If the noise had been heard in a large city, there could have been tens of thousands of deaths or more. The full interview is below the picture of the ruins in Phuket
Update, Monday at 21:00 - the number of dead reached 24 (as I remember in practice, in the end it exceeded a quarter of a million people and is considered one of the largest natural disasters in history)
The heaviest damage so far has been reported from Sri Lanka, southern India and Indonesia. In Sri Lanka, the death toll rose to more than 12,000, about 5,000 people were killed in Indonesia, about 6,600 people were killed in India, most of them in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, and about 3,000 in the Andaman and Nicobar island groups. The number of missing people in India is about 3,000. It was reported from Thailand that the number of dead rose to about 900, of which at least 130 were on the island of Phuket. Dozens of deaths were also reported from Malaysia, the Maldives, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Burma).
Thai authorities report about 5,000 injured, including on the island of Phuket and other popular tourist sites. According to the report, some of the missing are tourists, including many divers. Ten deaths were reported from Burma.
Reports of destruction are also coming from Malaysia and Singapore. In Malaysia, it was reported that the huge waves hit the beaches in the north of the country, where there are also tourists. From the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean it was reported that about two thirds of the capital of these were flooded.
About two million people were left homeless in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, following the huge surges that washed the shores of both countries. The Voice of Israel reported that more than a million homeless remain in Sri Lanka. The president of Sri Lanka said that her country is unable to cope with the disaster.
Previous update - Sunday 21:00
As of the time of writing this news, on Sunday 26/12 at 21:00 the number of people killed in the earthquake in Southeast Asia and especially in the tsunami that followed it reached 11 thousand and many thousands more are displaced. It is now late at night in the disaster area, so the search will only continue in the morning.
There are also wounded and missing Israelis. This was reported on Channel 2. It was also reported that there are also rumors, unverified at this time, about Israeli casualties.
Shabtai Majer, 65 years old from Tel Aviv, and his wife were on vacation on Kophipi Island in Thailand for their 45th wedding anniversary. Majer was injured, his wife is missing
In one of the hospitals on the island of Phuket in Thailand, two Israelis are hospitalized in moderate condition following today's earthquakes and tsunami waves in South Asia. Also, it is known at least about another Israeli woman who is missing. Some of the injured in the hospital in Phuket came from Ko Phi Phi Island, which was hit harder than Phuket.
One of the hospitalized is Shabtai Majer, 65 years old from Tel Aviv. Major was moderately injured by waves from the tsunami on Kopipi Island. Major says that he and his wife took a loan to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary in Thailand. They went down to the beach this morning by ferry and when they got to the beach they saw that the water was starting to recede. They started running and hid in one of the rooms on the way. "Then a second wave came and the whole room collapsed," said Major, but he was saved because he was in an air pocket. Major's wife is missing.
Yaron Weiss, 28 years old from Kfar Vardim, is also admitted to the hospital in moderate condition. Weiss says that he came to Phuket with his wife Lilac after a long trip. According to him, the tsunami wave rolled him down the street, until someone gave him a hand and pulled him to one of the roofs and thus he was saved. According to him, at first he did not see his wife, but later he was able to see her and knows that she is alive. Weiss suffers from fractures and dry spells.
The hospital is very overcrowded, and some of the injured were placed on towels on the hospital floor due to lack of space. The hospital is considered modern.
Destruction in Phuket
Sam Friedman, a professor of civil engineering at the Technion and a member of the Laor Committee for Israel's Earthquake Assessments, says in a special interview for the scientist website that it could have been worse if an earthquake of a similar magnitude had occurred in the heart of a large city. Also, thousands of human lives could have been saved if a warning system similar to the one in Japan had been set up, since it was possible to use the hour between the creation of the tsunami wave and its arrival at the shores, to ask the people to move to higher places - even to high floors of buildings as one of the Israelis described who reported to Channel 10 from Phuket Island. Even God forbid if this were to happen in Israel, we have the technological ability to warn.
Why so many deaths?
I hear about it from the media. First of all it's a huge noise. A magnitude 8.9 noise is the strongest noise measured in the last 40 years in the world, and perhaps the fifth strongest since we have been measuring earthquakes at all in the 20th century. This is therefore the first reason why the noise was so deadly and I am afraid that we still have unpleasant news about the number of dead. Second, most of the damage caused was not done directly by the noise but by the tsunami waves. If the epicenter was in a big city it would be much worse. But the earthquake was deafened in the sea, far from the big cities (at least relatively). According to what I understood, most of the damage was caused by a tsunami, the high waves.
If such a noise were to occur in the middle of a large city we would expect tens of thousands of deaths if not more.
