JUDUL : TSUNAMI ALERT
PENGARANG : OAKLEY BROOKS
PENERBIT : OAKLEY BROOKS
PEMBACA : HO GEOK ENG
TARIKH : 11 APRIL 2011
SINOPSIS :
In the aftermath of Japan’s devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, this book is a timely one. Can man really defeat one of nature’s most volatile and deadly manifestations?
American journalist Oakley Brooks, who was a writer –in-residence at the Earth Obervatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological University in 2009, chronicles the after-effects of the 2004 Asian tsunami on Padang, West Sumatra’s capital. It is drawn from his own experiences there, so the book contains interviews with Padang natives such as the city’s mayor and many ordinary residents.
Hence the title of the book is a tad misleading- Tsunami Alert is more about Pdang’s efforts to marshal its people to prepare for the next ‘big one’, rather than about how Asia could do the same. This book would have been a far more complex (and thicker) one if the whole of Asia was taken into consideration.
Nevertheless, its micro view offers valuable insights on how tsunami deaths can occur and be prevented.
The question remains: if a country as advanced as Japan- with sophisticated warning systems in place- still suffer heavy casualities (over 28,000 dead at the time of going to press), is there any hope for less advanced nations like Indonesia and the Philippines ?
The answer lies not only in a complex and expensive tsunami alert system, Brooks argues.
After all, Japan’s warning systems include automatic messages sent to celll phones that alert people of an earthquake. Some cities were even equipped with tsunami-stopping gates that are a few metres high. But nature often thwarts mankind’s best efforts. .
This tsunami swept over Japan’s eastern coastline mere minutes after the 9.0 Richter scale earthquake, allowing people little time to flee , and the tsunami gates were ineffective as the waves were higher than the walls, which had shifted anyway because of the earth’s movement.
The book largely chronicle the efforts of scientists and educators as they strive to teach the people of Padang, who are still governed by superstition and religious beliefs , to watch out for signs of a tsunami and how to survive it. Their efforts, however, are often frustrated by lack of interest and funds.