NationStates Jolt Archive

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4134485.stm

The paragraph that caught my attention is towards the bottom of the article.

The small Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia - home to a US naval base - escaped unharmed as it was forewarned by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii.

How is it that A SINGLE ISLAND was warned ahead of time, while nobody else was? And isn't it odd that the island just happened to have a US naval base? Every other article said there was no tsunami warning system in place in the Indian Ocean. This paragraph said they were warned by the PACIFIC system. So...if they managed to detect the tsunami from Hawaii, why did they only decide to tell one island? Un-freakin-believable.

What is wrong is your conspiracy blinded view of the things. What really made the existing warning system ineffective is that there are no established communication channels between the scientist collecting the data and the officials in the region. The warning just didnt make it in time to the people. As the military in general is known as a information junkie you can bet that communication really flows good their way.

Yes, let's all rush to aid Somalia. It turned out so well last time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4134485.stm

The paragraph that caught my attention is towards the bottom of the article.



How is it that A SINGLE ISLAND was warned ahead of time, while nobody else was? And isn't it odd that the island just happened to have a US naval base? Every other article said there was no tsunami warning system in place in the Indian Ocean. This paragraph said they were warned by the PACIFIC system. So...if they managed to detect the tsunami from Hawaii, why did they only decide to tell one island? Un-freakin-believable.
It was warned ahead of time because the shockwave reached Hawaii well before the Tsunami hit Diego Garcia. As Diego Garcia was much further away from the epicenter than Indonesia, it took the wave a lot longer to reach Diego Garcia. And Diego Garcia is in direct contact with the US military communications grid all of the time, and it is fairly small, so preparations could be made fairly quickly, and word could be spread easily.

1) Diego Garcia is uninhabited apart from the 1,000+ people who are work at the US naval base. So it is easy to co-ordinate emergency procedures. Diego Garcia is more than likely to have buildings in place in case of tsunamis.

2) That Diego Garcia is uninhabited is probably also why it was overlooked by other articles.

3) Both the Naval base on Diego Garcia and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii are American posessions and more likely to communicate with each other, and it probably thought its alerting the Naval base was routine as it probably thought other observation stations had probably already alerted to the tidal wave. Plus the closest earthquake observation centre in Vienna missed the first readings of the quake.

4) Diego Garcia is along way away from the epicentre of the quake, 2000 miles I think. The sound waves from the quake will travel around the world much faster than the Tsunami, that leaves plenty of time for the Hawaii station to alert the naval base, and for the naval base to get all its workers inside.

Hardly surprizing, but makes you sad that the rest of all the other affected countries weren't warned. :(

The fact that it's a us naval base should be the clue.

In the indian ocean tsunamis are rare, therefore, there isn'
t much need for a warning system. On a military base, theyu have all sotrs of warnings. :sniper: