BURNING PLANET

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145498/uptick-in-amazon-fire-activity-in-2019

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MOD14A1_M_FIRE

https://fires.globalforestwatch.org/

TRADE OUT OF BALANCE

Handel aus dem Gleichgewicht

„Wir brauchen China nicht“

Amerika werde es ohne China besser gehen, schrieb Trump in einer Serie von Tweets: „Wir brauchen China nicht und, ehrlich gesagt, ginge es uns ohne sie besser“, schrieb er. Amerikanischen Firmen sei „hiermit befohlen, sich sofort um Alternativen zu China zu bemühen“ und Produkte wieder zuhause in Amerika herzustellen, so Trump.

"Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far.... ....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing… your companies HOME and making your products in the USA. I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon. This is a GREAT opportunity for the United States. Also, I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE... all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!). Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop - it didn’t. Our Economy, because of our gains in the last 2 1/2 years, is MUCH larger than that of China. We will keep it that way! For many years China (and many other countries) has been taking advantage of the United States on Trade, Intellectual Property Theft, and much more. Our Country has been losing HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year to China, with no end in sight.... ...Sadly, past Administrations have allowed China to get so far ahead of Fair and Balanced Trade that it has become a great burden to the American Taxpayer. As President, I can no longer allow this to happen! In the spirit of achieving Fair Trade, we must Balance this very.... unfair Trading Relationship. China should not have put new Tariffs on 75 BILLION DOLLARS of United States product (politically motivated!). Starting on October 1st, the 250 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, currently being taxed at 25%, will be taxed at 30%... Additionally, the remaining 300 BILLION DOLLARS of goods and products from China, that was being taxed from September 1st at 10%, will now be taxed at 15%.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

·

23. Aug. 2019

FALL EPSTEIN: FRANKREICH ERMITTELT - DEUTSCHLAND SCHWEIGT

In der Sexaffäre um das verstorbene mafiöse, pädophile, pervers-kriminelle Judenschwein Jeffrey Epstein hat jetzt auch die Pariser Justiz Vorermittlungen eingeleitet. Man munkelt, dieses Schwein soll im Knast Selbstmord begangen haben. Doch viel wahrscheinlicher ist, dass man ihm dabei geholfen hat, um die ganz dicken, reichen und prominenten Fische zu schützen, die diese Judensau seit Jahrzehnten mit frischer Menschenware belieferte. 

Die deutsche Justiz hält sich in der Sache wie erwartet bedeckt. Es geht um massenhaften sexuellen Kindesmissbrauch, Erpressung und den Vorwurf der kriminellen Verschwörung. Solche Delikte lassen die deutschen rückgratlosen Strafbefolgungsbehörden bekanntlich kalt und zwar insbesondere dann, wenn darin Judenmafia involviert ist. 

Diesen Schweinen ist bei uns alles erlaubt, was ihnen fette Beute sichert und unser Haus zum Einsturz bringt. Dabei scheuen diese Monster nie, sich den Mächtigen anzudienen, um Kasse um jeden Preis zu machen. Das ist nämlich das, was die meisten Juden bei uns schon immer gemacht haben, nämlich: parasitäres Leben aus unsere Kosten zwecks Selbstbereicherung. Nichts ist dieser Saubande heilig - am wenigsten unsere Kinder, die ihnen in ihre dreckigen Pfoten fallen und dann Opfer des Menschenhandels und der Sexualausbeutung werden. Kriminelle Parasiten ohne Moral am Werk!

Jerzy Chojnowski

Chairman-GTVRG e.V.

www.gtvrg.de

 © Getty Images/S. Keith

Gut einen Monat vor dem angeblichen Suizid - Protest vor dem zuständigen Gericht in New York für eine Verurteilung Epsteins

dw.com

Wie die Staatsanwaltschaft in der französischen Hauptstadt mitteilte, wird wegen Vergewaltigung, der Vergewaltigung von Minderjährigen und anderen sexuellen Übergriffen sowie der kriminellen Verschwörung zur Begehung von Straftaten ermittelt. Chefermittler Rémy Heitz teilte mit, die Untersuchungen richteten sich auf mögliche Straftaten, die auf französischem Staatsgebiet begangen wurden, sowie Vergehen, bei denen Opfer oder Täter französische Staatsbürger seien. Untersucht werden sollen laut Heitz zudem Vorwürfe, wonach Epstein und Komplizen an einem Kinderhandelsring beteiligt gewesen sein sollen. Die Entscheidung, Vorermittlungen einzuleiten, basiere auf Informationen, die direkt an Staatsanwälte übermittelt worden seien und einem Austausch mit US-Behörden.

Opferschützer sammelten Zeugenaussagen

Die französische Opferschutzorganisation Innocence en Danger hatte am Donnerstag mitgeteilt, dass sie mehrere Zeugenaussagen über Missbrauchsfälle in Verbindung mit Epstein gesammelt und an die Justizbehörden in Frankreich und den USA weitergeleitet habe. Nicht alle der mutmaßlichen Opfer waren demnach Franzosen, jedoch hätten sich die Taten auf "französischem Boden ereignet und seien wahrscheinlich von Franzosen verübt worden", erklärte die Direktorin der Organisation Homayra Sellier.

Epstein - gut vernetzt auch in Frankreich

Epstein hatte zahlreiche persönliche Verbindungen nach Frankreich. Er besaß ein Luxus-Apartment nahe dem Pariser Boulevard Champs-Elysées. Vor seiner Festnahme in New York Anfang Juli war er gerade aus Frankreich in die USA zurückgekehrt.

Einer von Epsteins engen Vertrauten in Europa war der einst einflussreiche französische Model-Magnat Jean-Luc Brunel, der die Agenturen Karin Models und MC2 Model Management gründete. In Gerichtsdokumenten wird Brunel Vergewaltigung vorgeworfen. Zudem soll er Epstein junge Mädchen "beschafft" haben. Brunel hat die Vorwürfe gegen ihn in der Vergangenheit stets zurückgewiesen. Seit der Anklage gegen Epstein hat er sich jedoch in der Öffentlichkeit nicht mehr geäußert.

Es bleiben viele Fragezeichen

Epstein stand vor seinem Tod in seiner US-Heimat unter Anklage, weil er jahrelang minderjährige Mädchen sexuell missbraucht und zur Prostitution angestiftet haben soll. Laut Anklageschrift baute der Geschäftsmann zwischen 2002 und 2005 in New York und Florida einen Sexhandelsring auf. Bei einer Verurteilung in den USA hätten dem 66-Jährigen, der enge Kontakte zu hochrangigen Politikern und Prominenten unterhalten hatte, bis zu 45 Jahre Haft gedroht. Zu Epsteins früherem Freundeskreis zählten unter anderem der heutige US-Präsident Donald Trump, der frühere US-Präsident Bill Clinton und der britische Prinz Andrew.

Vor knapp zwei Wochen hatte Epstein Suizid begangen. Er saß zu diesem Zeitpunkt in einem Gefängnis in New York ein, wo er auf seinen Prozess wartete. Der Tod des 66-Jährigen löste einen Skandal aus. Die beiden Wärter, die den Gefangenen in seiner Gefängniszelle beaufsichtigen sollten, sollen bei der Arbeit geschlafen haben. Statt wie vorgeschrieben alle 30 Minuten nach dem Inhaftierten zu schauen, seien die beiden eingeschlafen und hätten dessen Zustand für rund drei Stunden nicht kontrolliert.

Das ist genauso dubios, wie vieles andere im Umfeld Epsteins. So wird weiter darüber spekuliert, wie genau der Ex-Investmentbanker zu seinem Vermögen gekommen ist und wie es ihm gelungen ist, 2008 mit einem zweifelhaften Deal aus einem ersten Verfahren wegen Sex-Delikten halbwegs ungeschoren herauszukommen.

qu/rb (afp, dpa, rtr, ape)

AMERICA! AWAKE BEFORE TOO LATE!

During the election campaign, the US president draws his compatriots' attention to the subversive role of the Jews in America.

„…the Lefties in the country (Above all, the Jews are meant here – J.Ch.) hate Donald Trump… inexplicably and without foundation; they choose to hate America. The Democrats have truly become the party of hate.” @realDonaldTrump

Anyone who chooses the Democrats as an American Jew is either ignorant or of "great disloyalty," according to Trump. In other words, such Jews are not loyal citizens, regardless of whether they have lived in the country for centuries or millennia. They are traitors and enemies of the nation.

Similarly, it was talked about this in circles of the supporters of the "America First Committee" in the 40s and the politicians around the pilot Charles Lindbergh. More accurate, no one else would have been able to formulate the truth than the US President himself, the truth against which Jews are known to conspire, the truth they fear like devil the holy water and they fight by all means with all their might - of course with their favorite weapon: the knockout argument of antisemitism.

This shows the true extent of the Jewish conspiracy against America and the Free World. This becomes even clear to the US President, who profanely allowed his own daughter to convert to Judaism, who accepted his son-in-law is a Jew and who designated him as the closest and most influential presidential adviser. These words were spoken by a President who fraternizes with these traitors of America and the Free World. It even becomes clear to Mr. Trump what happens to a proud country when an expansive and aggressive Jewish minority eats its way through all strata of the population, when it spreads like a secret plague and seizes power, stifling everything that gets in its way in the bud.

The US President Trump believes that he has recognized the problem (which we seriously doubt): the infiltration of the US Democratic Party by Jews and its misuse as a political vehicle in the struggle for power to enforce their subversive abuse of power. But this is not just a simple problem of many in the power play. What we have been witnessing for decades and what we have to endure is the economic, political, social and moral disintegration of America and the Free World made willfully and deliberately by Jews. In our eyes, there is indeed a drama, a tragedy - a catastrophe with global reach and unpredictable consequences. 

America rules the world. And Jews rule America. So: Jews rule the world. And that's where America has a problem: Who except the Jews, who are universally hated in the whole world, should still accept such circumstances that led to multiple disasters and would be ready and willing to accompany America on this hostile path of shame? Nobody!

American patriots say: The Jews want to destroy America and its American civilization. That is a great understatement. They are not only destroying America but the whole world, and they have been doing so for 100 years. For so long, this bunch of bastards is already doing its destructive, ruinous, devastating, fateful work of destruction with tens of millions of murdered people, either killed by Jews themselves, or they were killed by their ideological Jews-Bolshevist brothers. Their continued work of destruction not only ruins America, but the entire Free World.

AMERICA! AWAKE BEFORE TOO LATE!

Jerzy Chojnowski

Chairman-GTVRG e.V.

www.gtvrg.de

PS. Incidentally, in his campaign for the US presidency Trump promised to Drain the Jewish Washington Swamp. However, these words followed no action so far... Everything looks more like the Jewish Swamp in Washington under President Trump is getting bigger and more terrible.

AMERIKA! ERWACHE, BEVOR ZU SPÄT IST!

Der US-Präsident macht im Wahlkampf seine Landsleute auf die subversive Rolle der Juden in Amerika aufmerksam.

Wer als amerikanischer Jude die Demokraten wähle, der sei entweder ahnungslos oder von „großer Illoyalität“, so Trump. Mit anderen Worten: Die Juden seien keine treuen Staatsbürger, gleichgültig, ob sie seit Jahrhunderten oder Jahrtausenden im Land leben. Sie sind Verräter – Landesverräter und als solche Feinde der Nation.

Ähnlich haben es die Anhänger des „America First Committee“ in den 40er-Jahren und die Politiker rund um den Piloten Charles Lindbergh formuliert. Zutreffender hätte es niemand sonst nun die Wahrheit formulieren können als der US-Präsident selbst, die Wahrheit, gegen die sich bekanntlich Juden verschworen haben, die sie fürchten wie Teufel das Weihwasser und die sie mit aller Macht bekämpfen – selbstverständlich mit ihrer Lieblingswaffe: dem Keule- und Todschlagargument des Antisemitismus.

Dabei zeigt sich das wahre Ausmaß der jüdischen Verschwörung gegen Amerika und die Freie Welt. Dies wird sogar demjenigen US-Präsidenten klar, der frevelhaft zuließ, dass seine eigene Tochter zum Judentum konvertierte, dass sein Schwiegersohn Jude ist und vom Präsidenten zu seinem engsten Berater ernannt wurde, von einem Präsidenten, der sich ansonsten mit diesen Verrätern Amerikas und der Freien Welt umgibt. Es wird sogar ihm klar was geschieht mit einem stolzen Land, wenn sich dort eine expansive und aggressive Judenminderheit durch sämtliche Bevölkerungsschichten frisst, wenn sie sich wie eine heimliche Seuche verbreitet und die Macht ergreift und alles, was ihr unlieb in die Quere kommt im Keime erstickt und niederwalzt.

