Jakarta officials failed to give tsunami warning

[DoYouEverWonder]

July 19, 2006

Officials in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, failed to issue a tsunami warning despite receiving data about Monday's earthquake 20 minutes before the first wave struck the island of Java.

One official told the Guardian they were too busy monitoring the aftershocks of the 7.7-magnitude quake that triggered the tsunami to raise the alarm. The government's science and technology minister, Kusmayanto Kadiman, confirmed last night that Indonesia had received bulletins from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii and Japan's meteorological agency after the quake, but "we did not announce them".

<snip>

The tsunami centre in Hawaii issued a warning 20 minutes after the main earthquake. It was acted upon by people living in Australia's Christmas Island, 140 miles south of the epicentre.

Indonesia's only sensor in the area, near Cilacap, detected the quake and sent a report to the meteorological and geophysical agency in Jakarta, an official there told the Guardian. "It was detected about 18 minutes after the earthquake but we were so busy monitoring all the aftershocks." When asked if that was why they did not issue a tsunami warning to the coastal communities near Cilacap, the official said: "I guess it was something like that."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1823606,00.html

I guess having a tsumami warning system doesn't do you much good if you don't use it. What a mess.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. As I said in another thread...

...I think Michael Chertoff must be running Indonesia's emergency management agency.

[MiniMe]

2. Well, they just had another big quake. They better issue one this time!

Breaking news on CNN banner

[Kagemusha]

3. I realize the posting limits but I think you left out a money line above

After "but 'we did not announce them'":

"If it did not occur, what would have happened?" he said in Jakarta.

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Just pure gold. How classic, how just pure third world can you get.