[CP] Could an underwater nuclear test have
caused this tsunami?
http://www.mggpillai.com/sections.php3?op=viewarticle&artid=8982
CounterPunch
www.counterpunch.org
30 December 2004
Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing Unnatural Disaster?
By LILA RAJIVA
In the aftermath of a cataclysm like the Asian tsunami,
speculation can run wild. Reserving judgment until we really
know what happened, here is a list of salient questions and
answers that I,ve compiled from news reports, government and
other reliable sources.
Q: What set off the gigantic tsunamis that devastated coastal
south-east Asia?
A: An undersea earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale
with its epicenter about 160 km from the northern portion of the
island of Sumatra in Indonesia on Sunday, December 26.
Q: How soon after the quake did the tsunami hit?
A: The earthquake hit Indonesia at 6:58 a.m; the tsunami
arrived as much as 2 1/2 hours later, without warning,
suggesting that it might not have been caused directly by the
quake but by some other change triggered by the quake.
Q: How large was it?
A: It was the largest since the 9.2 quake in Prince William
Sound in Alaska in 1964 and the 4th largest in the century. The
quake moved the entire island of Sumatra about 100 feet toward
the southwest and even disturbed the Earth's rotation. It was
the first tsunami in the Indian Ocean since 1883. Waves of
around 30-40 ft in height and even greater were widely reported.
Q: What caused the undersea earthquake?
A: Compression between the Indian and Burmese tectonic
plates. Scientists believe that one plate that comprised the
landmass from India to Australia has broken up into two. The
initial 8.9 eruption happened near the location of the meeting
point of the Australian, Indian and Burmese plates
Q: What made the plates shift?
A: It may have been set off by another quake of about 8.1 on
the Richter scale on the other side of the plate about 900 km SE
of the coast of Tasmania on Thursday, December 24, which caused
no serious damage however. The causal relationship is not proved
but the time sequence is striking and some seismologists have
considered it quite possible.
Q: Were tsunamis expected from that earlier quake?
A: The U.S. government's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said
on its Web site that ``widely destructive'' tsunamis from the
quake were possible in the open ocean
Q: Have there been similar earthquakes set off the South East
of Tasmania before?
A: Yes, in 1998 a very large earthquake occurred south of
Australia and New Zealand, between Macquarie Island and
Antarctica on March 25 about 2,300 km south of Hobart in
Tasmania, and 500 km north of the Antarctic coast
Q: Did this generate tsunamis?
A: Very large long-period surface waves were recorded in the
hour after the earthquake.
Q: What connection if any is there between Tasmania and
Antarctica?
A: Its capital Hobart on the South East coast is the base for
the administration of Australia's Antarctic program. The French
regularly resupply their Antarctic base at Dumont d'Urville from
the port, and American, Chinese, Russian and Italian ice
breakers regularly visit.. Through its exploratory, commercial
and scientific associations with the sub-antarctic and Antarctic
regions, Hobart possibly enjoys a longer continuous Antarctic
connection than any other spot on the planet.
Q: What are some other disturbances that can cause tsunamis?
A: Landslides or explosions such as underwater nuclear
testing.
Q: Is underwater nuclear testing common?
A: Yes, The United States has conducted 1,054 tests of
nuclear devices between July 16, 1945 and September 23, 1992.
Before 1962, all the tests were atmospheric (on land or in the
Pacific or Atlantic oceans) but overall the majority - 839 -
were underground tests. From 1966 to 1990, 167 French nuclear
test explosions have been performed on two atolls in French
Polynesia, Morurua and Fangataua. Of the 167 tests, 44 were
atmospheric. Atmospheric explosions were carried out until 1974,
but only underground tests after that. The underground tests
have been conducted at the bottom of shafts bored 500-1200
meters into the basalt core of the atoll. Initially these shafts
were drilled in the outer rim of the atoll. In 1981, most likely
due to the weakening of that rim, the tests with higher yields
were shifted to shafts drilled under the lagoon itself.
Q: What are the effects of underwater nuclear testing?