Der US Präsident Trump glaubt das Problem erkannt zu haben (was wir ernsthaft bezweifeln): die Unterwanderung der Demokratischen Partei durch Juden und deren Benutzung als politisches Vehikel im Kampf um die Macht zur Durchsetzung ihres subversiven Machtmissbrauchs. Doch es handelt sich nicht einfach um ein einfaches und beliebiges Problem von vielen  im Spektrum des politischen Schachspiels. Das, was wir schon seit Jahrzehnten erleben und erdulden müssen, ist der von Juden mutwillig und vorsätzlich herbeigeführte wirtschaftliche, politische, gesellschaftliche und moralische Zerfall Amerikas und der Freien Welt. Vor unseren Augen spielt sich tatsächlich ein Drama, eine Tragödie ab - eine Katastrophe mit globaler Reichweite und unabsehbaren Konsequenzen. 

Amerika regiert die Welt. Und Juden regieren Amerika. Also: Juden regieren die Welt. Und genau an diesem Punkt hat Amerika ein Problem. Denn wer außer den in aller Welt allseits verhassten Juden soll gerade solche Zustände, die zu multiplen Desasters führten, nach wie vor akzeptieren und wäre bereit und willens Amerika auf diesem feindseligen Weg der Schande zu begleiten? Niemand!

Amerikanische Patrioten sagen: Die Juden wollen Amerika und seine amerikanische Zivilisation zerstören. Das ist weit untertrieben. Sie zerstören nicht nur Amerika, sondern die ganze Welt und sie tun dies schon seit 100 Jahren. Solange verrichtet bereits diese Saubande ihr destruktives, verderbliches, sich verheerend auswirkendes, verhängnisvolles Zerstörungswerk mit zig Millionen von Ermordeten, die entweder von Juden selbst umgebracht wurden oder sie wurden von ihren ideologischen judeobolschewistischen Brüdern umgebracht. Ihr fortgesetztes Zerstörungswerk zieht nicht nur Amerika ins Verderben, sondern die ganze Freie Welt.

AMERIKA! ERWACHE, BEVOR ZU SPÄT IST!

Jerzy Chojnowski

Chairman-GTVRG e.V.

www.gtvrg.de 

PS. Übrigens: In seinem Wahlkampf um die US-Präsidentschaft versprach Trump, den jüdischen Washingtoner Sumpf trocken zu legen. Bislang folgten allerdings diesen Worten keinerlei Taten. Alles sieht eher danach aus, dass unter Präsident Trump der Judensumpf in Washington immer größer und schrecklicher wird. 

SHAKEALERT SYSTEM FOR US WEST COAST

Earthquake-warning system that could provide smartphone alerts to Pacific Northwest gets funding boost. The updated ShakeAlert system should be able to give critical seconds of warning before an earthquake’s most destructive shaking.

 By Evan Bush, Seattle Times staff reporter

Aug. 19, 2019 at 12:40 pm Updated Aug. 19, 2019 at 10:57 pm

The U.S. Geological Survey is greatly increasing funding for the region’s seismic network, putting it on track to send public alerts of impending earthquake shaking within the next two years, the network’s director said.

The federal agency gave $10.4 million to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) for the next two years. The University of Washington and University of Oregon, which jointly operate the network, will receive $7.3 million and just over $3 million of that funding, respectively, said PNSN director Harold Tobin, who is also a professor in UW’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences.

The additional funding will help PNSN add 104 more seismic stations. It operates about 200 in Washington state now. The state of Washington has provided funding for 36 more stations, Tobin said. Another 70 stations would deliver optimal performance, he said.

Each station improves the speed, reliability and accuracy of the ShakeAlert early warning network, which PNSN operates in the Northwest.

“It will help us detect earthquakes all over our region down to size and with the minimum amount of delay,” Tobin said. Even without the ideal number of seismic stations, a pilot version of the system performed well during a July earthquake near Monroe. Tobin said the system calculated the earthquake’s magnitude at 4.4. Scientists eventually measured the tremor at the magnitude 4.6.

“Between two and three seconds after the P-wave from the earthquake was detected at the closest station, the ShakeAlert system had calculated there was an earthquake,” Tobin said.

Primary waves, or P-waves, are seismic waves that travel more quickly than destructive secondary waves. Users of a pilot system, like the Northeast Sammamish Water District, received an early-warning signal, Tobin said.

The signal could automatically trigger the activation of control valves there, but the July earthquake was not strong enough to take any action, Tobin said. The pilot ShakeAlert system provided about 8 seconds of warning to the downtown Seattle area, Tobin said.

That might not sound like much, but it’s enough time to trigger automated systems and “give people time to recognize what’s going on, stop what they’re doing and get under a table,” Tobin said. Soon, the ShakeAlert system will be able to provide early earthquake warnings directly to the public, through a smartphone app. “I’m confident we should have that activated within two years,” Tobin said.

Evan Bush: 206-464-2253 or ebush@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @EvanBush.

**********

ShakeAlert: An Earthquake Early Warning System for the West Coast of the United States

ShakeAlert^® is an earthquake early warning (EEW) system that detects significant earthquakes so quickly that alerts can reach many people before shaking arrives. ShakeAlert is not earthquake prediction, rather a ShakeAlert indicates that an earthquake has begun and shaking is imminent.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) along with a coalition of State and university partners is developing and testing the ShakeAlert
System for the West Coast of the United States. Before general public alerting can begin long term operational funding must be secured and the speed and reach of mass alerting technologies must be tested and improved. Many partnerships to test ShakeAlert in authentic environments such as utilities, hospitals, transportation systems, and educational environments are active today and more are being developed. The USGS has set the goal of expanding these applications in 2019 and beginning public notifications as soon as mass notification pathways can support them.

Watch a video describing how ShakeAlert works in English or Spanish.

The primary project partners include:

• United States Geological Survey
• California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES)
• California Geological Survey
• California Institute of Technology
• University of California Berkeley
• University of Washington
• University of Oregon
• ETH Zurich (SED)
• Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

The Earthquake Threat

Earthquakes pose a national challenge because more than 143 million Americans live in areas of significant seismic risk across 39 states. Most of our Nation’s earthquake risk is concentrated on the West Coast of the United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)  has estimated the average annualized loss from earthquakes, nationwide, to be $6.1 billion, with 73% of that figure ($4.5 billion) coming from Washington, Oregon, and California, and 61% ($3.7 billion) from California alone. In the next 30 years, California has a 99.7% chance of a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake and the Pacific Northwest has a 10% chance of a magnitude 8 to 9 megathrust earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone.

Part of the Solution

Today, the technology exists to detect earthquakes, so quickly, that an alert can reach some areas before strong shaking arrives. The purpose of the ShakeAlert System is to identify and characterize an earthquake a few seconds after it begins, calculate the likely intensity of ground shaking that will result, and deliver alerts to people and infrastructure in harm’s way.
















This can be done by detecting the first energy to radiate from an earthquake, the Primary (P) waveenergy, which rarely causes damage. Using P-wave information, we first estimate the location and the magnitude of the earthquake. Then, the anticipated ground shaking across the region to be affected is estimated and a warning is provided to local populations. The method can provide warning before the Secondary (S)-wave arrives, bringing the strong shaking that usually causes most of the damage.

Studies of earthquake early warning methods in Washington, Oregon, and California have shown that the warning time would range from seconds to a tens of seconds. ShakeAlert can give enough time to slow trains and taxiing planes, to prevent cars from entering bridges and tunnels, to move away from dangerous machines or chemicals in work environments and to take cover under a desk, or to automatically shut down and isolate industrial systems. Taking such actions before shaking starts can reduce damage and casualties during an earthquake. It can also prevent cascading failures in the aftermath of an event. For example, isolating utilities before shaking starts can reduce the number of fire initiations. For every earthquake, there is a region near the epicenter where alerts will not arrive before shaking begins because the system needs time to detect the earthquake and for USGS partners to distribute the alert. 

ShakeAlert System Goal

The USGS will issue public warnings of potentially damaging earthquakes and provide warning parameter data to government agencies and private users on a region-by-region basis, as soon as the ShakeAlert System, its products, and its parametric data meet minimum quality and reliability standards in those geographic regions. The USGS set the goal of beginning limited public notifications in late 2018 at the magnitude 5.0 level through alerting pathways that are fastest enough to be effective. In the longer term, ShakeAlert availability will expand geographically to ANSS regional seismic networks with sufficient seismic instrumentation to support timely alerts.

Current Status

In the fall of 2018 the West Coast ShakeAlert System became sufficiently functional and tested to begin Phase 1 of alerting in California, Oregon, and Washington.  Several commercial and institutional users are alerting personnel and taking automated actions; an important step in a strategy of phased roll out leading to full public operation.

Broader public alerting at the magnitude 5.0 level will begin when existing mass alerting technologies are able to deliver alerts at the speed or scale needed for effective earthquake early warning.  The ShakeAlert partners are working with both public and private mass alert system operators including FEMA, cellular carriers, mass notification companies, and others to provide that functionality. Finally, the public has not yet been educated about the system and how to respond to alerts when they are delivered.

In addition to these Phase 1 implementations, technical improvements in the system are also part of the story. The sensor network has reached target density in the Los Angeles, Bay and Seattle metro regions and version 2.0 of the ShakeAlert production system has been deployed.  This updated version of the ShakeAlert System is produces both point source and line source earthquake solutions, has added ground motion estimation products,  and the number of false and missed events has been reduced. The version 2.0 system has also satisfied government cybersecurity requirements and includes improved operational procedures.

The ShakeAlert System is being developed by expanding and upgrading the infrastructure of regional seismic networks that are part of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) and the California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN). CISN is made up of the Southern California Seismic Network (SCSN) and the Northern California Seismic System (NCSS). This enables the USGS and ANSS to leverage their substantial investment in sensor networks, data telemetry systems, data processing centers, and software for earthquake monitoring activities residing in these network centers. The ShakeAlert System has been sending live alerts to “beta” users in California since January of 2012 and in the Pacific Northwest since February of 2015.

Authorities
The USGS will develop and operate the ShakeAlert System, and issue public notifications under the authorities of the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program, as enacted by the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977, 42 U.S.C. §§ 7704 SEC. 2.

For More Information:

Robert de Groot
Coordinator for Communication, Education, Outreach, and Technical Partnerships
rdegroot@usgs.gov
626-583-7225

Follow ShakeAlert on Twitter: @USGS_ShakeAlert

Learn more about EEW Research

ShakeAlert Fact Sheet

ShakeAlert Revised Technical Implementation Plan (2018)

https://www.shakealert.org/

Tsunami tragedy 2004

The earthquake occurred just off Sumatra at a subduction zone where the India plate slides beneath the Burma plate.

by
Tas Walker

https://creation.com/tsunami-tragedy

Countries surrounding the Indian Ocean experienced widespread devastation on 26 December 2004, following an earthquake off the West Coast of Northern Sumatra.

Striking at 7:58 am local time, the earthquake was caused by a massive slip between two of the rigid plates that make up the crust of the earth (see diagram above). With a magnitude of 9.3 on the Richter scale1, vertical movement between the Indian and Burmese plates was about 13 m (43 ft) over an incredible 1,200-km (750-mile) rupture length.

USGS

Strewn amidst ripped-up vegetation and debris, a car has been tossed aside like a toy by the power of the incoming surge. Humans and animals stood little chance of survival in the face of such catastrophe.

Like a giant underwater paddle, the movement of the ocean floor created a tsunami2 that spread in all directions. In the open ocean a tsunami generally goes unnoticed [wrong! - J.Ch.], even though it travels as fast as a jumbo jet. But when it reaches shallower water, it slows down and increases greatly in height.

Estimates are conflicting, but the death toll from the disaster was about 300,000 people, with tens of thousands missing and over a million left homeless. In terms of lives lost, this would be the worst single tsunami in modern history. The previous worst was the 1703 tsunami at Awa, Japan, that killed over 100,000 people.

In Banda Aceh, the city closest to the epicentre, the tsunami arrived about 20 minutes after the earthquake was felt.3 The shaking was severe, with residents reporting being unable to walk or even squat without being knocked to the ground. Many buildings withstood the earthquake but were destroyed by the tsunami waves.

NOAA

The tsunami wave traveled rapidly across the ocean.

In Sri Lanka, 1,600 km away, the first wave began to impact the eastern coast about 100 minutes later. A secondary wave struck approximately 20 minutes after that.

Scientific reports will continue to be published on what will be one of the most devastating earthquakes this century.

Unprecedented disaster?

Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, called the tsunami ‘an unprecedented disaster both in terms of human suffering and the physical damage wrought’.4

USGS

It was certainly the largest watery disaster in recent history, but was it unprecedented? No. A catastrophe some 4,500 years ago inundated more of the globe, killed more people, destroyed more homes and left a greater trail of geologic evidence. Only eight people on the entire planet survived that disaster—Noah and his family—together with a collection of animals and birds [fairy tales and myths! - J.Ch]. The 2004 tsunami gives a tiny insight into the magnitude of the largest physical disaster in earth history.

The earthquake that triggered the tsunami was just one quake, albeit with a magnitude of 9.3. At any location on the coast it took only a couple of hours for the water to rush in and flow back to sea. But after the water was gone, the devastation was horrific. Some parts of the coastline were radically uplifted, some stayed submerged and others were washed away.

