Hi Chris,

Before you point fingers, lets discuss what happens when people know a tsunami is coming and in the US no less. After the '64 Great Alaskan quake the local news in SF announced a tsunami was going to hit the coast of CA around SF and told the locals to stay away from the beaches. 10,000 showed up for the show. While it turned out not to be much of a show, in San Rafael, far inland from the Golden Gate bridge, a yacht harbor had the unfortunate experience of having the water go out, placing the boats under the docks and then when the water came back in, they all got smashed under the docks. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage ensued.

Earthquake safety in many countries around the world is almost nil and boy don't we all know that. If they aren't buried alive when poorly built homes and buildings collapse, then they are swept out to sea. Indonesia is no stranger to tsunami's, but they usually are not this big.

The answer is to afford an education to the public and visitors of such places about what they need to do if a large earthquake strikes and work on some kind of warning system. The personal education will always be the mainstay, even if they have the system, because systems at some point will fail. They always do.

And we have to ask, though we shouldn't have to, do they want to acknowledge large earthquakes and tsuanmi's happen in paradise? Does it affect tourism, which is their largest annual dollar? You bet cha.

Why don't you write to Roger Bilham in Colorado. He's been round the world a couple dozen times talking to foreign governments about safety standards and so forth. He may have already covered this territory.

Petra