The Pacific "Ring of Fire"

[CatWoman]

Indonesia is on the so-called Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

I find it all completely fascinating.

There have been several excellent specials on The History Channel and the Discovery Channel about Tsunamis hitting that region thru the years.

but don't you think those folks should institute some sort of early warning system?

Regional bulletins that the 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake was strong enough to send a killer wave steaming toward the country worst hit by the 2004 Asian tsunami did not reach the victims, because Indonesia's main island has no warning system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060717/ap_on_re_as/indonesia_earthquake

[northzax]

1. of course they should

but frankly, the odds of something like Sumatra happening again in our lifetimes is pretty damn small. And do you have a spare couple of billion dollars to install and maintain such a system? seems like that money could frankly be better spent on day to day improvements in the lives of people, instead of a freakish occurence like a tsunami.

[CatWoman]

6. I think, for the good of the region,

and the world, the burden should be divided equally among the richer nations.

[northzax]

7. but still

say it costs a billion dollars to install, and $50 million a year to monitor and maintain (comparable to the Northern Pacific Tsunami Warning System split between Japan, Canada and the US) if we can expect Tsunamis to kill roughly 10 people a year, annualized (Sumatra obviously is the major outlier, and something that geology wouldn't predict would happen again in the next several hundred years) wouldn't that money be better spent elsewhere? for $50 million a year, I can save a hell of a lot more than 10 people a year. it's a question of priorities in a world with limited resources. the worst case scenario has already happened.

[CatWoman]

9. the problem is, it's going to happen again

and again. and again.

Krakatoa is about to erupt again; there's no question about it.

That region is highly unstable. http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,880993,00.html

[northzax]

10. not really on that scale

to have a serious tsunami you need perfect conditions. eruptions don't do it, explosions and thrust fault earthquakes do. sure, Krakatoa will erupt again, sometime in the next several hundred years, but it's unlikely to explode again, and if it does, volcanic tsunamis tend to be very short lived (the '83 tsunami destroyed the Sundra strait, but not much else( and given the speed of the wave, warning would be meaningless to people in the strait, since it would account for a few seconds only.

really impressive, dangerous tsumanis come from medium shallow undersea earthquakes that thrust upwards, it's a special thing that doesn't happen very often, and the major fault capable of it has been used this century and unlikely to go again any time soon.

Look, tsunamis are terrible things for the places they hit, but given the likelihood of them in the region, and the relative lack of devastation from those that will be coming, there are better ways to spend the money.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. They're some of the poorest regions in the world.

There are Tsunami warning systems out there, but they're sort of few and far between.

There was a tsunami back in 98 or thereabouts that hit Malaysia and killed several thousand people. Lots of people seemed to have forgotten about that one and were surpised in 2004. Something should have been done, IMHO.

[The Deacon]

3. They Should

But when your economy is based upon eight year olds making $1 a day in Nike shoe factories & boxing the latest Apple iPods its kind of hard to contemplate developing a multi-billion dollar multi-country early warning system. Effective innoculation programs against measles, whooping cough & rubella would probably pay more immediate benefits anyway.
Perhaps all the Multi-Nationals making record profits because of the slave labor conditions in the Pacific Rim would consider funding something like the system that already protects Hawaii & the West Coast?

[theHandpuppet]

4. Latest reports are at least 80 dead and scores missing

My heart goes out to these poor folks.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. My understanding is that there is a new tsunami warning system

there - it may still be being put in place - and that today's earthquake prompted tsunami warnings and most people got out of its way - that's why there were relatively few fatalities on this one.

[Bridget Burke]

8. UNESCO is setting up a Tsunami Warning System for the Indian Ocean.

Read about it here: http://ioc3.unesco.org/indotsunami/

Warning systems are already based in Alaska--for the Northwest--& in Hawaii--for the Pacific (AKA Ring of Fire).

www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/warning/warning.html

[trumad]

11. early warning system? Too bad my ex didn't have one...

[CatWoman]

12. bwahahahahaha

asshole :hi: