We in Australia have the good luck to to be out of the world earthquake zone known as " the ring of fire. " This runs through our New Zealand neighbour and skirts Australia before it curves north through Indonesia and other parts of the Pacific ocean. It manifests itself by many active volcanoes which from time to time disrupt air traffic and bring danger to the people living in their proximity.
Australia is not earthquake free, but a shaking ground is a most unusual event and despite the short known history of this continent it does not generate fear. We are more likely to suffer damage from a Tsunami washing onto our shores, caused by an undersea earthquake to our north and recently this danger broke into national news broadcasts.
On March 4 the Tsunami sirens on New Zealand's north island began to wail to alert residents that a major earthquake had occurred about six hundred miles to the north. The geographic monitors had established that several quakes - including one that measured 8.1 on the Richter scale - had hit the Kemadec islands and created a Tsunami probability.
New Zealand residents knew what to do and coastal residents fled to higher ground. The television news depicted a steady stream of cars moving out of the cities and towns along the coastline and indeed a smaller Tsunami wave washed ashore and did no damage. Shortly after, this Tsunami warning was cancelled and those crowds returned home.
The population of Australia is heavily concentrated on our eastern seaboard and yet we are totally reliant on our news service spreading the word if a Tsunami eventuates and our vulnerability to Tsunami damage seems to be completely ignored. Should that happen in the middle of the night it could deliver disaster because these freak waves travel at high speed across oceans.
We saw the damage caused in Japan by a Tsunami and once again that nation lives in close proximity to the ring of fire and has a long history of water damage over earlier centuries. The Japanese coastline is protected by sea walls to give a degree of protection from water washing inland. and sirens are strategically placed to give early warnings.
Our tenure in Australia is short in world terms and there is evidence that this sort of water damage may not have been unusual. Apparently the risk is deemed to be negligible because of the lack of evidence of a recent event.
That is a very short sighted attitude. A major Tsunami may only naturally occur at thousand year intervals, but the damage and loss of life possible in an unprepared nation could be catastrophic. The fact that we have not had such an experience is no guarantee that it can not happen.
Perhaps what happened in New Zealand earlier this year may be a warning we should not ignore !
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