No comparison

Compare this with the disaster documented in the Bible. Noah’s Flood would have begun with massive earthquakes when the fountains of the great deep burst open (Genesis 7:11). But Noah’s Flood also involved heavy rain (Genesis 7:12) and a continual increase in sea-level (Genesis 7:17–20). The disaster was not over in an hour or two, but continued to worsen day after day for five whole months (Genesis 7:24).

USGS

Beach erosion on the east coast of Sri Lanka. Waves removed beach sand about 1 m (3 ft) vertically and 20 to 30 metres (65–100 ft) wide and deposited it further inland.

Imagine the situation in the countries around the Indian Ocean if a second tsunami had followed the first a couple of hours later. Then a third two hours after that. And so on. How would the people respond when they realized that the hills on which they were sheltering were slowly disappearing into the sea? Imagine the panic as each new wave eroded the land away in huge chunks. Visualise this continuing into the night, and then the whole of the next day, and then the next, for five months.

There would have been no chance to mount an international rescue effort. The focus on the ground would have moved, from helping the victims, to escaping the ongoing calamity. Whole communities would have moved to higher ground at first. Then what? There would be no time to build rafts or boats, and nowhere to get food or water for six months on the open sea.

The tsunami of 2004 should make us question those who claim that Noah’s Flood never could have happened. Considering that our planet is two-thirds covered with water, 11 km (7 miles) deep in places, the tsunami demonstrates how a relatively small disturbance to the earth’s crust will inundate vast areas within hours. How much more devastation would have been caused by Noah’s Flood, which involved far more than a single tsunami wave?

DigitalGlobe

A part of Banda Aceh—before and after.

Photo by David Rydevik, Wikipedia

A wall of water

Onlookers are taken by surprise as the tsunami breaks across the beach with awesome fury. With a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, cities and towns around the Indian Ocean were destroyed or severely damaged by the results of this single event.

The later flooding effects of Hurricane Katrina in the USA once again gave a stark and deadly reminder of the awesome power and destructive force of large volumes of water.

Noah’s Flood inundated the entire earth, leaving its mark in the world’s geology with sediments up to many kilometres thick. The remains of billions of dead creatures buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the world testify to this cataclysm.

Brentwood Higman, University of Washington

Tsunami sediment at Nalaveli Hotel

Sediments and eyewitness

People today try to dismiss the Bible’s history of the world because they believe the rock layers are a more reliable testimony. However, rocks cannot talk about the past. People speak for them.

USGS

Rip-up clasts in sand deposited by the June 2001 tsunami in Peru.

Is the tsunami relevant to how geologists talk about rock layers? Yes, because the tsunami had eyewitnesses. That is why, in January 2005, teams of scientists visited the devastated areas to document its geological effects.1,2They call it ‘ground truthing’.

At Nalaveli Hotel in Sri Lanka, they found 20 cm (8 inches) of sand deposited in two beds on soil, consistent with eyewitness reports of two waves. The contact between the beds is identified by a darker mineral layer. In each layer the sand grades upward from coarse to fine—a graded bed.

Graded beds are typical of a wave deposit. Sometimes marine animals are scattered on the surface. The lowest bed often contains rip-up clasts3 (pieces of the underlying material ripped up by the wave).

Clearly, the bed of sediment does not represent a living environment. The tsunami collected the sediment, marine animals and other material from a number of environments and deposited them together.The lighter material, such as branches, bark and wood, was deposited elsewhere. If a scientist examined the fossils in the beds of sediment and said they showed how life evolved over a long period of time he would be wrong.

References and notes

1. The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: initial findings from Sumatra: based on survey conducted January 20–29, 2005, Sumatra international survey team, USGS (US Geological Survey), walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/sumatra05. Return to text.
2. The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami: initial findings on tsunami sand deposits, damage and inundation in Sri Lanka : based on survey conducted January 9–15, 2005, walrus.wr.usgs.gov/tsunami/srilanka05. Return to text.
3. Preliminary analysis of sedimentary deposits from the June 23, 2001 Peru tsunami, walrus.wr.usgs.gov/peru2/index.html. Return to text.

Survived at sea

The receding waters of the tsunami dragged people out to sea, including Malawati, a 23-year-old Indonesian woman. She survived for five days, badly sunburnt and bitten by fish, by clinging to a sago palm and eating its fruit and bark. She saw sharks all around but, incredibly, none attacked her.

Rizal Shahputra, a 23-year-old Indonesian from Banda Aceh drifted in the open ocean for eight days. Along with scores of other people, he clung to floating planks of wood. Dead bodies were all around. One-by-one everyone but Rizal was swallowed by the sea, including his family members.

