Prevention not taken

Get tsunami sensors in place

After a devastating tsunami in Japan killed thousands of people in 2011, destroyed a nuclear power plant and rendered hundreds of square miles uninhabitable, the world became wiser about tsunamis. Or so we thought. Indonesia itself, the victim of a tsunami Sept. 29 that caused at least 1,400 deaths and left many homeless, has devastating experience with tsunamis.

Such a monster wave in the Indian Ocean in 2004 killed nearly a quarter million of people. Seven years later a tsunami disabled a nuclear power plant in Japan exposing hundreds of thousands to radiation.

Indonesia has moved toward early warning systems, but didn’t have the system working well enough when an earthquake led to the recent tsunami.

No wave sensor detected the wall of water that struck the city of Palu. There were tsunami alerts issued by via text message, but the earthquake destroyed communications lines and the warning was not heeded.

The result — people were milling about the beach in Palu as a 20-foot wall of water crashed into them.

This is an unfortunate delay and laxness in putting in place tsunami warnings. It justifies the citizens of Indonesia wondering whether the government has its priorities straight.

Criticism focused first on the Indonesian geophysics agency BMKG, which said it followed standard operating procedure when it canceled a tsunami warning based on data available from the closest tidal sensor, around 200 miles from Palu.

Geology experts say the quake was not the type that normally generates a tsunami, and that possibly there was a landslide under the sea which displaced a lot of water and caused the tsunami. In fairness to the officials in charge, the Palu tsunami may not have been predictable from the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that occurred. Also perhaps contributing to the force of the tsunami in Palu was the narrow inlet that may have concentrated the waves.

None of that excuses a failure to maintain and operate tidal seismic sensors that Indonesian officials now undoubtedly wish they had not short-shrifted.

Coordinating the operations of tidal sensors is something the world community could be involved in, especially knowing that climate change is contributing to rising ocean levels.