Earthquake, Tsunami and Sri Lanka

It was around 2.00 PM on 11-04-2012. I was having a small nap after having lunch. I noticed that little bit vibration from the bed. Since no one is around me, I thought that the problem with myself. Again it was happened for a few second. I checked my legs... head and hands all are working properly. So.. I decided the problem with not myself. Again it happened, this time few more extra seconds.. I decided it must be earth  tremor and wanted feel it from the ground. So I layed in the floor and eagerly waiting to feel the earth tremor by my whole body. Unfortunately, there were not any other tremor.


At that time kids were playing, on top of the roof a person was painting it. No one complained about the tremor. so I forget it and continued my nap.


Little later my wife called and asked. They have walked out their office and I was asked to go out from the house with kids. I smiled and asked her not to panic unnecessarily and explained reality of earthquake is. Kids played without any interruptions...


As usual I visited http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ for more information. Yes.. there was a major earthquake in Indonesia. It had happened underwater and there was a possibility to create a Tsunami. If Tsunami created it must hit indonesia within 30 minutes. I was eagerly looking at that information. By 3.00 PM USGS said it was horizontal earthquake where creating Tsunami was not possible. And Indonesia didn’t have any Tsunami effects. So.. by 3.00PM risk of Tsunami was eroded. I updated my wife and few friend that there won’t be Tsunami.


I switched on the TV. My god... they were saying possible tsunami time in colombo. These people had very high probability of Tsunami. They referred the same USGS information as I did. Something wrong somewhere.


We should evacuate beach area as a precautionary measure. That must be. I noticed that people were moving with their belongings. Specially shop owners. People were running here and there with stressful, panic-ridden attitude. I felt Sorry... for them. I knew at the end nothing would happen to them or their properties. If our authorities do their warnings with some kind of severity level, this kind of unnecessary incidents could have been avoided.


By 6.00PM it was all over. Still earthquakes are happening in that region. Normally it call as aftershocks. After 2004 major earthquake, thousands of earthquake happened in that region alone.


Since the possibility of happening vertical earthquake with magnificent power is very rare, I firmly believe there won’t be any Tsunami in Sri Lanka in my lifetime. it won’t happen even in my kids life time as well.