BEHAVIORAL
RESPONSES TO NATURAL WARNING SIGNS OF A TSUNAMI: THE DECEMBER 26, 2004
EARTHQUAKES AND RESULTING TSUNAMIS
I am co-principle
investigator along with Bruce Houghton, Distinguish Professor of Geophysics
at the University of Hawaii, on a NSF grant designed to study Thai tsunami
victims of the Dec 24, 2004 North Borneo earthquake and tsunami.
We are both
working pro bono on this grant because of the importance of the
issues: Costal communities
close to the epicenter of an earthquake that generates a tsunami cannot be
helped by engineered warning systems.
Tsunami waves move at about 500 miles/hr and will arrive at nearby
coastal habitats in minutes.
Residents of those communities must be trained to recognize the
natural signs of an imminent seismic wave and take protective measures on
their own behalf.
The
major purpose of the research we are conducting is to study the perceptual
psychology and interpretation of local signs of an impending tsunami so
that appropriate and effective training can be conducted. The methodology consists of a
questionnaire administered to victims in their native dialects.
We
constructed a tsunami questionnaire in English, which was translated by a
native speaker of Thai. She
also supervised the Thai college students who conducted the interviews in
the various Thai dialects. The
field team collected 666 questionnaires and we are now interviewing a
translator(s) for the Thai to English translations. 8/28/2005
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