Cell phones, Net could have saved thousands from waves
"In a sickening way, the horrific death toll from the tsunamis last week was an information disaster," writes USA Today columnist Kevin Maney. "Why didn't warnings race around the Web ahead of the tsunami? We live at a time when news of Scott Peterson's guilty verdict can spread in minutes from cell phone text messages sent from inside the courtroom to millions of people across the planet. Yet no one took advantage of the Web as the tsunami dashed toward shorelines."
Andy Carvin at 1:38:00 am |
Leave it to someone who writes whatever they can, if it hurts people or not, for a living to totally miss the fact that these people live in mud and stick huts, not apartment buildings with outlets in everyroom to hook up un-needed electrical crap.
well, i personally only geeks would bring computers to the beach so i think it was roughly ok to forget this site and go to red vs. blue .com it rulez
well, i personally only geeks would bring computers to the beach so i think it was roughly ok to forget this site and go to red vs. blue .com it rulez
There's no need for people to be at the beach with computers. A simple call from the Pacific Tsuanami Watch Group or others watching richter scales to CNN would have been all that was required. CNN could have done some quick fact-checking to see that a wave was possible and then issued a warning.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/05/152213
from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/warn-j03.shtml
Seismologists in Thailand registered the Sumatran earthquake soon after it took place. Thai Meteorological Department officials were attending a seminar when the news came in. They immediately convened an emergency meeting, which was chaired by the department’s director-general, Supharerk Tansrirat-tanawong. The Nation newspaper, citing unnamed sources at the meeting, reported that the danger of a tsunami was discussed, but the gathering decided not to issue a warning.