An early warning system that could have saved thousands of lives lost in the devastating tsunamis that swept around the rim of the Indian Ocean on Sunday was talked about but not acted on by governments in the region, it was revealed on Sunday night.
More than 12 600 people were killed and millions more displaced in eight countries by a wall of water unleashed by the biggest earthquake for 40 years, which began 40km under the seabed off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, and measured 8,9 on the Richter scale.
Travelling at speeds of up to 480kph, the waves engulfed packed coastal resorts in Thailand, swamped fishing villages along the Indian coast, and smashed coastal resorts in Sri Lanka. Snorkellers were dragged across coral, sunbathers were swept off their beaches, divers trapped in caves, fishermen swept out to sea, and homes, hotels and cars across the Indian Ocean were swept away in a tide of debris-strewn water.
With thousands missing and communications destroyed in parts of Indonesia, governments warned that the death toll was certain to rise.
Tremors from the quake, the fifth largest in 100 years, were measured in Britain and people were killed as far away as Kenya and Somalia, 4 480km away, where at least nine people drowned.
Sri Lanka, more than 1 600km west of the epicentre of the earthquake, declared a national disaster after at least 4 500 fatalities. Most were locals, but some tourist casualties were reported including 22 Japanese believed killed in the Yala national park. Beaches in Sri Lanka and the Indian state of Tamil Nadu were strewn with bodies. One Indian fisherman in Chennai said the area had been turned into a cemetery.
In some parts of Indonesia, where at least 4 400 were killed, bodies hung grotesquely from trees as the waters receded. More than 200 prisoners escaped from a jail when the tsunami dismantled its walls.
In Thailand, the death toll was lower, but the devastation was no less in parts of the west coast of the holiday island of Phuket, as the wall of water swept away vehicles and buildings.
”I just couldn’t believe what was happening before my eyes,” one Swedish holidaymaker, Boree Carlsson, told Reuters from a hotel on the island. ”As I was standing there, a car actually floated into the lobby and overturned because the current was so strong.”
The US Geological Survey said on Sunday night that most of the victims could have been saved if a tsunami warning system or tide gauges like those which warn countries around the Pacific Ocean had been in place.
With the Bay of Bengal rarely hit by tsunamis, local people had flocked to the beach to watch the spectacular waves, only to be swept into the water. Other victims drowned after running to retrieve fish flung on to the beach by the first giant waves.
”Most of those people could have been saved if they had had a tsunami warning system in place or tide gauges,” said Waverly Person of the US Geological Survey.
Opposition parties in several countries attacked their governments for not warning residents.
In the Maldives, where elections are dues to be held in the next week, the Maldivean Democratic party said: ”The government was totally unprepared for the disaster, despite the fact that the country has faced many similar incidents in the past. There is no effective system for dealing with such situations”.
Governments around the Indian Ocean did not act on dis cussions last year about introducing an early warning system, according to Dr Robert Bradnock of King’s College, London.
”They have effective plans for the cyclones which happen every year in Bangladesh and the east coast of India, but tsunamis happen very rarely in the Indian Ocean,” Bradnock said. ”Last year the governments in south-east Asia were discussing having an early warning system too but because tsunamis are so rare there did not seem to be the energy behind it.”
The main tremor struck at 7.58am local time (12.58am GMT) after the Indian Ocean plate rubbed against the Eurasian plate, causing a bulge on the seabed 1 200km long. Nine smaller aftershocks followed.
A year to the day since the earthquake in the historic Iranian city of Bam, which measured 6,3 and killed more than 30 000 people, aid agencies again dispatched emergency relief.
The UN sent disaster assessment teams to the region as the European Union announced an initial â,¬3m (£2.1m) to help victims. The Red Cross called for £6,5-million for an emergency fund.
The US said it would pitch in to the relief effort, promising to be ”very responsive”. The president, George Bush, sent his condolences for the ”terrible loss of life and suffering”.
Just one British fatality was confirmed last night, but with more than 10,000 British tourists holidaying in south-east Asia, the death toll was certain to rise.
A Briton died of a heart attack on the beach just as the tsunami struck the Maldives. Hundreds of British tourists spent Sunday night huddled on high ground after their beach resorts were destroyed. – Guardian Unlimited Â