Worst of tsunami misses Australia | National News | Breaking National News in Australia

Really surprised at the lack of urgency about this.

I understand the wish not to panic people but there should have been more warnings given. I understand there was a warning on seven last night but I didn't see anything on ABC TV. The Courier Mail site had continual updates all evening but nothing on Sunshine Coast Daily site.

I received a text from the weather alert early warning network around 9pm concerning the tsunami threat but many people are not even registered for that and they would have gone to bed without knowing.

I was on line from 8 pm last night and watched all the news unfolding. New Zealand seemed to be far more aware of the dangers than we were here. Their sites were continually updated.

Ed is there any chance The Daily could give out the information as how to register for weather and tsunami early warning. I am sure there are plenty who know nothing about this. It is handy when hail storms are expected. If just for that it is well worth registering.

I received my warning 9:15pm yesterday, and was amazed there was nothing on this website this morning.

What wolf?

I did not go to the beach to watch the Tsunami, but I did go to the beach to watch the people watching the Tsunami.

Mark, Whilst I appreciate the publication of the above story, Google news is showing around the 7,000 stoires on this massive earthquake. As a warning is now in place for the area south of St Lawrence down along the eastern seaboard of Australia across to the Eastern and SW side of Tasmania, the next several hours will provide us with a better picture.

I note that the www.coastalwatch.com.au is under great strain and earlier today, I couldn't access it.The Australian Tsunami Warning Centre continues to issue their updates and I would like to draw your attention to two current warnings on the Weather Bureau's Queensland site re various flood warnings currently in place from the Sunshine Coast and other parts of Queensland.

I also note that last night, the bureau issued a Severe Weather Warning for Flash Flooding for the Channel Country area and elsewhere. Of importance is that this weather event -monsoonal low pressure system moving eastward from the Northern Territory and expected to start affect our area, Monday/Tuesday.

Australian civil defense leaves something to be desired.

By 1 am this morning, alerts were reported in the media, saying a tsunami could hit about 8.15 am. With typical southern parochialism, no one thought to add that this translated as 7.15 am real time; which was the correct time for Queensland.

Being Sunday morning, had this evolved into a three metre event, everyone living in a canal development or other low-lying suburb, would first become aware of something untoward as their disintegrating house turned into a washing machine.

Perhaps civil defense / emergency services should employ an old friend of mine, Murphy, who says that if something can go wrong, it will; and at the worst possible time.

Murphy added that Ana Bligh has probably sold the Qld emergency response plan to a private foreign corporation, which requires its CEO's authority to act, following translation into Chinese, and back.

Are we going to learn something from this?

Ed. As this event continues to unfold and with wave height movement along the southern coast (NSW), thought I would post this information considering that this is another major event unfolding.
TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST
SEVERE WEATHER WARNING for Flash Flooding
For people in the Northwest, Gulf Country, Channel Country, Maranoa and Warrego, southern Central West, southern Central Highlands and Coalfields and western Darling Downs forecast districts for today and Monday.
Issued at 11:00 am on Sunday 28 February 2010

Synoptic Situation:
A large monsoonal low, currently over central parts of the Northern Territory, is expected to move slowly southeast into the Channel Country early Monday.
Heavy rain is expected to cause localised flash flooding over parts of the Northwest district, Gulf Country and the Channel Country during today,
contracting into the Channel Country on Monday and then extending east into the Maranoa and Warrego, southern Central West, southern Central Highlands and Coalfields and western Darling Downs forecast districts during Monday.
These conditions are expected to extend eastwards into southeastern Queensland on Tuesday.
The State Emergency Service advises that people in the affected area should:
avoid driving, walking or riding through flood waters
Contact the SES on 132 500 for emergency assistance if required.

On providing the above information and noting that there are some stupid people out in our community that just don't have any brains to heed official warnings -just makes me wonder if it's time to impose penalities. Why should our Emergency Service's people have to assist those idiots who just don't care and think its funny and there are many reports around to lend support.

The next warning is due to be issued by 5pm AEST Sunday

Bugger I should have hopped on the board and surfed my way back to Australia instead of paying for a plane ticket

bit of a fizz bang at moffat

http://opinonated-bastard.blogspot.com/

Just couldn't believe the amount of people lining the beach front from Alex to Mooloolaba, in particular those with young children in tow!

As the Tsunami warning has been canceled for all areas (Australian) there is room for improvement in how the Australian public receive vital information, one should note that the Queensland Government still has in place a warning to be careful of the sea as conditions aren't back to normal. The coverage on both CNN and Fox News across the day has been of interest and yet, 53 countries can be happy that it wasn't considerably bad when factoring in the depth of the quake compared to - if was closer to the surface. The Epic Centre was around 20 miles under ground.

Interestingly the ABC which claims to be the major provider of such news of impending doom, has failed ( why am I not surprised? look who they have running the top end of the ABC News department) ..
But what would be the point? no one seems to take any notice of warnings ( check earlier comments)
re reports from the south not converting the time for Queensland ( you know tht daylight saving thing) Queensland can easily remedy that --- go along with the Daylight saving time schedules of the southern states,. Why should southern media do conversions for listeners and viewers in Queenslad? its of little concern to their viewers. If Queenslanders dont like it, theycan bloody well run their own shows, and employ their own staff, instead of taking programmes on relay out of Sydney .. Problem solved!

