Another Indonesian Tsunami

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http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/indonesia

Death toll in Indonesia tsunami at 86
AP - 32 minutes ago
JAKARTA, Indonesia - An earthquake sent a 6-foot-high tsunami crashing into beach resorts on Java island Monday, killing at least 86 people, leaving scores missing and sending thousands fleeing to higher ground, officials, witnesses and media reports said. 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
 
Mr NFLfan said:
6 ft high? Don't they usually get storm waves that will reach 6 ft high? I don't undestand how a 6 ft high wave can kill that many.
Tsunami
I think that was a typo www.cnn.com report:

(Indonesian radio interviewed a witness named Teti who said the giant waves -- as high as trees -- damaged homes and other buildings, and she reported seeing at least three dead bodies.

An entire hotel was also washed away, Teti said, and everyone ran for higher ground)

Full report:

80 dead as quake triggers tsunami

Monday, July 17, 2006; Posted: 2:38 p.m. EDT (18:38 GMT)

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Indian fishermen bring boats ashore after tsunami warning in Chennai.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia -- A major earthquake off the coast of Java Monday and a tsunami that followed killed at least 80 people, according to Red Cross officials.

Most of the deaths are believed to have been caused by the tsunami, but some people may have died in the initial quake or the crush of people rushing for higher ground as the ocean's waves approached, officials said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there did not appear to be a widespread tsunami threat in the region.

The center's Web site reported that "sea level gauge data indicate that a tsunami was generated" but it added that "based on historical earthquake and tsunami data, plus current sea level readings, a more widespread tsunami threat probably does not exist."

The hardest hit area appeared to be Pangandaran Beach, where 38 bodies were recovered, officials said.

Indonesian radio interviewed a witness named Teti who said the giant waves -- as high as trees -- damaged homes and other buildings, and she reported seeing at least three dead bodies.

An entire hotel was also washed away, Teti said, and everyone ran for higher ground.

Local parliament member Rudi Supriatna Bahro in Ciamis, West Java, appeared on Metro TV Monday saying that while the larger hotels around the Beach remained standing many of the smaller buildings were destroyed.

The International Tsunami Information Centre (ITIC) issued a tsunami watch after an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 rumbled in the Indian Ocean 220 miles south of Jakarta.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center Web site, the quake hit at 3:19 p.m. (4:19 a.m. ET).

Three strong aftershocks followed over the next three hours, according to the USGS and Indonesian radio.

The ITIC said the tsunami watch is in effect for parts of Indonesia and Australia.

In May, an earthquake in the Indonesian region of Yogyakarta killed more than 6,000 people and displaced more than 200,000, according to United Nations figures.

A massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December of 2004 killed more than 200,000 people in 12 countries.
 
Indonesia hit by new quake during tsunami cleanup

Last Updated Wed, 19 Jul 2006 08:28:48 EDT
CBC News
A powerful earthquake shook buildings in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on Wednesday, as the death toll from a tsunami spawned by an earlier quake rose to more than 540.

Rescuers search for victims at a tsunami-ravaged area in Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia, on Wednesday. (Dita Alangkara/Associated Press) Wednesday's earthquake, which preliminary measurements ranked 6.3 or 6.4 on the Richter scale, was centred about 190 kilometres southwest of Jakarta, an official at Indonesia's meteorological office said.

There was no risk of another tsunami, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. "It's so small and so deep that there is no tsunami hazard," geophysicist Gerard Fryer told Reuters news agency.

Meanwhile, aftershocks continued to rattle Java Island, prompting hundreds of people to rush to higher ground from the area where a two-metre tsunami slammed into a long stretch of beach Monday.

An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale triggered Monday's killer wave, which flattened homes, hotels and restaurants, and sent boats, cars and motorbikes flying into buildings.

Rescuers continued to sift through debris in search of tsunami survivors on Wednesday. About 275 people were considered missing, while more than 600 were injured.

The tsunami hit the beach resort town of Pangandaran on the south coast of Java Island, but bodies were found along the coast, in nearby Cilacap district and in the town of Tasikmalaya.

Residents received no warning Monday that the tsunami was about to hit the beach. Government officials said Tuesday they did not try to pass on warnings to threatened coastal communities because they feared causing alarm.

Both the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and Japan's Meteorological Agency issued warnings after the earthquake, but "we did not announce them," Science and Technology Minister Kusmayanto Kadiman said.

Kadiman said Indonesia received the bulletins 45 minutes before the tsunami hit.

"If [the tsunami] did not occur, what would have happened?" he told reporters in Jakarta.

Vice-President Jusuf Kalla said no warning was issued locally because most people fled inland as soon as they felt the earthquake.

"After the quake occurred, people ran to the hills … so in actual fact there was a kind of natural early-warning system," he told reporters in Jakarta.

Kadiman added that the Indonesian government will now speed up plans for the alert system.

The Indonesian government promised this week to finish work on a national tsunami alert system, which currently covers only Sumatra. It was scheduled to be extended to Java next year.

Indonesia was one of 12 countries struck by a massive tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004. It killed an estimated 216,000 people.

with files from the Associated Press
 
Mr NFLfan said:
6 ft high? Don't they usually get storm waves that will reach 6 ft high? I don't undestand how a 6 ft high wave can kill that many.

I don't think the problem is actully the height of the wave, its the length of the wave. It might be only 6ft high, but can be a mile long.

-f99
 
Mr NFLfan said:
6 ft high? Don't they usually get storm waves that will reach 6 ft high? I don't undestand how a 6 ft high wave can kill that many.

There is a lot of difference between a normal 6 ft. wave and a tsunami wave. The surge associated with them can carry the water for huge distances inland. It's similar to an extremely powerful flood.

I heard last night that a previous incident in the same region generated a wave in excess of 125 feet high. Yikes.
 
I was watching a show on tsumami's on the history channel last night (expect an announcement from Pat Robinson about an ATLANTIC tsunami some time this week)

A storm surge is an unusually high tide that creeps in the way tides do.

A tsunami wave comes up all at once.

The guy on the show described it this way.

Imagine a 6 foot deep river that's a mile wide coming at you all at once, consider the force generated.
 
Benign Despot said:
I was watching a show on tsumami's on the history channel last night (expect an announcement from Pat Robinson about an ATLANTIC tsunami some time this week)


I watched a few minutes of that same show in between innings of the Sox. The CGI videos they did of what would happen to the Eastern seaboard when that huge chunk of the Canary Islands falls into the Atlantic was just freaking great.

For those that haven't heard the theory -- based on real science-- picture the scenes of NY city getting obliterated by tidal waves in the "Day After Tomorrow" and stretch it from Maine to Miami for the general idea.

I'm glad I'm twenty miles inland. I could end up with beachfront property.
 
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