the North Sumatra Coastline and in Banda, Aceh. To state that there is no tsunami or tsunami warning is mistaken. It had already happened!

We Did Not Know!

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 seismic 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 ).

It is impossible that the movement of the seismic wave could have gone unnoticed following the initial devastating impact of the tidal waves in Aceh and North Sumatra immediately after 1.00 GMT on the 26th.

Moreover, according to expert opinion, known to the scientists who were monitoring seismic activity, an earthquake of more than 6.5 on the Richter scale has the potential of triggering a tsunami. In other words, there should have been no hesitation by scientists or government officials on the likely impacts of an earthquake which was initially assessed at 8.0 on the Richter scale.

Moreover, the Hawaii Center's statement is at odds with the Timeline of the seismic wave disaster (see below), which no doubt was also being monitored on a continuous basis, once it hit the Indonesian and Thai coastlines by satellite imaging using the Global Positioning System (GPS). These satellite images are available to a number of agencies including the US military and intelligence. It should be noted, however, that the energy of a tsunami is transferred through open water, it is therefore not easily detectable in the Ocean.

It is the extreme seismic activity which provides advance warning prior to the tsunami reaching the coastline. But as pointed out above, the tsunami had already hit the Indonesian coast shortly shortly after 01.00 GMT:

"In the open ocean, tsunamis would not be felt by ships because the wavelength would be hundreds of miles long, with an amplitude of only a few feet. This would also make them unnoticeable from the air. As the waves approach the coast, their speed decreases and their amplitude increases. Unusual wave heights have been known to be over 100 feet high. However, waves that are 10 to 20 feet high can be very destructive and cause many deaths or injuries." (see http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/0,1082,0_592_,00.html#feel )

Thailand was hit almost an hour before Sri Lanka and the news reports including photographic evidence 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 by Director of the Hawaii Center is also inconsistent.

The seismic 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 seismic wave, because the Navy was on the Pacific Warning Center's list of contacts. The Military also has its own advanced systems including satellite images, which enables it to monitor in a very precise way the movement of the seismic wave in real time. In other words, in all likelihood the US Military had information on an impending catastrophe.

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 statements on the surface are ambiguous, 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 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

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.. Yet the tsunami took as long as two hours to reach some countries, and NOAA's critics say timely even unofficial warnings might have allowed people in coastal areas to flee."

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is "exploring and looking into why NOAA was not able to provide this valuable, life-saving information to the 11 affected nations," (quoted in Boston Globe, 29 Dec 2004):

The issue of the Ocean Sensors is a Red Herring

"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 Hawaii Center was not able to warn them because they had no sensors in the Indian Ocean: That argument is a Red Herring.

We are not dealing with information based on Ocean sensors: the emergency warning was transmitted in the immediate wake of the earthquake (based on seismic data). The earthquake took place at 00.58 GMT on the 26th of Dec. The report was transmitted to The State Department and the US Navy following the earthquake.

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)

While the above quote is an overstatement, given the nature and magnitude of the catastrophe, it should nonetheless be taken seriously.

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/Dec2004/n12292004_2004122905.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?

---

(from the original article posted in the first post of this thread).

as i said, to me this is interesting reading. it poses thoughtful questions that i find difficult to overlook. the president has made a lot of effort to highlight the benefaction of the u.s. in giving aid.

and yet, really -- why not prevent such tragedy and monetary and manpower cost and simply send a pre-emptive warning? it's not as if there's that much to spare with the effort of the war.

yet the u.s. is mobilizing key components of its troops -- serious effort here, no? but why not just prevent having to do this at all by making an effort to tell everybody? there's something missing in this picture.

posted January 15, 2005 01:22 AM            

I am not disagreeing with you about us helping. That is what we do. What I am tired of is the crap that is spread about our country like what we see from Saffron.

Yes, we had knowledge, but if Saffron would take the time to actually read about Tsunami's and the history he/ she would learn that we did NOT have the capability to inform every last country. NOR did we have the past knowledge of how this wave would affect those regions. We did what we could and we did a damn good job.

What is horrid is that people keep trying to make it some kind of conspiracy that we WANTED these things to happen and deliberately withheld information so people would die.

Saffron,

posted January 15, 2005 04:43 PM            

I don't care if Rush Limbaugh opened the investigation into our handling of the response. You are acting as though the US WANTED this to happen..

Prox is right, even though we are strong - the US is not a God-like entity.

Maybe we should open an investigation into why the people didn't listen to this guy -

Thai Predicted Tsunami; No One Listened

Thursday, January 13, 2005

BANGKOK, Thailand — Until two weeks ago, Smith Thammasaroj (search) was a prophet without honor.

As chief of Thailand's meteorological department in 1998, he was accused of scare-mongering when he warned that the country's southwest coast could face a deadly tsunami.

He retired under a shadow, dismissed as a crackpot, accused of causing panic and jeopardizing a critical tourist industry that grew up around the tropical resort island of Phuket (search).