Hillarious, all those people down the beach at 9am staring at the horizon were an hour late. Nice point tonyryan.

What next? Someone sneezes in Sao Paolo and we close all the beaches on the Sunshine Coast for a week?
These warnings have been consistently so far off the mark they have little credibility, hence why there were so many peple on the beaches this morning.

funniest thing - i'm sure the warnings all said to "stay away from beaches and rockwalls" - your picture shows children standing near the rockwall watching the big surf - real smart. What's wrong with people???

Shame on all the parents who let their kids out at the beach today. Who cares if it's the last day of summer, tsunami warnings are nothing to brush over.

PS

I also spoke with one of the council lifeguards further down the beach who said "mate, we're amused at what's going on up there in front of the surf club".

Draw your own conclusions.

To tonyryan who said that the warning was an hour late because someone didnt convert it to Queensland time you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The estimated time for the first wave to hit Maroochydore was and had been since 11pm Saturday night, 9am LOCAL TIME. And that was according to the NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, I know because I converted it to local time as soon as the warning was issued, and considering how the event turned out id say the response from the government was quite appropriate.

And the people who have written some of the comments here such as "Someone sneezes in Sao Paolo and we close all the beaches" I would imagine would be the same kind of people sitting on the beach in Phuket in 2004 sipping a cocktail and watching the ocean suck the beach dry and saying "wow look at that'' even if they were given the same warning as we had today.

Almost 230 000 people died in 2004 from a single earthquake and the tsunami that followed, have we forgotten already?

False alarms are a necessary evil and every warning should be taken seriously.

I blame Anna for the waves not being bigger and council for taking the sand out of Currimundi lake and dumping it at Dicky beach, the gutters have taken forever to get back to normal.

I was down at the lake bright and early this morning, being Sunday, 11am, to catch the waves but was dissappointed.

Now, how many tidal waves have we had in Australia? You guessed it, 0. Idiots.

You have to be impressed by the parents, when warned of the possible danger say 'I going out anyway'. Sends a great message to their kids.

Having said that, some kids concluded 'he's an idiot'. Hard to argue with that.

We now have another problem.

Few will take the next tsunami warning seriously.

This is a dead ringer for the Cyclone Tracy scenario... everyone got fed up with the drama of the previous non-event and largely ignored the Tracy warning (me included).

Yet the intensity and frequency of earthquakes seems to be increasing, with the St Andreas Fault poised for the big one; yet there is a good chance the next warning will be understated.

tonyryan...

Few took this warning seriously let alone any other warning in the future! There will still be the idiots standing at the beach watching for the waves. What can you do? Really can't save people from themselves it seems.

I have spoken to many people who had no idea on Saturday night there had even been an earthquake or there may be a threatening tsunami.

I have told them all to join the Australian Early Warning Network. Then an e-mail and text will be sent. This is a free service.

In my first comment on here I did ask the SCDaily to publicise it. Maybe they have but so far I haven't seen it so here is the link for anyone to check out. http://www.ewn.com.au/.
If this just saves one life it will be worth it.

Many thanks, Mike246

I have taken your advice and registered for the early warning. But this should be the fall-back position.

The lack of detail, urgency and networked communication was appalling. I tuned into our ABC flagship Australia before 1 am Sunday and found a warning that was five hours out of date. And, of course, EST was ignored, placing Queensland at even greater risk.

Had this been a shallow water event off Chile, instead of the deep water one that it was, a three metre or higher wave backed by a vast tidal surge, might have erased all canal and low-lying homes on the East Coast. As it was, French Polynesia reported two metres.

We were saved by good luck, not by the nation's warning systems.

It is simply not OK for a Government spokesperson to murmur that we have learned much from the experience. Have we? I doubt it.

The early warning system must be in the hands of an independent statutory authority, with automatic fully-indexed funding in place; and sirens must be erected in all urban areas to ensure an urgent warning is actually heard.

As Mike points out, we can't save the idiots, but the majority of citizens, who want to protect their families, have a right to an effective system, administered by competent and non-sycophantic officials.

Totally agree.. tonyryan.. we were just lucky this time!

I really don't like to think what could have happened Saturday night/Sunday morning if a big wave had hit when people were asleep...especially as so many knew absolutely nothing about it.

Pleased you have now also signed up for the warning texts and e-mails.

Let's hope many more do also.

Having survived the 2004 tsunami and experiencing it fully at Kata Beach, Phuket, I have been researching for the last 4 years. Shame on the Australian government for not informing the public about the hazard and a local evacuation plan.
It's been 6 years since the Boxing Day Tsunami and our gov. officials have known of the hazard here on the east coast. It was left up to local councils to implement community awareness programes and inform people of evacuation procedures/zones.
We're extremely lucky that the tsunami was generated many kilometers away near Chile and not above New Zealand where a big destructive one could be generated. We would have a maximum of 2 hours to inform everyone and evacuate them after the government officials got the warning!
Now there is talk of having sirens on the Gold Coast which is great but we also need maps in the local phone book with shaded evacuation zones and instructions like they have in California where large tsunami have hit (1964).
The Early Warning Network only reached mobiles and landlines registered in the area. Many visit from other places at any given time. Many people in vulnerable areas didn't get a warning.
It is the responsibility of our local councils to make information readily available to all. They have pamplets about preparing for storms, cyclones, floods and bushfires in the council offices but nothing about tsunami and what to do if there is a warning. I really hope that now this will change... and quickly!