|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 23 January 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
I could have saved thousands of lives Dr. Stuart Weinstein was the first man in the world to know that the tsunami was coming - and he had a fleeting chance to save thousands of lives. Caroline Graham and William Lowther TMOS It was two hours of appalling mental anguish that Dr. Stuart Weinstein will never forget. Sitting in his base in Hawaii, he was the first man in the world to know that the tsunami was coming - and he had a fleeting chance to save thousands of lives. The geophysicist desperately tried to flash warnings around the world. But his frustration reached fever pitch as his phone calls rang and rang without answer - and the few who did respond failed to understand what he was saying or grasp the magnitude of the danger their countries were facing. Dr. Weinstein, 43, was in his office at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii when his instruments picked up the massive quake. "My monitors suddenly sprang alive at 00.59 GMT," he said. To avoid confusion, all earthquake and tsunami information is given in Green wich Mean Time. It was breakfast time on the beaches of Phuket. But for Weinstein, it was shortly before 3 pm on Christmas afternoon. "The lines were up and down the screen," he said. Suddenly all hell broke loose. We started hitting the phones trying to call anyone we thought might be able to help. The people we needed just weren't in their offices." At 01.14 GMT the first warning went out to 26 member countries of ITSU, the tsunami warning system for the Pacific. But none of the countries in the path of the giant wave was a member. The alert was received seconds later at the Operations Centre at the US State Department Washington. Ten minutes after that, Operations Centre staff sent an electronic communication to the American Embassy in Indonesia. What Dr. Weinstein and his colleagues did not know at the time was that the quake measured 9.0 on the Richter scale - 30 times more powerful than their estimates - and that tidal waves were already devastating the coasts of Indonesia and Thailand. Dr. Kong had numbers for Dr. Pauzi, Director of the National Seismic Centre in Jakarta, Indonesia, the emergency management team in Sydney, Australia, and details of how to reach the top secret US Naval Base in Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean. The base alerted the US Embassy in Sri Lanka. At 02.15 GMT Weinstein received a call from the embassy asking for more details. "I didn't take the guy's name. I told him 'there is a strong earthquake off Sumatra and there is a real danger of a tsunami.' I don't know if what I said registered with him because he listened in silence and then hung up." Moments later the Foreign Ministry in Sri Lanka was on the line. Dr. Weinstein said: The guy listened to me but I did not get the impression that it meant anything to him.' Then reports started coming in of a tsunami hit in Phuket, and Dr. Weinstein knew that the efforts had been in vain. He buried his head in his hands and wept. (courtesy : Khaleej times January 10, 2005) |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