Today, Smith is being lionized for his foresight after the devastating Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 150,000 people around the region, including 5,300 in Thailand, where 3,600 more are listed as missing.

Less than a week after the tragedy, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (search) appointed Smith as a vice minister and put him in charge of the newly established National Disaster Warning Office, which will work with seismologists to establish a tsunami early warning system.

Now when Smith speaks, people listen. And he has a new message: The United States must take some of the blame for the grievous number of casualties.

The 68-year-old forecaster — who earned a bachelor's degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Vermont (search) in 1962 — said he believes that if the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (search) had acted quickly enough, many lives could have been saved.

Workers at the Hawaii center have said they tried in vain to warn Indian Ocean nations about the possible effects of the earthquake but they were not equipped to monitor that part of the world and didn't even have phone numbers for the right officials.

The Hawaii center, set up in 1948, hosts the only regional network of its kind in the world, but is set up solely to monitor Pacific Ocean countries.

"I'm not angry at them for failing to warn Thailand, because at that time they did not know for sure, they merely said a tsunami was possible after the earthquake," Smith told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday.

But after the giant waves hit southern Thailand, the center had more than an hour to alert India, Bangladesh and the Maldives, "and if they warned those countries, they could have saved thousands of lives," he said.

"It's their failure to do so that makes me mad at them," he said.

But the Hawaii center denied it could have alerted those nations in time.

"We didn't know anything even after the waves hit Thailand," Charles McCreery (search), the center's director, said Tuesday. Scientists at the Hawaii warning center did not learn of the tsunami until several hours later when they read news reports on the Internet about it striking Sri Lanka, McCreery said.

"That's well after those waves would have hit all of those places over there that got hit badly," he said. "So there really wasn't the opportunity."

Although the center had data on the earthquake, there are no sensors or tide gauges to measure water levels in the Indian Ocean, so there was no way to know if a tsunami had been generated, he said.

Smith has been equally critical of his own country's meteorologists. He said earlier that staff at the Meteorological Department working on Dec. 26 knew what was coming but failed to act because they were ignored earlier.

"They knew exactly what was going to happen, but they ... were afraid to make a decision, because they believed if they made a wrong forecast they would get blamed," Smith said.

The Meteorological Department has said it knew about the earthquake and the possibility that it could trigger a tsunami about an hour before waves began slamming ashore.

But they said they had no way to determine the size of the waves — and therefore the threat they posed — and were reluctant to issue a warning without such information because it could harm the tourism industry and anger the government.

Smith showed no such reluctance when, as head of the meteorological bureau, he made headlines in 1993 and 1998 with warnings about a possible tsunami.

His 1998 warning, which came after an earthquake-triggered tsunami killed more than 2,000 people in Papua New Guinea (search), sent droves of people running for the hills in southern Thailand. But no tsunami hit Thailand, and furious tourism executives and government officials excoriated Smith for his judgment.

posted January 15, 2005 04:45 PM            

US Military Sees Its Tsunami Work Winding Down

55 minutes ago

By Karima Anjani and Jerry Norton

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - The U.S. military, a leading force behind relief efforts in tsunami-hit nations, said on Saturday it expected to end major work in Thailand and Sri Lanka within two weeks but to stay longer in Indonesia.

More shopping markets reopened, fishermen received new boats and even the sea was given a clean-up as people in the Indian Ocean region set about repairing the damage from the Dec. 26 tsunami and restoring normal life.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz flew over Indonesia's worst-hit Aceh province, where the tsunami killed about two-thirds of the total global death toll of more than 162,000, and told reporters he was shocked at the devastation.

"I thought I was prepared for it, and I honestly wasn't -- the enormous extent of it, the complete desolation," he said.

U.S. military commanders briefed Wolfowitz, saying Thailand and Sri Lanka would soon be able to cope on their own.

"We see ourselves in a position to make that transition in a week or two," Lieutenant General Robert Blackman told Wolfowitz at U-tapao Royal Thai Naval base south of Bangkok.

Officers said it would take slightly longer in Indonesia.

The United States has deployed some 15,000 servicemen, ships and helicopters to deliver emergency aid to tsunami-ravaged countries round the Indian Ocean, mostly to Aceh.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, is sensitive about having a large multinational military presence in Aceh, an area riven by a separatist conflict, and wants U.S., Japanese, Australian and other forces to leave by April.

JAKARTA DEADLINE

Wolfowitz, U.S. ambassador to Indonesia in the late 1980s, said Washington had no problem with Jakarta setting a deadline because it was a goal to take over all aid work.

"We don't have a plan other than to (work) as quickly as we can to hand over responsibility to others, and especially to the Indonesian government," he said. "Our goal is to put ourselves out of business as quickly as possible."

U.N. officials say U.S. helicopters have been vital in getting aid to remote areas where the tsunami washed away roads, bridges and airstrips. Washington views aid efforts as essential to its war against terrorism and regional security in Asia.

