Have you ever taught at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, USA?

Interestingly, Prof. Kapila Dahanayake, Senior Prof., Dept. of Geology, University of Peradeniya begins his article “Tsunami early warning system - how it works” to yesterday’s Daily News with the sentence “Tsunamis or earthquakes can be neither prevented nor predicted.” (http://www.dailynews.lk/2005/03/21/) Then he goes on explaining something diametrically opposite to that first sentence!

I think what both Clarke and Prof. Kapila Dahanayake wanted to emphasise was that earthquakes (and resulting tsunamis) cannot be predicted years or months before. (As we predict solar eclipses)

Now we know the animals at Yala could ‘predict’ tsunami. How did they do that? I don’t believe in the ‘sixth sense’ theory. The only scientific explanation I can think of is, that their (five) senses are more sensitive (eg. The audio frequency spectrum a dog can sense is much wider than our own) and they ‘analysed’ the data correctly to come into the right conclusion.

So this is only a problem of having right instruments and doing the correct analysis. I don’t think tsunamis or even earthquakes are totally unpredictable. Even an earthquake does not happen instantaneously. It is only a question of detecting the event at its early stage and taking the proactive preventive measures.

If we cannot even do that today, we are not different from our ancestors of the Stone Age!

And quite interestingly an earthquake (an a possible tsunami) has already been predicted (Sir Arthur, art thou listening?) I find the local media giving it a high prominence to this story. I am not at all surprised to see the state media too doing it, because it is ideal propaganda to chase of those living within the 100 ‘sacred zone’!

I am not ready to buy the story that earthquakes / tsunamis cannot be predicted or detected early enough so that the warnings can be issued - especially in the beginning of the twenty first century, where even the event of an asteroid hitting earth in another nine years on March 21, 2014 has been predicted with a probability of one into about 900,000. (Pl see http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/02/asteroid.reut/) If we cannot predict an impending disaster like a tsunami early enough, what is the use of all the scientific achievements the human kind has made so far?

It is just the accuracy of the monitoring instruments we use and our ability to analyse the information on time. Now it is known that even the not so sophisticated instruments at the Pallekele station actually recorded the earthquake on Dec 26, and the tsunami could have been predicted early enough for several thousands to save their lives. The whole problem was there was nobody to observe it and take action. Not that it wasn’t possible to predict that.

If Sir Arthur has really meant that it is impossible to predict an event like an earthquake or tsunami, I can only respond by quoting Sir Arthur himself. The so-called ‘Clarke’s First Law’ states:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

The only people who will take advantage by this type of quotes (misquotes?) are those who were responsible for the prediction and warning, but could do neither on time, resulting in the loss of 40,000 lives, on last Dec. 26. I am sure now they will go to town with this quote.

I agree that earthquakes cannot be predicted, for our purposes of warning. A local tsunami in the immediate vicinity of the earthquake is also one that cannot be given adequate warning of (implicitly, it cannot be “predicted”).

However a teletsunami of the kind that hit Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, etc. can be predicted in the sense that one can predict cyclones: taking earthquake and water speed data, one can say when a teletsunami will hit, in the case of the Indian Ocean tsunami prediction was done for Kenya where only one life was lost. If we get a decent warning system, we can “predict” teletsunamis and take precautions.

I hope Sir Arthur was misquoted. It is a pity that this happened.

divakar

I agree that in our part of the world cynicism is a luxury only the arm-chair critic can afford.

Perhaps you might be interested in reading Carl Muller’s ‘Spit and Polish’. That is in fact a work of fiction, but it illustrates so nicely that how on April 04, 1942 Sri Lanka and the region was saved because of the intelligence of just one Sri Lankan pilot and the efficiency of the system. The pilot saw the fleet of Japanese war ships in South East, and minutes before he was shot down, he could pass the message to Colombo and the forces were fully alert for the attack the next day morning. (This part of the story is true.)

That was how the Colombo harbour never became another Pearl harbour. If not for that crucial communication, we all would be speaking Japanese right now!

This is an extreme example, but perhaps we need a warning system with a similar efficiency –whoever man it.

The apathy, incompetence, corruption, negligence etc. that characterize governance in this region very understanbly can provoke the sort of reaction you had. However, an effective disaster warning system will not work without human beings! We cant “subscribe to a warning system” that can make the decisions for Sri Lanka.

