Reply #5: India's Indymedia is tossing that around..and guess who they suspect?[ [View All]

http://india.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/209980.shtml

In the aftermath of a cataclysm like the Asian tsunami, speculation can run wild. Reserving judgment until we really know what happened, here is a list of salient questions and answers that I,ve compiled from news reports, government and other reliable sources

Q: What made the plates shift?
A: It may have been set off by another quake of about 8.1 on the Richter scale on the other side of the plate about 900 km SE of the coast of Tasmania on Thursday, December 24, which caused no serious damage however. The causal relationship is not proved but the time sequence is striking and some seismologists have considered it quite possible.

Q: Is it possible for a nuclear explosion to have triggered the Macquarie quake in some way and indirectly caused the changes that led to the Sumatra quake and the Asian tsunami?
A: It is possible that a very large explosion might have triggered the first quake directly in some way or that repeated prior testing could have induced changes that led to the quake indirectly, but research on the fall-out of nuclear testing is so highly classified that little is known of the possible impact. The U.S. has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, leaving the door open to future U.S. testing despite an extended moratorium. There has already been a strong move toward resumption of testing since 2002. Now earth-penetrating nukes (bunker busters) and mini-nukes might provide the pretext.

Q: Was anyone warned in time at all?
A: Yes. The NOAA immediately warned the U.S. Naval Station at Diego Garcia, which suffered very little damage from the tsunami. NOAA was able to get the warning to the US Navy base in the area, but says it was unable to contact the civil authorities in the region to warn them.