The container vessel MV Durban Bridge rescued him 160 km (100 miles) west of Aceh. Emerging sunburnt and weak from a floating raft of trees and branches, Rizal had survived on rainwater and coconuts.

To stay alive at sea for eight days is exceptional. But, without anyone to rescue them, the people in Noah’s day, people who managed to cling to floating vegetation would have perished of exposure and starvation in the months that followed. Their remains would never have been found.

Tas Walker

Waves in the past

Graded beds are common in the sedimentary record, pointing to deposition from large waves (pictured left). The beds are often extensive, suggesting that the waves travelled great distances over relatively flat terrain. And the beds have not been disturbed by animals and plants, indicating that not much time elapsed between one wave and the next.

Warnings went unheeded

Waverly Person of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center said that many people could have been saved if the countries most severely affected—including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India—had had a tsunami warning system, or even tide gauges.1

By Tuncay Taymaz, Fault plane solutions report

Locations of past earthquakes (small circles). Large circles show angle and direction of faulting.

A tsunami is generated at the source of the underwater earthquake and so, depending on locality, there is usually 20 minutes to two hours for people to move to higher ground. Because tsunamis are extremely rare in the Indian Ocean, people had not been taught to escape disaster by fleeing inland after they felt the tremors of an earthquake.

Victor Desosa, a former merchant seaman who had experienced a tsunami in Chile, saved the village of Galbokka in Sri Lanka . When the water receded (just before the tsunami arrived) he ran around telling his neighbours to run for it. They believed him and as a result, only one of several hundred inhabitants of his village was killed. Casualty rates in nearby villages were 70% to 90%.2

This also reminds us of the days of Noah. Because a global flood had never occurred before, people did not believe it would happen. Only Noah heeded the warning and only his family was saved. The Bible anticipates that people will deliberately forget that Noah’s Flood ever took place, and therefore will be unprepared for the future final global destruction by fire coming on the earth (2 Peter 3:3–7).

References and notes

1. USGS: warnings could have saved thousands in Asia—26 December 2004, iri.columbia.edu/~lareef/tsunami.
2. 2004 Sumatra earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami, EERI power point presentation, www.eeri.org/cds_publications/catalog.

USGS This tree was stripped of its bark up to a height of 1.5 metres by the force of the waves.

Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC American heartbreak On 29 August 2005, fierce Hurricane Katrina ripped apart homes in the Gulf States of USA and washed them into the sea. A sharp drop in air pressure, a storm surge of 8 m (25 ft), a few structural failures, and New Orleans was flooded. Thousands of people perished and hundreds of thousands were made homeless. A thriving metropolis was destroyed. Katrina gives us another sobering reminder of how easy it is for the water on our planet to devastate the land.

The power of water

During the worldwide Flood of Noah’s time, massive movements in the earth’s crust would have caused huge tsunamis and destruction on a global scale. The Indonesian quakes and resulting waves would have been tiny by comparison to the events at the time of the great Flood. Billions of creatures, including dinosaurs, were killed and buried in sediments as the entire earth became flooded. Fossils frequently show creatures suddenly killed and buried.

Where did all the water go?

If today’s mountains were pushed down and the ocean basins lifted up, water would cover the entire earth to a depth of 2.7 km (1.7 miles). Noah’s Flood was a tectonic event of enormous dimensions.

Facebook236TwitterEmailMore13

Related Articles

• Waves of sadness
• Reader questions motive of response to tsunami disaster
• Startling evidence for Noah’s Flood

Further Reading

• Noah’s Flood Questions and Answers
• Death and Suffering Questions and Answers

References and notes

1. Early estimates were magnitude 9.0 but later analysis including longer-wavelength seismograms showed it was three times larger. See; Sieh, K., Aceh—Andaman earthquake: What happened and what’s next? Nature434(7033):573–574, 2005; Richter magnitude is a logarithmic scale, so an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 has 10 times the displacement but over 30 times the energy of one of magnitude 8.0. Return to text.
2. Tsunami is Japanese for harbour wave. Return to text.
3. The great Sumatra earthquake and Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004, EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute), May 2005, www.eeri.org/lfe/pdf/india_srilanka_tsunami_eeri_socsci_report.pdf. Return to text.
4. Press conference by Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, 31 December 2004, europa.eu.int/comm/echo/whatsnew/statement_press_31-12-2004_en.htm. Return to text.