Major Quake Off Taiwan Creates Possible Tsunami

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Right on the heels of tsunami drills across Asia on the anniversary of the Great Boxing Day Sumatra Earthquake, we have yet another, similar event right off of Taiwan with a 3' tsunami heading towards the Philippines. No great damage reported in Taiwan but this is a reminder of how unsettled the earth has been since that massive break two years ago.

&hearts Interestin how this happens on an important geological anniversary.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A powerful earthquake struck off southwestern Taiwan on Tuesday, triggering a potentially destructive tsunami that was headed toward the Philippines on the second anniversary of the deadly waves that killed thousands in south Asia.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of between 6.7 and 7.2, was felt throughout Taiwan. It swayed buildings and knocked objects off the shelves in the capital, Taipei.

No damage or injuries were immediately reported.

Japan's Meteorological Bureau said a 3-foot-high tsunami was expected to hit Basco in the Philippines.

Three feet doesn't sound like much but as this map shows, the Philippine Island chain has a lot of lowlands that are easily flooded. There is also a small chain of islands just to the north of the larger island of Luzon. If you look at how the ocean floor slopes up to the northernmost tip of Luzon, the flatlands run from the beach right across the top of the island nearly to the other side. It is blocked by higher mountains which, if a tsunami of sufficient size hits, funnels the water into a smaller and smaller area which would make the flooding worse.

Scientists are still learning how tsunamis and earthquakes work. So many tourists had cameras during that greatest tsunami event in the last 100 years, quite a good record was made which enables scientists to understand how the waves look and how they move so devastatingly. The Sumatra quake was unusual in that it opened up a long rift along the island's edge which significantly changed the landscape.

It seems this quake isn't of that proportion. Very few are, thank goodness.

&hearts Now, according to the BBC, the potential tsunami is lessening.

Japan's Meteorological Agency says the danger of a tsunami heading for the Philippines is receding.

The first earthquake was a 7.1 mag while the second one that just happened is a 7.0 mag. Both are at the 10 km level. This is a common depth. I think the lithosphere layers are like a strudel. This is definitely the top layer. Some quakes this week were all the way down to 500+ km deep.

I looked over this month's general data and highlighted all the 3.5+ mag earthquakes and most of them were along this particular axis within a few hundred miles. This leads me to think that all the big quakes are hearlded by a flurry of significant but smaller quakes. I was watching the Andaman Islands and northern Sumatra for a month before the tremendous quake there. The vast majority of mid-level quakes were located there starting roughly a month earlier.

It is easier in retrospect to 'see' a quake pattern. But not all clusters of quakes lead to a greater quake. The only thing we can say is, all great quakes give good warnings but not all warnings leads to great quakes.

One thing the geological surveys working for governments do is warn people of the possibility of such an event if they see during a month, such flurries as we see each time a great quake does happen. This way people can make some short-range emergency preparations. It helps to keep people aware of these possibilities. Anyone living in these danger zones should be made aware with fair frequency or they get very careless.

This also gives incentives to governments to keep up emergency funds for such eventualities as what hit Indonesia and all the nations swamped by the tsunami two years ago.

The USA, in particular, has to do this...a lot more. We really are careless. We already lost a major city to a hurricane. And we took on significantly more debt to 'fix' it...barely. And that was fairly localized. If such an event happens in California and there is a 100% chance that this will happen in the not far, probably very near future, this means setting aside possible emergency funds, I would suggest around $100 billion. This should be easy since our Congress regularily votes every six months to spend that much on Iraq and are debating spending another $10 billion to 'rebuild' Iraq!

War is the most futile of tsunamis and building in the middle of a war is beyond stupid.

My calls for this sort of forward thinking will be vindicated in due time. Just like Portugal's empire took a fatal hit from the Great Lisbon Quake, so will our troubled, overstretched empire.

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Comments

[D. F. Facti]

I heard this am that the total fraud bill for Katrina contracts could be 12 billion. Now the dicks at homeland "security" say, "Gee, we'll put these contracts out for competitive bidding next time." The news program helpfully provided the analysis that politically connected crooks got the contracts and that laziness and ineptitude played a part.

Aren't you comforted to know that your Reichstag security minister, chertoff, is on top of this fraud thing?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

A tsunami of graft. Yup. Arrest Bush, arrest Chertoff. Gads. We doomed ourselves to go from failure to failure. All the way down the tubes. Imagine the possibilities for graft and corruption if California blows?

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Looks like the sea earthquake cut off nearly all cable service to most of Taiwan. Only about 30% of it has been restored so far.