Tsunami Alert - Thailand
Peregrina's Journey
Peter and Margie Benziger
Sat 5 May 2012 02:55
07:53.0N
98:24.0E
We didn’t need any more
convincing and immediately hauled @$$ (as well as our anchor) to make for a
speedy departure!
Even the BEST day in Paradise can be Spoiled by a
Tsunami!
Don’t you HATE it when that Happens???
Some of you know that an
earthquake, measuring 8.6 on the Richter Scale, hit Sumatra, the Indonesian
island lying just southwest of Phuket, Thailand on April 15th. I
thought I’d share the details of what happens in a popular cruising area when
the forces of Mother Nature create a real and present danger.
On that day, Peregrina was anchored in the Ao Chalong
harbor close to Phuket Town and all the nearby beach resorts, including Phi Phi
island, made famous as a tourist destination by Leonardo DiCaprio in his,
mostly, forgettable movie, The Beach.
There were a couple of hundred
sail, power and commercial boats bobbing gently in the harbor on April 15th
and Peter and I felt it was just another day in paradise…
That is, until we began to
notice that quite a few boats were LEAVING the anchorage which seemed odd given
the late afternoon hour. Up until that point,
we hadn’t had our VHF radio turned on. Who
wants to listen to all that endless marine “chatter” when you can sit back and
contemplate the sunset?
In retrospect, that COULD
have been a big mistake.
Luckily, one of our sailing
buddies, Dale from Freeform, actually
jumped into his dinghy and sped over to Peregrina
to tell us that there was a tsunami warning and that he, like many other boats,
was preparing to head out to sea!
Well, we got on the VHF, as
well as the local FM radio station, REAL FAST after that and listened as the
Thai Coast Guard and the radio DJ’s announced (first in Thai and then in
English) that a Tsunami warning had been issued and that residents of Phuket
should seek higher ground and that all marine vessels were advised to head for
deeper water!
Soon after that, the
loudspeakers mounted on high towers that are positioned along the coast in
heavily populated areas began to blast out similar warnings in Thai and English
telling everyone that “This is a Tsunami warning! This is NOT a test! You are advised to leave the coastline
quickly and seek higher ground! Marine vessels are to leave the harbor and seek
deeper water out to sea!”
FYI – The term tsunami comes from the Japanese words
“tsu” for harbor and “nami” for wave. Tsunami waves are caused by the
displacement of a large volume of water in the ocean resulting from an earthquake
or underwater volcanic eruption.
Underwater nuclear detonation could create a tsunami as well as
landslides, glacier calvings and, even, meteorite impact.
Tsumani waves are not like normal breaking waves. In fact, they almost appear to be a huge rising
tide that forms a virtual “wall” of water.
Sometimes tsunamis are referred to as “tidal waves” but this is really a
misnomer as they have nothing to do with the tides.
Anyway, back to our story…
We fell in with a line of
cruising/power yachts, tour boats and cargo ships making our way for deeper water. We sailed out to sea for about 2 miles until
we had a couple hundred feet of water under our keel and felt that we could
safely ride out any incoming waves.
Once in deep water we faced
Peregrina’s bow toward in the direction the tsunami was supposed to come from,
battened down the hatches and put on safety gear.
Even with some English
translation on the radio/VHF, it was still difficult to know what was happening
because 95% of the talk was in Thai. We did hear one disconcerting statement
that the water on Patong Beach was receding which turned out later to not be
true.
On land, we learned there was
a similar exodus from Phuket’s shoreline and with massive car/motorbike/people
jams as residents clamored for higher ground.
Many followed signs like the one below posted everywhere along the
coast.
Considering that this
earthquake was not far from the site of the December 26, 2004
earthquake in Banda Aceh, Sumatra which set off a massive Tsunami that
devastated the region and killed over 230 people in 14 countries around the
Indian Ocean, it was understandable that the authorities here acted quickly to
declare an emergency and initiated evacuation procedures. And, this time, they were better prepared and
the people were more knowledgeable about the danger presented by a possible
tsunami.
Back in 2004, there were no loudspeakers
or clearly marked evacuation routes and when the water along the shoreline suddenly
began receding rapidly, it was such an oddity that most of the unsuspecting
residents and vacationing tourists never thought to flee the area before the ensuing
wall of water came crashing down.
We all remember the
astounding images of Thailand on December 26, 2004 as the tsunami slammed into
the beachfront vacation sites filled with holiday tourists from around the
world. This is an incredibly amazing photo
of the massive wave as it is about to hit Patong, the second largest vacation
city in Phuket...
Our story, I’m happy to say,
has a happy ending. After bobbling
around in the middle of the ocean for a couple hours, we were given the all-clear
to return to port. It turned out that this particular earthquake was a “strike-slip”
quake, not a “thrust” quake. In a “strike-slip” quake, the earth moves
horizontally rather than vertically and doesn't displace large volumes of water
like a “thrust” quake.
As Gilda Radner said,
"It's ALWAYS something....but luckily, this turned
out to be the tsunami that
wasn't...so it’s back to paradise and another glorious day at sea for Peregrina.