A: To quote from a 1995 case brought against the French
government, Case T-219/95 R, by Marie-Thérèse Danielsson, Pierre
Largenteau and Edwin Haoa, all residing in Tahiti, French
Polynesia: "Short-term effects include geological damage and the
venting of gaseous and volatile fission products into the
biosphere. Nuclear tests, the applicants say, can cause
landslides and did indeed cause a major underwater landslide at
Mururoa in 1979, when a nuclear device was exploded after
jamming half-way down its shaft. Since the geology of Mururoa is
already unstable due to large-scale fracturing caused by
previous tests, further major landslides are likely. Such
landslides in the past have given rise to tsunamis causing
coastal damage in areas as far away as Pitcairn and Tahiti and
endangering residences such as that of Ms. Danielsson. They can
also release radioactive material into the sea, with
catastrophic effects on the food chain in an area such as French
Polynesia where fish is an important part of the diet.
Q: What were the effects of the Murarao landslide?
A: It shifted at least one million cubic meters of coral and
rock and created a cavity, probably 140 meters in diameter and
produced a major tidal wave comparable to a tsunami, which
spread through the Tuamotu Archipelago and injured people on the
southern part of Moruroa Atoll. French authorities initially
denied that any mishap had occurred and declared that the tidal
wave was of natural origin, but in a publication in 1985 they
did acknowledge "the accident of 25 July 1979".
Q: Can landslides create tsunamis?
A: Research on underwater landslides is new and it is only in
recent years that the potentially catastrophic results of a
landslide have become known. Dr Summerhayes, Director of the
Institute of Oceanographic Sciences in the United Kingdom, is
quoted in the Independent Newspaper on 9 September 1995 as
saying that volcanic islands like Mururoa were:
"... inherently unstable and may fail given an appropriate
trigger like an earthquake or a very large explosion. Failure is
likely to cause a giant submarine landslide which may demolish
parts of the island and could create a tidal wave that may
itself damage coastal installations on other islands nearby."
Furthermore he stated that the creation of such a tidal wave
was "a general threat to coasts as far away as New Zealand and
Australia."
Q: How predictable would earthquakes be in the region around
Indonesia?
A: Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, lies along
the Pacific Ring of Fire where plate boundaries intersect and
volcanoes regularly erupt.
Q: How common are tsunamis in the Indian Ocean?
A: Tsunamis are rare in the Indian Ocean though there have
been 7 records of tsunamis set off by earthquakes near
Indonesia, Pakistan and at the Bay of Bengal.
This is the first multi-ocean tsunami since Krakatau erupted
in the nineteenth century.
Q: Is there a warning system for tsunamis in place?
A: An international system of buoys and monitoring stations "
the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center based in Hawaii " spans the
Pacific, alerting nations there to any oncoming disasters. But
no such system guards the Indian Ocean. Neither India or Sri
Lanka are part of the system and though Thailand is the south
western coast does not have the system, sensors floated on
buoys.
Q: Could the carnage have been avoided?
A: Much of this death and destruction could have been
prevented with a simple system of buoys. Officials in Thailand
and Indonesia have said that an immediate public warning could
have saved lives, but that they did not know about the danger
because there was no international system in place to track
tsunamis in the Indian Ocean.
Q: How difficult would it have been to set up?
A: The detector buoys have been around for decades and the
U.S. has had a monitoring system for more than half a century.
More than 50 seismometers dot the Northwest ready to monitor
earthquakes that might cause tsunamis. There are 6 buoys in the
middle of the Pacific equipped with sensors called "tsunameters"
that measure changes in water pressure and programmed to alert
the country's two tsunami-warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska.
Dr. Eddie Bernard, director of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory in Seattle, says just a few buoys could do the job.
Q: What held up putting a system in place?
A: Scientists wanted to place two more tsunami meters in the
Indian Ocean, including one near Indonesia, but lacked funding,
said Bernard. The tsunameters each cost only $250,000.
Q: How soon did people know about the tsunami?
A: Within 15 minutes of the earthquake, scientists running
the existing tsunami warning system for the Pacific sent an
alert from their Honolulu hub to 26 participating countries,
including Thailand and Indonesia, that destructive waves might
be generated by the Sumatra tremors.
Q: Did anyone warn Indonesia or any other country?
