When I read stories like this (way too often lately)...my bad days don't compare to the bad days of these residents'.
My concern going forward is that the aid (manpower/food/time) given to these islanders over and over and over to those who want to rebuild is going to waste...when they really need to contemplate moving to higher ground.
I don't want to hear it's "easier said than done..." Just do it.
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The network of bouys covering the Pacific rim that measure for tsunamis does not extend to the Indonesian islands. The US should offer them the technology...again.
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The UN should do something useful and sponsor better tsunami warning systems and even support national relocation policies, to relocate populations in these countries a little more inland, instead of sponsoring resolutions against Israel or the UN migration accord.
My own dear Auntie and her husband, a former New Jersey State Police lieutenant, were posted in Java during the 1950s as CIA operatives. They were tasked with helping Sukarno put down the Communist insurgency. One wonders from their often-told tales of Indonesia if the Dutch could not have done better to warn of the recent tsunami with their brutal but efficient colonial regime known as Batavia...
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The Indonesian government has long understood the need for proper tsunami warning systems and proper tsunami protections. The neglect of the systems and protections must be sharply criticized even in the wake of the tragedy.
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I have to be critical here. Critical of a population that refuses to acknowledge that they need to move away from the immediate coastline, even a mile away would do. It's not like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions happen once every 100 or 200 years or so, then ok, live there but these events happen on a monthly basis. They refuse to acknowledge the reality or are just plain dumb to get it. Here on the West coast, the "Big One" happens every 20-40 years, maybe. Up in the Pac NW, the big one happens every 300-500 years, so people live on ehte coast, develop the land. Indonesian leaders need to get on the horn and repeat the warnings , every day if need be. Help them move to safer ground and adapt. Thousands of lives wil be saved. Isn't that the whole point, saving lives?
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@lou andrews
Many of the people killed did not live there but were just visiting.
Agreed, you’re 100% right
Thank you for these continuing reports about a country where I lived more than a decade.
I have been in touch with my life long friends there and all are heart broken over this tragedy.
While someone has below has suggested about a total evacuation - to which a reply has already been posted that forcefully rebuts this suggestion.
I might add another one.
Indonesia with it's 14,000 plus islands - has population firmly rooted in islands. And to move these folks even from just one part to another part of the same island - it's like a death sentence.
Java as the most populous island - yet not that big - a 45 minute flight from Western tip to the east. But if you took folks say from Jakarta and just moved them to Yogjakarta (site of Borabadur) - they would not last a week.
So easier said than done.
And Indonesians have lived in this land of fire for ever and have adapted and continue to do so.
Finally, a great visual on tsunami height. Except one comment.
Survivors are Carita reported a tsunami of 10 feet (3 meters) at the beach. Yet, this graphic shows just a ripple. Am I missing something??
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Perhaps Child of Krakatau is God’s way of saying,
“Oooohhh you make me so angry! I’m gonna let it blow!!! You want Climate Change? I’ll give ya Climate Change! And, it won’t be pretty!! Yeah! It’s gonna get a lot darker!!!”
Why He would choose that part of the world I don’t understand.
Of course this is the Guy who gave us free will!
We, Americans (at least the Electoral College), free willed Trump right into the presidency. Talk about your Tsunamis!
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@NoDak
There is no cruelty in God. Nor is there cruelty in the hearts of human beings who know they are OF GOD. Yet, in our free will, we have confused freedom with "control over" and gotten lost in the illusion of power. Source allows. We say, "No. It must be this way, my way, our way."
Fear of punishment is a childish thing. There is nothing to fear but our own hubris. Our purpose? To understand. To forgive. To cease blaming and embrace each other in all circumstances we encounter. The darkness lies only in the mind that fears. May the people of Indonesia know healing and peace. May they join together in rebuilding. Something tells me they will.
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Given the relatively recent history of Krakatoa, it would make sense to permanently evacuate the population from those coastal areas. Perhaps Krakatoa will erupt fully, spewing enough ash clouds to stop global warming for a number of years.
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" it would make sense to permanently evacuate the population from those coastal areas" -- when I lived in Java, it was considered the most heavily populated area in the world. I believe it has continued to be so. So, where do you suggest the evacuated population should go?
Anak Kratatau (Child of Krakatau) has not been very active until relatively recently. There are other areas in the Ring of Fire which are more active and are considered more dangerous.
When one realizes that Lake Taal in Sumatra is the relic of a super-volcano, surely one must understand that the whole Indonesian archipelago is fraught with danger.
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@Rosella Taal is in the Philippines. You are probably thinking of Lake Toba. The Toba super eruption 74,000 years ago nearly wiped out our ancestors.
Major volcanic eruptions such as the Salamas disaster of 1257, and the 1815 Tambora catastrophe (Both VE-7), and the 535 AD disaster (crippled the East Roman and Persian Empires) are a far bigger threat than a few degrees of alleged "Global Warming"
I accept wholeheartedly scientists conclusions of the anthropic causes of accelerated climate change and the potentially cataclysmic effects of it, however, those who claim this as evidence of "Mother Nature" fighting back are just bananas.
The earth has always been geologically active and has been so (much more so, and much more violently so) for eons before the first hominid stood upright on it.
This is simply nature going about its works. It's just that there are now sentient creatures here to observe it and to, unwisely, settle ourselves in close proximity to a number of the most fiery of its primeval forges.
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Just like the obvious failure to maintain a Lion Air Boeing 737, Indonesians now must confront a tsunami warning system in disrepair.
Please keep these structurally corrupt nations out of our airspace and away from our airports.
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@Erik van Dort
Such sympathy for fellow human beings !!!
Like we have never had any mishaps here in our country.
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@Erik van Dort
No warning would have been effective as the wave's origin at Anak Krakatau was only about 20 miles from the affected coastlines and they travel at the speed of a jet aircraft. Hundreds of thousands live along that coast and it is not a very advanced economy thus limited technical means to give warnings.
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Krakatoa is alive and erupting again into tsunamis under the sea, 138 years after it exploded and covered the planet with ash and darkness for months. Krakatoa's eruption caused globsl pandemonium in the 19th century. Our planet is being attacked by Mother Nature and we would do well to plan the removal of mankind from Earth to another planet in this galaxy. People who remember historical events, and life in the past century long before the world-wide-web was created, know It is not mad to think of living on another planet. Mankind has plundered Earth to a fare-thee-well filled with trash and plastic and gyres of climate-warming disasters in store for flora, fauna, fish and life on earth. Praying won't do any good as we are all frogs being brought to the boil on Earth's climate-denying stove.
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@Nan Socolow
It is in fact mad to think of transplanting humanity to another planet.
First of all it is a proposal for mass murder. There are over 7 billion of us.
Second, we evolved on this planet. Every cell in us is intricately dependent on the environment it provides us.
Third, there is the question of our sanity. Have you tried to think concretely about what it would be like to live on the Moon or on Mars? What you are proposing to save would very quickly cease to be human at all.
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Another option for funding: the US military/war budget.
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Reports following the massive tsunami that struck Thailand illustrated the inadequacy of international warning systems. Apparently, not much has changed. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the proposed 5 billion dollars in wall money could be used to improve these systems?
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@Disillusioned
You'd be forgiven for not recalling that the $5 billion in "wall money" is meant to deter desperate brown folk, not offer assistance to desperate brown folk.
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@Disillusioned The site of the volcano (underwater rock slide that caused the tsunami) is so close to the beaches (my understanding is about 20 miles) that there would have been little if any time for a warning - perhaps less than five minutes.
Evenso, your point of preparedness is understood and well taken.
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