Shortcomings
With the speed at which tsunami waves travel through open water, no system can protect against a very sudden tsunami, where the coast in question is too close to the epicenter. A devastating tsunami occurred off the coast of HokkaidÅ in Japan as a result of an earthquake on July 12, 1993. As a result, 202 people on the small island of Okushiri, Hokkaido lost their lives, and hundreds more were missing or injured. This tsunami struck just three to five minutes after the quake, and most victims were caught while fleeing for higher ground and secure places after surviving the earthquake. This was also the case in Aceh, Indonesia.
While there remains the potential for sudden devastation from a tsunami, warning systems can be effective. For example, if there were a very large subduction zone earthquake (moment magnitude 9.0) off the west coast of the United States, people in Japan, would therefore have more than 12 hours (and likely warnings from warning systems in Hawaii and elsewhere) before any tsunami arrived, giving them some time to evacuate areas likely to be affected.
Read more about this topic: Tsunami Warning System
Famous quotes containing the word shortcomings:
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“My mother and father are the only people on the whole planet for whom I will never begrudge a thing. Should I achieve great things, it is the work of their hands; they are splendid people and their absolute love of their children places them above the highest praise. It cloaks all of their shortcomings, shortcomings that may have resulted from a difficult life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“No shortcomings of other people cause us to be more intolerant than those which are caricatures of our own.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)