Oct 15, 2005
S'pore 'not safe from tsunami'
THAILAND's now iconic meteorologist, Dr Smith Dharmasaroja, who in
1998 predicted a killer tsunami would hit Thailand one day and was
ignored, told The Straits Times that Singapore and Malaysia are
also in danger from a future earthquake and tsunami.
'I believe the epicentre of future quakes will shift northwards,
north of the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
'A big earthquake with a more northerly epicentre than the Dec 26
quake will generate a tsunami which will have a more direct route
down to the Strait of Malacca, swamping Singapore and
Malaysia.
'As the sea passage narrows, more water will build up and the wave
will become bigger.
'Singapore is relatively low-lying and quite flat, and would be
badly affected. Remember, in December, the tsunami was 30m high at
Banda Aceh. At Khao Lak, it was 16m high,' he said.
Dr Smith, 70, retired as chief of Thailand's Meteorological
Department well before last December's disaster.
But before that, in 1998, he had warned first in a speech and then
in a memo that Thailand's Andaman coast was at risk from a killer
tsunami.
Tragically, his warning, though widely reported by the media, was
ignored. Government officials, fearful of tourists staying away,
branded him a dangerous man with a loose screw. The authorities in
Phuket castigated him and said he was not welcome to visit.
After the tsunami, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra recalled him
and made him chairman of a committee tasked with developing a
national disaster warning centre and strategy.
'I'm not happy that I made the right prediction,' he told The
Straits Times. 'Nobody can accurately predict an earthquake, you
can only assume from historical data.'
He said that big natural disasters occur in 80- to 100-year cycles,
apparently randomly across the world.
'If you speak out too much, forecast too much, you will get a lot
of criticism, from government agencies, the tourism sector and so
forth. People have been blaming me for years for warning of
earthquakes.'
Explaining the northward shift of future epicentres, Dr Smith
stressed: 'This is no joke. I would like you to put this message
out to Singapore and Malaysia.'
The researcher working on the hypothesis, who did not want to be
named, told The Straits Times the research was ongoing and final
results were not yet ready.
But Dr Smith said: 'I have seen the simulations that indicate this
and they look believable. From my own experience, it is
possible.
'Only a few days ago, there was a 6.1 quake in the Andaman sea near
the Nicobar islands, which is about 200 miles north of the Dec 26
quake. So this is an indication that the epicentre is moving
north.'
NIRMAL GHOSH