Wolfowitz, due to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other Indonesian officials on Sunday, said he hoped the goodwill shown in helping tsunami victims would reap some political capital.

In Aceh's capital Banda Aceh, aftershocks shook houses, sending residents fleeing their homes yet again.

Some 3,000 tsunami survivors are being hired for $3.30 a day to clean up rubble in the city under a U.N.-funded program.

The U.N. refugee agency is distributing thousands of tents, mostly on Aceh's northwest coast. But aid workers say relatively few of the 700,000 displaced in Aceh live like refugees as most turn to extended families.

In Sri Lanka, where 30,000 were killed by the tsunami, the government signaled reconstruction was under way by handing 60 modest fiberglass boats to fishermen.

There are plans to replace half of the estimated 18,500 vessels washed away or smashed to pieces by tsunami.

SELF HELP

Others tried to help themselves. Some fishermen patched up their boats and farmers worked to stop their land being damaged by the tsunami's salt water.

U.N. staff say there is no sign of diseases breaking out in tsunami-hit nations that also include India, Thailand, Malaysia, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Myanmar and East African states.

On India's Andaman and Nicobar islands traumatized survivors were given counseling to deal with what they lived through.

A hush descended among dozens of people huddled on plastic sheets in one camp for the homeless as a relief worker shouted into a microphone.

"If you can't sleep at night or are fearful of loud noises that remind you of the tsunami, there is help," the worker said. "Doctors are here to help you. Come to the medical room."

Within minutes, men, women and children had crowded into a classroom where mental health doctors were on hand.

"My son gets scared very easily after the tsunami. He hardly speaks anymore and is always holding my arm," schoolteacher Swaran Rekha told one doctor of her 6-year-old.

The remote island chain includes stone-age tribes, some of whom believe a giant boar-like animal sleeping below them has been turning on its sides and caused the earthquake off Indonesia that triggered the tsunami.

"Some people are saying these are the last days of the world," said one refugee, declining to be named.

In Thailand, where many foreign tourists were among the 5,300 dead, around 300 volunteer divers scoured the sea floor and prized coral reefs to clear debris around Phuket island so tourism can restart.

Two Buddhist monks sailed out to bless the divers and pray for peace for the spirits of the dead.

U.N. environment chief Klaus Toepfer said an international disaster reduction conference in Japan next week should forge an agreement on a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean region.

The meeting should also outline how the system could be extended to all seas and oceans across the globe and to all forms of natural and man-made disasters, he said.

"We must ensure that the proposed Indian Ocean early-warning system does not ... simply lie on the shelf gathering dust," said Toepfer, head of the United Nations (news - web sites) Environment Program.

posted January 15, 2005 10:02 PM              

it's simply unprecedented....this combined with no warning, when warnings could have been issued, thus staving off such a large tragedy in the first place.

i've only stated that it's an interesting situation that warrants thoughtful attention. i've read differing versions of the events, many of which ask the same questions. not all versions agree, but still worth considering, especially if there is a congressional investigation, which of course, i have nothing to do with initiating.

posted January 16, 2005 07:13 PM              

Sending love & light into this thread...

posted January 16, 2005 09:37 PM            

Where in my post does it say that I am happy?

Where does it say that innocent people deserved to die?

Where would your twisted, feeble and malicious mind find happiness in my words about their tragedy?

You, once again, shot another crooked arrow and missed your mark. Take your foot out of your rear region and think about this thread. My words are in response to those that believe we didn't give adequate warning. My posts of the facts concerning horrific weather events have NOTHING to do with people deserving to get hurt.

I am extremely offended AND SICK AND TIRED of your immature attacks. You need to seriously grow up and knock that crap off.

posted January 16, 2005 10:37 PM            

I wish we had a better system, but from what they are saying- we have learned and will put up new sensors.

posted January 16, 2005 10:51 PM            

1) Let these other countries take care of their own people

2) If they can't get their crap together to institute a warning system, then let them deal with it on their own."

These statements epitomize not only your personal discompassion, but also that of you political affiliation. I'm sorry that you have been treated with discompassion in the past, but this is no reason to become cold, bitter, and selfish. Your approach to politics is almost Darwinian in its savagery, and i reccomend you seriously reexamine your moral values and your self respect.

Not only do you fail to take into account the relative economic situation of these countries, you fail to recognize the importance of unity among the human species. Your attitude is warmongering, selfish, and hate-filled. Perhaps your parents applied a survival of the fittest methodology to raising you, and this is why you've become such a cold and callous creature, and if this is the case I sincerely apologize for their actions, because whatever compassion that you might have been born with has been sucked dry, and you heart has been left as dead as the poor children ravaged by this disaster.

I sincerely hope if something bad happens to you, that the people who you need do not employ, on a smaller basis, the same ideology that you do. If this were the case, you might not make it.

posted January 16, 2005 11:52 PM            

It is in reply to the fact that everyone bashes on OUR country only to need us in the end. THEN we help and we are still chastized.