The quake is the warning
And still, time punishes. There wasn't enough of it when a deadly wave careened in October 2010 toward the Indonesian island of Mentawai, a surfer's paradise off the coast of Padang. Alarm data streamed to the Jakarta main warning center. In seconds officials evaluated the results as they filtered through the system algorithms and models, and sent warnings to the Mentawai islands, police, local responders, and TV and radio broadcasters.
But the tsunami was on Mentawai in minutes and 400 people died. Local officials bitterly complained that the warning systems must have been vandalized or switched off—that people should have gotten a warning and did not. "That's wrong," Lauterjung says. Data shows a warning was sent out from the system within four minutes of the quake and broadcast on local radio and TV stations after seven minutes.
Sadly, that's just when the wave hit. As Goldfinger says, sometimes the quake is the warning.
Lauterjung says Mentawai presents the limit of early warning in terms of time. "And there is a limit, for the techniques these days," he says. Lauterjung himself and other researchers point out that science and technology aren't enough—much depends on behavior and luck; on not going back to the house to fetch family photographs; on taking bicycles rather than cars to higher ground to avoid traffic jams; on better education. Even little things like paying attention to animal behavior can help. (Even though they're not part of a warning system, some animals are sensitive to the low-frequency waves issued by earthquake and tsunami.)
He and other researchers also think there's still more to be done in making warning systems better. Georgia Institute of Technology geophysicist Andrew Newman, who is testing new early warning data-processing algorithms, expects improvements down the road in rapidly assessing earthquake source parameters, faster distribution of information, more precision in pinning down earthquake depth, rupture area, and the extent of slippage to determine seafloor displacement. GFZ researchers are also pursuing more experimental avenues for improvement, such as using satellite reflectometry and radar to monitor oceanic trenches for near-field tsunamis. Humboldt State University tsunami and earthquake expert Lori Dengler says it's a cost-benefit problem: What does shaving a minute or two off the warning time cost, and how much benefit does it lend?
Less esoteric (or more whimsical) calculations are in the mix as well: Lauterjung says he's seen families store balloon-rigged escape pods in their backyards, like those used to escape oil-rig emergencies. In case of flood or tsunami, a family could get in the pod and bob along the surface of the water, like James Bond at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me.
Everything has limits, Lauterjung says. "We cannot avoid every victim. The aim is to reduce them," he says. "There is no measure of how many you save."
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7 Comments
Add CommentAs stated, Japan is the country most prepared for tsunamis. As I understand, in this case the primary failure was the underestimation of the potential wave height. Earlier warnings may help, though, especially if they could include more and accurate information about the incoming wave.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEffectively communicating timely warnings to large stretches of the Pacific Rim may be a more difficult matter.
Dr Goldfinger didn't say that the earthquake is "sometimes" the warning, he said it is always the warning. If people hesitate to evacuate to higher ground because they are waiting for some signal that takes minutes to happen then they are going to decrease their chance of getting out of harms way. If you live near a subduction zone (as I do on the Oregon Coast) when you feel a substantial earthquake you get to higher ground immediately. Much of the money spent on this system could be better utilized educating people that earthquake means run. These kinds of earthquakes happen infrequently so what happens tens of years down the road when funds from Germany and other rich donors have dried up and the system isn't maintained, but the locals still have some faith that it will work and save them? If you are working in remote areas in less developed countries keeping it simple and cheap is what will save lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrue, coastal earthquakes can forewarn of a tsunami, but as I understand enormous tsunamis can also be produced by an earthquake on the other side of the ocean, thousands of miles away... Also, not all earthquakes produce tsunamis, so evacuating Seattle, for example, for any tremor might not be prudent in all cases.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLook at the earthquake maps from the 03/11 quake. Last I looked, I saw more than a thousand aftershocks, many in excess of M5, some, (couldn't see how many) well in advance of the Godzilla event. Most of the maps indicate seismic activity offshore, but no perceptible ground acceleration onshore. (One map did seem to show ground acceleration onshore)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThus, if Goldfinger thinks the quake is always the signal to take refuge, he is wrong. Undoubtedly, however, in the case of any massive ground acceleration in coastal locations, the correct reaction strategies are (a) run to high ground as soon and as fast as possible if high ground is nearby, or: (b) climb as high as possible in or on a sturdy building or man-made structure if no high ground is near, or (c) take refuge in a bouyant tsunami pod that would not be crushed by debris.
Tragic that some villagers thought they would be safe behind tsunami walls and didn't move to higher ground. another lesson learned.
I live in Tokyo and have been a few times to the tsunami struck area after the disaster. One thing that struck me listening to survivors who were actually caught by the tsunami was that many of those who were in their cars were unaware of the magnitude of the shock. In a moving car it can sometimes be difficult to estimate the danger potential of an earthquake. In the future, cars need to be rigged with an automatic override function that activates radio and GPS warning systems. For example, the GPS automatically switching to a route directing to higher ground or a point where you can access higher ground on foot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEver since the tragedy of Japan there has been a lot of talk of early warning systems and how they can save lives, but is getting people to run to higher ground the best way of saving lives and property? It seems that the broader issues is the way cities can survive natural and man made disasters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen Japan rebuilds will it put back the same structures that caused the devastation in the first place, or will it really re-think how to best redevelop the area in order for the inhabitants to survive a greater tsunami/earthquake? If people are told to run to higher ground when the sirens wail how will older people and physically disabled sprint up the mountain in order to save their lives? What about children, or people that may be several miles away from higher ground? Is this the best we can come up with. Jogging shoes. We have to better that this. The quake in Haiti should have been a wake up call, but we slept that that one and the people of Haiti are still suffering. What about New Orleans? How many have to die before we do the right thing?
Given the fact that Japan has the best tsunami predictive equipment in the world, then it is obvious that present technology is vastly inadequate. Rather than determining wave height and seismic changes, it seems to me that there must be precursors to environmental catastrophic events, in this case involving sudden massive vertical shifting of the ocean floor. Sudden cataclysmic geological events must have significant precursors that we are missing. To prevent tragic events as in the case of the Japan near field disaster, minutes of notice are insufficient. An earthquake or a sudden volcanic eruption can be considered to be a gigantic bomb which suddenly explodes. It is our challenge to adjust our technology to calculate beyond minutes, or even hours, to months or years in order to perform needed evacuations and harden or shut down infrastructure systems such as power plants. Technology must be adjusted and refined to detect and analyze and mobilize more sophisticated precursive warning systems. Alternative systems must be deployed.
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