Tsunami - any news from Diego Garcia ?
 

Must be close to the epicentre - :ooh:

Not really, relatively about the same distance as Gan in the Maldives. Gan one of the islands of Addu Atol, southernmost atoll of the Maldives - 42 miles south of the Equator. Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos group, about 400 miles further south again. Like the Maldives, they would have experienced waves around 4-5ft at that distance I reckon. Still high enough to swamp the island though as it topped out at around 3-4 ft above sea level when I was there during the initial building stages (Project Reindeer Station).

I used to spend time in Gan when I was with RAF Eating Command on Hastings and C130's.

Lying on the beach one day I read a story about when Krakatoa errupted off Indonesia and a tidal wave was felt in East Africa.

Working out that my bunk was only around ten feet above MSL I went around suggesting that all rooms be equipped with life jackets.

...and they thought that I was mad.

This from globalsecurity.org and copied from another forum:

Initial indications are that Diego Garcia was not affected by the Andaman Tsunami of 26 December 2004. It is located south of the tip of India, well with in range of what the tsunami, with a max elevation of 22 and an average elevation of only 4 feet. Civilians monitoring shortwave radio reported on rec.radio.shortwave that a female operator, in answer to a query from an aircraft after giving weather information, reported no ill effects from the earthquake. So everything appears well on Diego Garcia. :ok:

Cheers! M2

News report here . 6 hours old when I posted it - says the Diego Garcia base emerged unscathed.

Good news for some, God Bless the rest.

Another reply...

And in this morning\'s Stars & Stripes:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...iegoGarcia.jpg

Again, just confirming they survived pretty much unscathed...

Cheers! M2

I think that DG is a volcanic mount, which means that there is no continental shelf to compress the energy of the tsunami upwards. They usually aren't noticed in deep ocean which is where DG sits (i think)

I think C Robin has a good point. Lives were lost on the coast of Somalia, which is a lot further from the epicentre than DG, but presumably the former has a continental shelf over which the waves built up height.

I used to enjoy the occasional stopover at Gan. Snorkelling in the lagoon was good fun. I'm not sure that the guys who did a years' unaccompanied tour there were so keen on it.

Although there were no MQ and no women stationed on Gan, there is a story that some enterprising erk was found on an MI to have caught a dose. Under gruelling cross-examination it seems that a passing VC10 full of wives, NAAFI girls etc had stopped for an ahour or two due to unserviceability, and one of them couldn't shed her knickers fast enough for our hero. "The wages of sin..."

Flatus
I think C Robin has a good point.

C Robin is absolutely on the button, that's why Gan didn't suffer either. Male did because, I believe, it is closer to the Indian sub-continent and lies over or closer to the shelf there. Gan is 42 miles south of the equator and in much deeper oggin.

and . . .
I used to enjoy the occasional stopover at Gan. Snorkelling in the lagoon was good fun. I'm not sure that the guys who did a years' unaccompanied tour there were so keen on it.

You what! It was the whole point. We loved it. A touch of oggin-troggin every day, bubblin' and scaring puffer fish into balloons - and being scared off by groupers, really big mouths they have.

What we didn't "love" was being told to keep away from certain parts of the inner lagoon when you "visitors" were out sunning yourselves and using our glass-bottomed boat, or snorkling in bikinis!

Ref the "bit of the other" tale.
Most prob true but not in my time. You'd be surprised the amount and variety of things that could happen during a Vicky10 turn-round, especially with the Q's (gawds bless their little cotton socks - and other pieces :O :E :E ), and especially the east-bounds.

:ok:

Re Diego Garcia, go to BBC News, Africa, and then to the article about Somalia. In there it says that Diego Garcia was forewarned by the Pacific Tsunami Centre in Hawaii - nice to have friends like that eh? Pity they couldn't warn everyone else.

yes I read that, but it sounds like the usual ill-informed press at it again.

Think about it: if its highest point is 22 feet then any warning would be superfluous as wave heights topped out at over 30 feet; DG would have been scrubbed clean. So I think that our original theory of seamount vs continental shelf is more likely to be correct. Also, the Pacific Tsunami centre works off seismographical data and readings from wave amplitude buoys etc, the latter of which there are none in the indian ocean.

This seems like another "criticise the USA article" of which there have been a worrying amount recently. I for one fear for a world where the US doesn't hold its position of pre-eminence.

But so as to not go off-thread, I'll let that one rest - for now.

But please - don't believe everything you read in the newspapers. I doubt half the journos in the british press could even spell Tsunami before Boxing day, never mind give an analysis as to why DG can breathe a big sigh of relief.

Well said CR.

:ok:

Actually, I think that Diego Garcia is an atoll, a low lying island surrounded by coral reefs, and not a volcanic island. Ascension Island is the volcanic mount, hence all the warnings about rip currents to swimmers there.

Topography did save the B.I.O.T. from being another member of the catastrophe, but on a larger scale than local.

From Wikipedia :
The island and base were unaffected by the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Service personnel on the island reported only a minor increase in wave activity. The island was protected by its favourable ocean topography. East of the atoll lies the 650-kilometre-long Chagos Trench, an underwater canyon plunging more than 5000 metres. The depth of the Trench and its grade to the shore makes it difficult for tsunami to build before passing the atoll, In addition, undersea coral reefs may have dissipated much of the waves' impact[4]

Apologies if I'm mistaken about the geography and Happy New Year.

Now we're getting somewhere! Propulike is spot on. Read what little information there is about DG, and it becomes clear that the Chagos trench saved the area from any major destruction (thank God for that!). Would that the Maldives and Sri Lanka had the same protection. As for the America-bashing. How long has it taken the British President (sorry Prime Minister) to issue a statement about this catastrophe? A lot longer than his counterpart in the USA. People who live in glass houses don't throw stones...

correctomondo. I speculated that DG was volcanic, but the true cause of its salvation is geographic, NOT political NOAA conspiracy theories.

So...we're all agreed then? Thank God DG's ok. It is kinda important.

The cheapest and most efficient Indian Ocean Littoral Tsunami Warning System would be local warning siren systems (alert / 30mins /20mins /10mins / imminent distinctive aural alarms) activated by NOAA seismologists' warnings being throughputted to all addressees via the AFTN (Aeronautical Fixed Telecommunication Network) with a FLASH Prefix.

The AFTN sends important messages quite quickly. Beats a fax or phone-calling system.

Any comments?

CR,

Thank God DG's ok. It is kinda important.

I think that depends upon your view of current world events!

It could also be useful for logistics for helping the victims of the tsunami..............

I think that depends upon your view of current world events!

Indeed it does Mr Proone, indeed it does. We must thank you for your cogent, if not to say insightful, opinion in this matter. It must gladden your heart Mr Proone, if not your very soul, that such an entity as the USA exists at all, because if it didn't you would surely have to invent it in order to have any opinion at all.

B(I)8,

Have you been drinking?