A: "We put out a bulletin within 20 minutes, technically as
fast as we could do it," says Jeff LaDouce of the NOOA. LaDouce
says e-mails were dispatched to Indonesian officials, but he
doesn't know what happened to the information. Phone calls were
hurriedly made to countries in the Indian Ocean danger zone, Dr.
Laura S. L. Kong, a Commerce Department seismologist and
director of the International Tsunami Information Center said,
but not with the speed that comes from pre-established emergency
planning. Reportedly, NOOA didn,t know whom to contact.
Q: What responsibility do Asian governments have in the lack
of preparedness?
A: At a meeting in June of the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission, a United Nations body, experts
concluded that the "Indian Ocean has a significant threat from
both local and distant tsunamis" and should have a warning
network but India, Thailand, Malaysia and other countries in the
region have "never shown the initiative to do anything," said
Dr. Tad Murty, an expert on the region's tsunamis who is
affiliated with the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. "There's
no reason for a single individual to get killed in a tsunami,"
he noted, "The waves are totally predictable. We have
travel-time charts covering all of the Indian Ocean. From where
this earthquake happened to hit, the travel time for waves to
hit the tip of India was four hours. That's enough time for a
warning. In Thailand, officials reportedly played down warnings
afraid that if there was a false alarm, tourism might be
seriously damages as had happened once before.
Q: Were there any oddities about the quake besides this?
A: The quake was rated a 6.4 on the Richter scale according
to an official at the Bureau of Meteorology and Geophysics in
Jakarta. But the U.S. Geological Survey measured the earthquake
at a magnitude of 8.1. The assessment significantly
underestimated the size and impact of the quake.
Q: When were people in the affected regions warned?
A: Officials in Thailand issued the only warnings of the
impending disaster, but broadcasts beamed to tourist resorts in
the country's south underestimated the threat and a Web site
caution was not posted until three hours after the first waves
hit.
Q: Was anyone warned in time at all?
A: Yes. The NOAA immediately warned the U.S. Naval Station at
Diego Garcia, which suffered very little damage from the
tsunami. NOAA was able to get the warning to the US Navy base in
the area, but says it was unable to contact the civil
authorities in the region to warn them.
Q: Was there any damage to Diego Garcia, the U.S. base in the
Indian Ocean?
A: None, although Diego Garcia, the southernmost island of
the Chagos Archipelag, lies about 1,000 miles south of India and
about 2,000 miles from the earthquake,s epicenter. Meanwhile,
Somalia, nearly 3,000 from the earthquake,s center, reported
more than 100 deaths in coastal areas. A spokeswoman for the
U.S. Geological Survey, said damage differs greatly because of
differences in the undersea topography. The numerous coral reefs
may have dissipated some of the waves, impact on the
British-owned island, resulting in only a slightly elevated
tide, hardly noticeable to residents
Q: Have tidal waves figured in weapons research?
A: Yes. Secret wartime experiments were conducted off the New
Zealand coast to create a bomb that would trigger tidal waves,
according to government files declassified in Auckland. But the
tsunami bomb was never fully tested and the war ended before the
project was completed. Its mastermind was Thomas Leech, an
Australian professor who was the dean of engineering at Auckland
University from 1940 to 1950. He set off a series of underwater
explosions that caused mini tidal waves at Whangaparaoa, north
of Auckland, in 1944 and 1945. Details of the research, known as
Project Seal, are contained in 53- year-old documents released
by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Q: Is it possible for a nuclear explosion to have triggered
the Macquarie quake in some way and indirectly caused the
changes that led to the Sumatra quake and the Asian tsunami?
A: It is possible that a very large explosion might have
triggered the first quake directly in some way or that repeated
prior testing could have induced changes that led to the quake
indirectly, but research on the fall-out of nuclear testing is
so highly classified that little is known of the possible
impact. The U.S. has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, leaving the door open to future U.S. testing despite an
extended moratorium. There has already been a strong move toward
resumption of testing since 2002. Now earth-penetrating nukes
(bunker busters) and mini-nukes might provide the pretext.
Lila Rajiva is a free-lance journalist in the Baltimore area
and the author of "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the
American Media," to be released by Monthly Review Press in 2005
Spring. She can be reached at: lrajiva@hotmail.co |