I just facilitated 3 international guests in a meeting with the Centennial Rotary Club of Calgary. While we were there, I met another visitor, a gentleman from Germany who explained to me that his company was in the process of developing an early warning system for SE Asia in the case of another earthquake induced Tsunami.
He gave me some very interesting statistics.
The quake opened a gash under the ocean 1200 km long. It opened the fault at a rate of 10 000 km an hour, it permanently shifted the two plates the distance of an 8 metre step. The wave formed was only 1 metre high, but it was 100 km long. The tremors shook Europe by an average of 2 cm in height.
Incredible power and devastation. He went on to say that they knew of the quake in Germany within 15 minutes of it’s start, yet most of the devestation happened in coastal areas, 3 hours later. There were no mechanisms for warning the people.