Amazingly, many animals seem to have been able to avoid the powerful natural disaster, thanks to acoustic senses that are far more advanced than humans’, say French zoologists. Aerial pictures of Sri Lanka’s Yala National Park, broadcast on international TV news channels, show it was penetrated by surging floodwater. But there were no signs of any dead elephants, leopards, deer, jackals, or crocodiles—the species that have given the conservation reserve worldwide fame. Animals have capabilities to sense any vibrations, seismic shocks, or sound waves, which human beings do not, said Herve Fritz, a researcher in animal behavior at France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). “Elephants have infrasound communication—low-frequency noise, usually below 20 Hertz—that is below the human threshold of hearing. They can pick up these sounds at very great distances, dozens of kilometers away,” he explained as reported by AFP. Group animals like elephants, deer, and birds, also have efficient “alarm codes”—special cries, which enable the whole community to flee when danger is spotted,” said Gauthier. Thanks to these senses, in Thailand, several tourists were saved who were on the back of elephants a few minutes before the disaster. The elephants made a strange cry and then ran, with the tourists still on their backs, to a higher place.

Elephants, which live in Sumatra, Thailand, and India, are now reportedly being mobilized to help clean up the debris and remove the dead bodies in the devastated areas.

Early warning system

The tsunami struck without warning to the countries hit by the disaster, but actually, it was not undetected. Seismologists monitoring the Pacific Ocean recorded Sunday’s undersea earthquake near Indonesia, but warnings of tidal waves did not reach the coastal areas around the Indian Ocean.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the International Tsunami Information Center, both in Hawaii, detected the December 26 earthquake off Indonesia that generated the tsunami. But the centers were set up to provide alerts to Pacific nations, and scientists were not able to contact countries in the path of the giant waves, which experts say could travel across oceans at up to 800 kilometers (496 miles) an hour. As a result, they lost the chance to alert some of the worst hit areas hours before the tsunamis hit.

US Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut told AFP that there was sufficient time between the time of the quake and the time of the tsunamis hitting some of the affected areas to have saved many lives if a proper warning system had been in place. Several countries agreed on the establishment of an Indian Ocean tsunami-monitoring network to mirror the Honolulu-based system already covering the Pacific. Japan announced it would establish a tsunami-warning center in Tokyo covering the northwestern Pacific from Siberia to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, where 2,200 people were killed by a tidal wave in 1998. Japan even expressed its willingness to help establish the tsunami early warning systems in several Indian Ocean countries. “Tsunamis rarely hit the Indian Ocean, and so there is not much data available. Therefore, there was very little awareness. Tsunamis are far more common in the Pacific, which lies in the so-called “Ring of Fire” of geological hotspots,” explained Hudnut.

The tsunami on December 26 is believed to be the first in the Indian Ocean since 1883, associated with the famous eruption of Krakatoa between Sumatra and Java. A Pacific warning system was established in 1949 after a tsunami killed 149 in Hawaii. It uses seismic monitoring and tidal gauges to predict the destination and severity of tidal waves. Public warnings are issued via coastal sirens, television and radio bulletins, and even SMS messages in some countries.

Meanwhile, talks about setting up a warning system similar to the one in the Pacific Ocean will be conducted further at the UN-sponsored World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, next month, according to Dr Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. “Thousands of lives could have been saved if a similar alert system to that in the Pacific Ocean had been in place in the stricken countries, which include Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and India,” Kong said. Learning the lesson from the tragedy, Minister of Communication M. Hatta Rajasa told a local TV station recently that Indonesia plans to put as many warning boards as possible on the country’s beaches, reminding the people to “beware of a change of the seawater level. When the water suddenly ‘dries up’ extremely, run to higher places. Tsunami waves might come.”