The data the warning instruments record need to be analysed and interpreted–and a decision need to be made whether to inform the appropriate agencies to issue a warning to the vulnerable areas/people. If necessary, people may have to be evacuated from their homes and moved somewhere else. These decisions cannot be made by computers one still needs the wo/man-in-loop!

So the question is how can u create pockets of excellence– competent organizations that are accountable, responsive, work 24/7 365 days and insulated from the morass of poor governance? What sort of system needs to be built that is impervious to political manipulation and can effectively get the message out to the people?

I think those are the kinds of questions the NEWS:SL report tries to address.

In our part of the world cynicism is a luxury only the arm-chair critic can afford.

I would start from the day in 1987, when Daya Pathirana, a student leader at the University of Colombo, was abducted off Thurstan road and killed somewhere off route 120, close to Horana. The reign of terror that began since then continues to date in the universities. The problem is too deep-rooted for well meaning academics to do anything about. Bold leadership at the highest levels is needed.

Anyway, my concern is not the inability of the local universities to produce ’scientists’ or ‘professionals’ with adequate knowledge. (Let us discuss that separately) I am more concerned about the inability of the universities to produce so called ‘graduates’ who do not even know the meaning of the term ’social responsibility’.

I am sure you have read from the papers today that a group of undergraduates of University of Ruhuna has entirely destroyed its computer lab. The irony is that such things happen when some others are struggling hard to take ICT to the people! These are the type of the people who will step out of the universities tomorrow (with or without adequate knowledge) and join public sector organisations, probably through the so called graduate employment programmes of the UPFA govt. (Surely, they cannot get employment in the private sector, even as peons!)

I think it is not wrong to assume that most of the so called ‘officials’ who so easily neglected their duties during the recent tsunami are local science graduates. (including the Head and staff of Met Department, GM and staff of Railways, Chairman and the staff of NARA, Head and staff of Geological Surveys dept, staff of the Geology Dept of university of Peradeniya etc, and on top of all that, our renowned scientist cum soothsayer Prof. Pissu Witharana, the honorable Minister in charge! )

Can the faculty of the local universities wash their hands so easily for their contribution to the crime of producing such a set of socially irresponsible individuals? Is the role of the teacher limited to teach the subject matter?

Why our universties can’t produce the graduates we need is another matter. Blame the ministry, blame the agemcies, but don’t blast all our faculty. I know first hand some good scientists here. There is a lot of deadwood, but I would blame the ministry and the agencies for sucking the life out of these people.

The universities of Sri Lanka should consider closing down all the Science Faculties as apparently these do not do any productive work for the nation. We do not need Scientists. We only housemaids and garments girls who can earn some money for us, so we can employ the services of some good scientists from other countries.

Finally we all should be ashamed of the pathetic individual we have for the post of Minister of Science and Technology. This man claims himself to be a “renowned scientist” but acts more like an irresponsible soothsayer. As long as we have pathetic idiots like him at high positions, government looking after us in a disaster is only a dream! Dear Prof. Pissu Witharana, you can do a great service to this nation by submitting your resignation and trying to living on your pension. Please consider this idea seriously.

So let us close down our “Scientific organisations” and stop all R&D and use that money to subscribe for a good warning system.

Geologists in India take Moral Onus on Tsunami Disaster
Times of India
March 1, 2005

“In the final analysis, the geological community as a whole must own responsibility for not warning the people in the coastal belt in advance,” the professional body of geologists said.

GSI president B P Radhakrishna said the geologists of India failed to give a warning even though they were “fully aware of the fact that an earthquake of magnitude 9, an extremely rare event, had occurred in an oceanic subduction zone in the proximity of Andaman Nicobar islands.”

“This should lead to introspection and reflection on the part of all of us so that our science can play a more responsible societal role in the future,” he said in a soul searching editorial in the GSI’s official journal.

“Seismologists in this country seem to be more worried about impressing the government on the need for massive grants to establish an early tsunami warning system, instead of strengthening the existing systems to warn the public of impending disasters,” the GSI president said.

“The mentality which pervades our scientific departments that they are answerable only to the government and not to others should change,” he observed.

The journal said there was a time-gap of nearly two hours for the waves to travel and hit the east coast of India, which was enough time to give prior warning, “This is where our science establishment has perhaps failed us,” the journal commented.

[...]

The GSI has its own doubts about the usefulness of the Rs 125 crore early warning system India is planning to deploy.

“Granting that we have an early warning system and that it functions, are we in a position to evacuate people in about two hours time? Any false alarm will have disastrous effect as it will undermine the confidence of the people in such warnings,” it said.