Vasily Titov, Research Scientist at the Tsunami Research Program at NOAA, created an impressive animation that documents the expansion of the killer wave, triggered by the massive earthquake.

More information by these scientists can be found at the Center for Tsunami Inundation Mapping Efforts and the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program Website

If you have no quicktime player installed you can see an interesting gif animation of the tsunami made by a scientist of the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology here.

Faced with the fact that billions of dollars are spent nowadays for security to fight the worldwide disasters that terrorism causes, the question might arise, why a region with millions of human beeings living seaside in simplest dwellings and millions of tourists every year, can´t afford a Tsunami warning system.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US issued an information bulletin at 8:14 p.m. EST Saturday, indicating that a magnitude 8.0 earthquake had occurred off the west coast of Northern Sumatra. Although there was no emergency for the pacific region, in another warning issued by the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center clearly was stated:

"THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER."

According to german news reporter Martin Fritz, US Scientists "didn´t know who to alarm".

Also there are websites publishing earthquake information bulletins, after all the implementation of warning systems, that could prevent unnecessary death of human beeings, was one of the ideas that forced the development of the internet itself. How much of a scientist does it need to be to understand, that a major earthquake of 9.0 might trigger a tsunami?

What about satellite earth observation programs? Even amateurs today can get a look at the earth from the space explorers view, so how long will it take for a professional scientist to get a satellite image of any place on this planet?

Nobody can be made responsible for the force of nature, but nowadays it is technically possible to predict tsunamis. Just one hour would have been enough for most of the victims.

Who was sleeping?

TJ

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