A team of NZ scientists say the results of their field work after the Samoa Tsunami are of interest internationally and here in New Zealand.
The team from the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and GNS Science spent nearly two weeks in the field: six days in American Samoa and seven days in Samoa. In Samoa, the NIWA / GNS Science delegation was part of a UNESCO–IOC International Tsunami Survey Team.
This project was unique in that it involved a coordinated team of international scientists who sought to collect evidence across a wide spectrum of the tsunami’s impact on communities, individuals, infrastructure, and the environment.
“We broke new ground for the disaster loss assessment research community. Our results illustrate an effective use of cutting edge field methods,” says NIWA’s Dr Shona van Zijll de Jong. Thailand’s new tsunami of political repression – SET them FREE!
Politicians can be so entertaining. Sometimes we laugh so hard we cry. Of course, the posturing and bluster of politicians always leads to the truth being forgotten as they try to distance themselves from any issue which could interfere with their position at the public trough.
We’re still trying to make some sense over Thailand’s recent tsunami of political repression.
Background: The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) took a downturn of 24.55 points on October 14 and international financial analysts Bloomberg News wrote about it. Of course, it is Thai stock traders’ coin to be interested in such trends and the article was translated into Thai. However, was this weakening really the result of “panic selling”? In any case, it is hardly the first such drop in SET without any rumors at all.
SET’s downturn was immediately blamed by politicians on rumours of our ailing King’s demise. King Bhumibol has, after all, been in hospital for more than a month and he is 81. Conveniently, only a few days later, two securities traders were found to have posted information to two public webboards, Prachatai
http://www.prachatai.com/ and Same Sky
http://sameskybooks.org/, which since their inception as public, independent news voices have been nettling to insincere politicians and bad government.
The two stockbrokers were promptly arrested but not under the Securities Act which compasses financial manipulations but under Thailand’s draconian cybercrime law because the brokers posted to Prachatai and Same Sky. Troublesome as reality is, in both cases the Bloomberg translation was posted after SET took the dive! In fact, SET rallied after publication of the original Bloomberg article in English. Nevertheless, reputations and conformity mean a great deal in Thai society and the two brokers have been fired from their jobs.
News articles characterised Prachatai and Same Sky as mouthpieces for the populist Red-shirt movement The Red-shirts seek the return to glory of Thailand’s last elected prime minister, a billionaire international fugitive from Thai convictions, Thaksin Shinawatra. A further troublesome fact is that both Prachatai and Same Sky have been unwavering in their criticism of Thaksin, as was the case in April 2009 when FACT’s website was blocked along with 70 Red-shirt websites.
However, Prachatai’s webmaster, FACT signer Chiranuch Premchaiporn, was arrested and stands accused of lèse majesté for not being quick enough to delete public postings some bureaucrat somewhere found critical of Thailand’s monarchy. (Gee, we thought that was government’s job…) Same Sky’s public webboard refuses to delete any public posting but comments on the monarchy are couched in oblique terms intelligible to anyone in the Thai community. Same Sky’s Thai language journal, Fah Diew Kan, has been banned under the Printing Act for alleged lèse majesté.
Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act was the first law passed in 2007 by the military coup-appointed national assembly. Its provisions have frequently been used as a tool of political repression with penalties of up to 20 years in prison. The Bangkok Post accurately described the law as “a catch-all…to stifle criticism and intimidate the media”.
Thailand’s lèse majesté laws have been used even more frequently for silencing political dissent. One recent sentence was 18 years. Although these recent arrests under the cybercrime law did not specify lèse majesté, we must be under no illusion that this repression is meant directly to deter Thai citizens from any expression which could, even outlandishly, be thought to be critical of Thailand’s Royals. This is crucial to government’s attempt to intimidate Prachatai and Same Sky.
Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT) calls for the immediate and unconditional repeal of these three laws, and others such as the Internal Security Act and Film Act, which only purpose is to stifle free expression not protect the Thai public. Not coincidentally, all these laws and many others were enacted by the military coup d’etat, many in 24 hour sessions just before Thailand’s return to elected government.
