Bali Tsunami Risk Heightened – Geophysics and Pirates

By Lori Dengler and Ted Bryant
Mar 1, 2008, 13:29

Indonesian tsunami warning buoy: "Whoever has the mobile, call Achmed and let him know it is getting choppy out here"

It would have perhaps been the total irony of the century; Mother Nature, furious at mankind’s pollution based destruction of the planet and the lip service, no agreement made, expense account creating its own massive carbon footprint Climate Change Summit, sending a massive tsunami to wipe the lot of them off the face of the planet. During this particular UN sponsored farce, a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck 261 kilometres south-west of the Bali resort of Nusa Dua. Had the quake been of the same magnitude as the Aceh disaster on December 26th 2004 just “up the coast” and on the very same fault line, perhaps 15 or even 20 meter high waves would have wiped Nusa Dua off the map just 20 minutes later. Of course most of the buildings in southern Bali would have collapsed during the quake itself with the massive tsunamis that followed just sealing the fate of anyone in the area who was not killed by the collapsing structures around and above them.

Although it is wrong to wish the loss of any life, perhaps the Balinese Gods themselves would have wished for such a tsunami at such a time. After all the delegates were insulting Bali by token of the carefully orchestrated segregation of manicured Nusa Dua from the realities of Bali; illegal effluence tips, refuse landfill sites so unable to cope that neighbours dump rubbish on neighbours, some of the most bacterially infected waters in the region, etc. Plus of course Nusa Dua is basically owned through theft by the hated Javanese Suharto family, denying the Balinese their legal rights by preventing them from accessing their own public beaches, putting so little money into the Balinese people’s pockets so as to make Nusa Dua a virtual suburb of Jakarta. With all those thousands of Javanese and Sumatran police and army officers sent in to protect the delegates, because the Balinese police couldn’t protect anything past their own corrupt greed. What a perfect opportunity it would have been for the Balinese Gods to literally wash the figurative filth off their hallowed, desecrated island. But it was not to be, the 5.9-magnitude quake perhaps a reflection of once proud, noble and strong Bali’s more recent Jakarta inflicted pacifism.

But this near miss for 10,000 delegates unable to make any decisions past their drinks orders, the thousands of attendant press hacks glad too of their expense accounts, plus over 7,000 murderous Indonesian state thugs with uniforms and badges, should count as a very big warning for western tourists with enough bad taste to ingratiate Nusa Dua with their holiday dollars. You see, recent tectonic activity in the region has been on the increase and Bali is officially recognized by the UN sponsored scientific team set up to try and predict quakes to be on the “red” list; surprise then the UN put their delegates at such risk, hmmm!

Of course the Indonesian authorities and very, very nasty Balinese travel agents lie to try and make foreign wallets feel safe about coming to Bali by claiming that the new tsunami warning system with buoys around Indonesia will somehow save lives on Bali, “forgetting” to add that any warning from such a tsunami producing quake as devastated Aceh in 2004 would only give holidaymakers 10 minutes warning they did not need anyway, as the massive quake would be warning enough! The island’s nastiest and most crooked travel agent, Jack Daniels of Bali Discovery Tours even sinking so low as to pimp a mobile text warning system to his customers from which he would earn a commission. The notion someone half dead buried under the rubble of their hotel needing a text message to let them know they would be drowned 10 minutes hence is a very sick thing indeed; apparently unless you belong to PATA (Pacific Asia Travel Association), a fee based marketing corporation, let not the name fool you. Fact is, if you are unlucky enough to be in Southern Bali when a major quake hits a few miles offshore, your survival chances are next to zero, period. The reason these tsunami buoys are actually being placed around Indonesia is not to be able to give people on Bali enough time to get to higher ground, but to warn countries such as Australia, The Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc. of the massive killer waves coming their way in a few hours time, so they have time to clear their beach areas.

Past this, the fact is the Indonesian tsunami warning system is so flawed that residents of Aceh actually pulled down warning sirens last year. Why? The problem is that the Indonesian Tsunami Warning Bureau is incompetent to the extreme; they issue tsunami warnings anytime and every time there is an offshore earthquake reported irrespective of the magnitude, the depth (a very important factor) and / or the type of fault line; only certain types create the upward movement necessary to displace a large enough amount of water to create a tsunami. As a result, after multiple pathetically false alarms and a growing number of deaths through heart attacks and panic driven motoring accidents as terrified people raced to get to higher ground, many locals decided they would rather face a repeat tsunami risk then the Indonesian warning system! The Indonesian tsunami warning system was so piff poor, relying on some unqualified idiot issuing warnings solely based on earthquake occurence, and then only removing the warnings when it became clear no waves had hit the beaches! In fact, when tidal waves formed through tropical storms the Indonesian tsunami warning system failed to detect these with the result the waves made landfall and yes, killed people.

So how come these wonderful tsunami buoys did not detect these non-earthquake induced killer waves? Ah, here comes Indonesia’s next sorry admission; one if not more of these expensive tsunami buoys provided by the International community had been stolen! First came some pathetic wobble from Indonesia's marine technology research centre that an essential part of their buoy warning system had “gone missing” in the Sunda Straight; the supposedly tightly monitored waterway between Java and Sumatra. Then came a request from Australia to Indonesia to instruct their navy to help protect two such buoys they planned to place in International waters between the two nations from “pirates”. You see these “pirates” are in fact Indonesian fishermen who regularly flaunt the law and International boundaries to fish illegally in Australian waters. At the moment, denoting the modus operandi of all Indonesian government officers, the Indonesian Navy ignores fisherman going off to loot and pillage another sovereign nation’s assets. Not so of course for any unfortunate foreign fishing vessel they catch in Indonesian waters; vis a vis the time Indonesia’s most advanced warship was sent to shoot and destroy some Chinese fishing boats whose owners, Jakarta claims, had let their permits lapse.

So it is that one of the most corrupt and lawless countries in the world threatens the tsunami warning system which could save thousands of lives. Because law enforcement in Indonesia is nothing about upholding the law but making a dishonest buck, because everyone from the president down are virtually all thieving bar stewards, local Indonesian fishermen are sailing out to steal fish and “junk” metal they can sell at home. This is why Indonesia has one of the most accident prone railway networks in the world, because local vagrants remove nuts and bolts from rail sleepers to sell as junk metal; fact. Recently Indonesian fishermen pirates have removed automatic weather stations from Australian waters which later appeared for sale on an Asian black market! That is why Indonesia relies on some guy with a phone who pushes a button that sets off the tsunami alarms whenever someone calls him and says a quake was felt out to sea. A joke? Yes, a very nasty, sick one; the name of which is “Indonesia”.

Although the risk of a tsunami hitting Bali while you are on the island is remote, tsunamis can and will hit Bali sometime(s) in the future. Greedy Balinese travel agents spout off that the percentage risk to each person is less than being hit by a vehicle in their own country, but the fact is it is added risk; it does not replace the risks we all face in normal life. In any event, the fact the Indonesian government and tourism industry are prepared to lie to us while doing nothing about their own thieving fishermen are reasons enough to tell them to stick it. Please, show some class, wake up and smell the Java; boycott anything and everything Indonesian, including Bali, until the BS and worse stops.