threat of another tsunami in 2009 !!!

Dear (s) 

There are some frantic messages circulating on internet urging people to stay from the beaches all around in the month of July. It speaks of a prediction of another tsunami hitting on July 22^nd 2009 coinciding with sun eclipse. The warning states that it will badly hit countries like Malaysia (Sabah & Sarawak), Singapore, Maldives, Australia, Mauritius, Si Lanka, India, Indonesia, Philippines are going to be badly hit. It requests people to stay away from the beaches in July. It has a pictorial warning as well. Whilst this is appreciable in so far as concern for fellow brethren, have received another well researched mail from a friends which sounds much more sense; and some more is added to that.

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“Comments: Unless some extraordinary coincidence occurs, the only true statement in the preceding message is that a solar eclipse will be visible in some parts of the world on July 22, 2009. Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes, not eclipses. 

Though astronomers have long been able to predict eclipses by tracking the orbits of the sun and the moon, no such capability exists for earthquakes, nor is there any known correlation between the two phenomena. In the last 110 years or so, there have been about 85 really big earthquakes," Professor Kerry Sieh of Singapore's Earth Observatory explained in a statement to Channel News Asia in April 2009. "And only two of those occurred on the same day as an eclipse. And even those were a partial eclipse, not a total eclipse. They happened in a different place from where the eclipse happened." NASA's Dr. James Foster concurs: Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions do indeed occur at times of eclipses. But records show that they occur with no greater frequency or power than on days when full Moons or new Moons occur (without eclipses), when all the planets line up on the same side of the Sun or on days when the Moon is in a crescent or gibbous phase. As special as eclipses are, they simply don't have a known impact on any geophysical phenomena. 

This is from the Earth observatory website in Singapore : The Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) has received several inquiries from the media and the general public about a rumour circulating in emails and blogs recently that a major tsunami triggered by a solar eclipse on July 22nd 2009 will devastate the southeast Asian region. EOS affirms that, to date, scientists have not found any significant correlation between solar eclipses and earthquakes. Since 1900, for example, of 82 earthquakes greater than magnitude 8 worldwide, only two occurred close to the time of a solar eclipse. However, these were not only partial eclipses but also far from the locations of the earthquakes. At present, no scientific methods or technologies exist that can pinpoint precisely the timing, location or magnitude of earthquakes. 

Additionally, if you look closely at the supposed earthquake sites in the picture in the email below they are all located in the Pacific Ocean near Japan or China and it would therefore be extremely remote for there to be any significant impact on India. 

It is good that this has triggered a review of your BCP preparedness but I would not attach too much importance to it.” +++++++++++++++++++++++ 

With regards - S Sampathkumar.

PS: a message circulated to my friends on 29^th May 2009 … now posted on the blog.