Thai police have not only arrested the two unwitting stockbrokers but the third arrest under the cybercrime law for rumours sparking a SET crisis was the owner of a pool hall in Chonburi, a province with longtime criminal association. The snooker fan claims to have only written the material on his own computer and to have never posted it to the Internet. (Yes, the cybercrime law even anticipates this possibility!)
Thai police claim to be closing in on snooker-man’s associates, whom they say made a five billion baht profit from SET’s downturn.; that’s roughly $149,633,394.07 U.S.
No one loves a conspiracy more than politicians, as long as they don’t show up behind it. It will be most entertaining to see what fanciful fictions they come up with to explain how all these pieces fit together.
And now the minister of the Orwellian-named Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has threatened to close any of Thailand’s 100+ ISPs which permit Internet access to unspecified “offensive websites”. Only casually veiled, this indirect threat is obviously the means to shut down Prachatai and Same Sky as users will transit every ISP to access these sites whether or not their host servers are outside Thailand.
The aim of the visit was to gather a wide range of information to help Samoa, and other Pacific Islands including New Zealand, become better prepared to cope with future disasters.
Samoa, like New Zealand, is vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, cyclones and floods. Samoa’s recent experience with natural disasters, such as the two closely-spaced cyclones in 1990 and 1991, have assisted in better preparing many local communities to withstand the impact of such natural hazards and to plan for the future.
Preliminary results from their survey of the physical and human effects of the Samoa tsunami have direct relevance for New Zealand say the scientists involved.
Size of tsunamiThe Samoa tsunami consisted of two to three significant waves; the second wave was said by witnesses to be larger. The delay between the earthquake and the arrival of the first wave was about 10 minutes in Samoa and 20 minutes in American Samoa.
The maximum height reached by the tsunami on the land was 14 metres above mean sea level in Samoa and 10 metres in American Samoa. The furthest inland the waves reached was over 700 metres from the shore.
“This size of tsunami is also possible for New Zealand, equivalent to about a one-in-500 year event for the most populated parts of New Zealand,” says GNS Science spokesman John Callan.
Building damageBuildings sustained varying degrees of damage. The importance of reinforcement was very clear – traditional light timber buildings were typically completely destroyed at an inundation depth of 1.5m or higher, whereas adding minimal reinforced-concrete columns reduced the damage levels significantly.
Building damage was correlated with water depth, structural strength, shielding, condition of foundations, quality of building materials used, quality of workmanship, and adherence to the building code.
It was also very clear that plants, trees, and mangroves reduced flow speeds and depths over land – leading to greater chances of human survival and lower levels of building damage.
“The same thing will be true in New Zealand as in Samoa: solidly constructed buildings which are appropriately located will survive much better than flimsy buildings right on the beach,” says Dr Stefan Reese of NIWA.
“It’s also clear that practices such as flattening sand dunes or removing beach vegetation would increase the potential for tsunami damage.”
Community responseIn Samoa, it was clear that community-based tsunami education activities had saved lives in some areas, while in others there was still some confusion about how to respond.
The impact of the tsunami may have permanently changed residential patterns in Samoa. “Many people are scared of the sea, and people are staying away from devastated villages” says Dr van Zijll de Jong.
“The sea has been a source of livelihood and identity for generations. The violence of the tsunami really shook them. Their sense of personal security and economic well-being is deeply shaken.”
The Government of Samoa is very supportive of communities that want to resettle further inland. However, the families that have moved inland are very aware of the challenges facing them in re establishing their communities, particularly with it now being cyclone season. There is a very strong social fabric in Samoa, through families, villages, religious organisations and right up into government at a local and national level. It is this strong social fabric that strengthens the local, cultural and economic features of the Samoan coastal communities and holds the basis for the resilience that allows people to more quickly recover from disasters says van Zijll de Jong.
The team also found that national and international response to the disaster had been extremely good. The interface between the Government of Samoa and in-coming international, regional and local humanitarian groups who had the capacity to respond to the disaster was impressive.
The team from NIWA and GNS Science was part of a UNESCO-IOC International Tsunami Survey team from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, French-Polynesia, Italy, Japan, and the USA, in collaboration with teams from several ministries within the Government of Samoa.
The research report and methods are of interest to the local and international disaster loss assessment research community: New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management; the World Bank; United Nations Development Programme and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
