US had advance warning of tsunami: Canadian professor

[Boswells_Johnson]

WASHINGTON: A Canadian expert has claimed that the US Military and the State Department were given advance tsunami warning and America’s Navy base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean was notified but the information was not passed on to the countries that bore the brunt of the disaster.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa asks in an analysis produced for the Venus Project why fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand were not provided with the same warnings as the US Navy and the US State Department. He wants to know why the US State Department remained mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe. With a modern communications system, why did the information not get out? By email, telephone, fax, satellite TV, he asks, as it could have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.


MORE...
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_3-1-2005_pg7_37

[7th_Sephiroth]

1. GOOD GOD

Does GWB have to turn every disaster into a form of murder?

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. So whose responsibility was it

to pass this warning along?

[TeeYiYi]

4. Everyone. . . .

. . . Everyone and ANYONE who had knowledge of it. Pick up a phone and start calling every phone number you can find for ANY town, ANY city in ANY country in the path of the tsunami.

TYY

[TeeYiYi]

7. Look at this . . .

. . . from typing 'Sri Lanka phone number' into google:

Accident Service 11-2691111
Army Headquarters 11-2432682-5
Bomb Disposal
Army Squad 11-2434251, 11-2330646
Police Unit 11-2433333
Electricity Breakdown Service
Colombo 11-2431139, 11-2431140, 11-2431141
Dehiwala 11-2713662
Ratmalana 11-2637703
Sri Jayawardenapura 11-2863070
Fire and Ambulance 11-2422222
Dog Pound & Anti Rabies Lab Colombo 11-2695139
Police 11-2433333
Police Head Quarters 11-2421111
Central Bus Stand - Pettah 11-2329604, 11-2329605, 11-2329606
Road Passenger Transport Authority - Western Province 11-2421731
Colombo Fort Railway Station 11-2434215
Airport Katunayake 073 2677

TYY

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. I did the same thing on another thread last night

It took me exactly one minute to search for the contact info for the Sri Lanka government and to come back and post it here.

There is no excuse for the people who knew what was going on to do nothing. What the hell do we spend so much money on monitoring systems when the people who do the monitoring can't figure out how to look up a phone number on the internet?

[Leilani]

3. According to what I read & heard they WERE warned.

A caller in to C-Span had details about this. I wasn't sure, so I checked the Pacific Tsunami Warning site, based here in Honolulu.
Check the bulletins...predicts a possible tsunami occurence in epicenter of quake.

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/pr/ptwc/

What I heard was that govt officials did not want to create a panic during their tourist season.

Also, there is a thread in LBN that reports a story of a geologist from California also giving a warning.

[Boswells_Johnson]

6. They say in this article that

"According to the statement of the Hawaii based PTWC, advanced warning was released but on a selective basis."

[Leilani]

9. The link to your article is not working right now.

Also, the Hawaii based warning is public.

I have it bookmarked on my computer, in case of alert here in the islands. We have a horn alert system in case of a possible tsunami, but whenever there is an earthquake or volcanic eruption, I immediately check the site, because I live in the flood zone.

[tx_dem41]

5. It would be important to know WHEN they were warned....

Since Diego Garcia is much further away from the epicenter than Thailand (by a LARGE amount), and Sri Lanka.

[Just Me]

8. And,...Jebbie,...the PNAC signatory,...is sent to assess,...

Yeah. I am definitely a total cynic when it comes to this leadership's motives.

They knew. They envisioned "opportunity".

They are evil.

They are.

[havocmom]

11. Ding Ding Ding We have a winner! "They knew. They envisioned opportunity"

Yeppers, once all those poor people get sloshed off all that pretty beach property, they can develop more resorts for rich pricks in search of underage, desperate young women...

[daleo]

13. To add to the cynicism

This natural experiment will be of great interest to military planners around the world. I am sure there are many useful lessons that can be applied to the understanding of the effects of weapons of mass destruction. This may be part of the reason that Bush has emphasized the military when it comes to rescue efforts.

That is not to say that most of the military being sent to the scene won't do their utmost to help. But some will have other things in mind.

[daleo]

10. What did the military know?

When did they know it?
What did they do with the knowledge?

There should be a congressional inquiry to address these issues. Leaving aside for a moment the scale of the disaster for Asians, many Americans also lost their lives in the tsunami, so the U.S. population has a right to know.

[Boswells_Johnson]

12. It's weird that the link stopped working..

Anyway, it says that "The US Congress is to investigate why the US government did not notify all the Indian Ocean nations in the affected area: “Only two countries in the affected region, Indonesia and Australia, received the warning" "

[Carni]

14. Isn't he also a member of the Canadian government?

I thought that I read he was today? (I actually read the same article earlier)

Call me a tinfoiler but get a load of THIS site below :(

http://www.eastlundscience.com/patentsb1.html

Be sure to click on "about the founder" he has run various corporations that do business with the oil companies.

WTF?

[Boswells_Johnson]

17. That's interesting...

here's another site that mentions the patent. Curious, how it mentions using it for oil in Alaska:

http://www.thebushblade.com/archive2.html

[bunny planet]

16. Unspeakable evil if this is true.

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[molly]

18. So this is why it took * so long to comment on the disaster

he was waiting until he knew where he stood. That f'n evil man!

[molly]

19. Link is bye-bye

got it now.

[Moderator]

20. Locking

By now, pretty much everyone knows the US and some other nations/agencies had warning. A college professor pointing it out doesn't really qualify as late-breaking. Here are a couple of still-open threads.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1101212

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1108480