How long does it take for the waves to reach Thailand and how long to Sri Lanka?
It's a matter of maybe an hour. There are places in the world, for example in Japan, that are used to tsunamis and are organized in observations and surveillance, and can warn the public. But in this area they are not used to it, nor do they have the advanced technologies.
How deep did the water penetrate into the land?
The waves are said to have reached 10-15 meters high, like a three-story building. The waves penetrate until they reach the topography at their height. It can go far but usually the slope increases as you move away from the sea. There is nothing to stop the wave except the topography of the ground or buildings in the way. It doesn't reach kilometers because the energy is dissipating but it can reach more than 100 meters even a few hundred meters. A lot of people ran away. I saw in the reports that people saw and ran and tried to reach higher ground.
According to what you describe, it is an evacuation to distances of at most hundreds of meters, is an hour a long time?
But they didn't know that the wave was coming.
There is no seismological institute there, couldn't they announce it in the media?
I can't answer that for you. We will hear the reports, it will take some time.
What is happening in Israel in the field of preparing for earthquakes?
We do not expect such a powerful earthquake in the country. The maximum intensity we expect in Israel is an order of magnitude between 7 and 7.5, which is a magnitude and a half less than what was there. It may not seem like a big difference but in terms of the energy of the vibration it is 1 divided by 300 to 500 (each unit of magnitude means 30 times stronger intensity).
Have we had tsunami cases in Israel?
There have been cases of tsunamis in our history. In some of the cases dozens of people were killed in Jaffa and Acre. In 1759 there was a strong earthquake and there are reports that crying people whose houses were destroyed fled in panic right into the arms of the tsunami. In many cases the water first escapes, the sea level drops and then it suddenly returns in a high wave. In Acre, dozens of people ran to a place that suddenly dried up from the water and when the wave returned they were swept away. Such waves can be caused, for example, by noise, the source of which can be in the Cyprus area, and there have been such noises over the years, because Cyprus is an active seismic area. The Seismological Division would have reported if it had happened today. We are aware of the problem of tsunamis, and the seismological division has a very developed system for measuring vibrations. I believe they were able to warn us of the progress of a tsunami towards us.
They blame the West for causing global warming?
No one is to blame. Nature is the only culprit. There were earthquakes, and there will be earthquakes. there's nothing to do. Maybe someone is to blame for not warning about the tsunami. They weren't ready for it. We in Israel need to be ready. Recently, a government committee was established - the Laor Committee to prepare for earthquakes in Israel. We handle everything related to the preparations, I am a member of the committee. The issue of a tsunami is one of the issues that we intend to prepare for.
On Friday there was an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale in the middle of the sea between Antarctica and Australia. Is there a connection between the two strong tremors within two days?
"I guess not because these are very remote sites. We are lucky that many strong noises occur in uninhabited areas like the one on Friday or for example like the one in 1995, in a very strong earthquake in the Bay of Eilat with a magnitude of 7.2 (this is a thousand times stronger than the one in the Haifa area in 1984 or the one we felt in the center in February, which was centered in the Dead Sea area).Luckily, the earthquake of Eilat occurred about 100 kilometers south of Eilat. It was felt all over the country, but 100 kilometers for a magnitude of 7.2 is a significant distance.
What is the history of deadly earthquakes in Israel?
"Earthquakes of magnitude 7 or higher occur in Israel approximately every 200 years. Earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher approximately every 80-100 years. There was a strong earthquake in 1837, Safed was destroyed by this earthquake. This earthquake had a magnitude of over 7. In 1927 there was an earthquake of magnitude Stronger than 6 with a lot of damage in Nablus and Jerusalem. The last earthquake was in 80, not a serious one. Today's tremor released 1927 times more energy than the atomic bomb. .Even if the buildings were designed to withstand reasonable earthquakes, if it was inside a city they would have collapsed and caused fires and everything related, in an earthquake of this magnitude it could have been much worse.
What else could cause a tsunami, over the weekend NASA raised the alert level for a large asteroid that could hit the Earth in 2029?
An asteroid can cause a tsunami but there are also more conventional things, such as underwater landslides. Although something has to cause a landslide, sometimes an earthquake of lower intensity than the one that occurred today in Southeast Asia causes landslides on underground slopes. A very large mass of land suddenly slides under the sea, and it also causes a wave of water, a tsunami.
מה לעשות?
We need to prepare. Fortunately, we in Israel are not expecting an earthquake of such intensity, but we need to prepare for what is expected here. At the moment, the building standard for earthquakes is being renewed, and they are working within the framework of the Laor Committee. In the Haifa municipality, for example, they recently established a special committee to prepare for earthquakes. We intend to hold our first meeting in a week.
