The tsunami that swept across Southern Asia wiped away entire villages, families and infrastructures, leaving behind only faint, sandy watermarks that Patrick Lynett, assistant professor of civil engineering at A&M, has been studying closely for the past week.
Lynett was one of 11 scientists and geologists from around the world who rushed to Sri Lanka for seven days to take eyewitness and survivor accounts, and survey beaches to collect data to help study the tsunami.
The scientists are working to perfect existing “new miracle models”- computer animations reenacting the tsunami – that might help create accurate evacuation models for cities that are likely to be hit by tsunamis in the future.
Lynett said there are roughly 15 people in the world that specialize in tsunamis, about eight of which are from the United States. As a civil engineer, Lynett takes into account more than just science when studying the effects of the tsunami.
“I think I’m first an engineer and then a scientist,” Lynett said. “(The scientists) didn’t ask (survivors about) much of the human side of it. We really tried to stick to the waves.”
A trip was quickly planned for members of the small tsunami community, and Lynett said the hardest part of his job was witnessing the destruction and deaths that resulted after the tragedy.
Senior business management major Jibin Luke said the tsunami caught him off guard, and that when he heard about it, he immediately thought of his family in South India.
“It was just tragic – something you don’t plan for,” Luke said. “There was no warning. The loss of life was just incredible. It was a part of the world people thought wouldn’t get hit by a tsunami.”
Lynett said he traveled down the coast examining villages. He said that some had lost as much as 50 percent of their populations in the tragedy, while others less than one percent. He said the reason some villages lost less people is because its members may have seen the indications of the coming hazard and warned others to evacuate.
“(There were) few sporadic towns where people knew the sign of a tsunami,” Lynett said. “In these towns very few people died.”
Lynett said that educating people of the signs of a tsunami could have saved many lives.
“Tsunamis are so rare in this area, most people didn’t know what it was,” Lynett said. “The tsunami was preceded by this recession of the shoreline. It moved out about half a kilometer and all the reefs were exposed so people flocked to the shoreline to see … What they didn’t know was that in 25 minutes the shoreline was going to rush in.”
Rohit Nene, a mechanical engineering graduate student, was spending his winter break in India when the tsunami hit. He said that non-governmental organizations are the best way to donate money toward relief, and other methods aren’t always trustworthy.
“The Prime Minister (of India) has a relief fund and people donate money to the fund,” Nene said. “All that money that’s donated to the fund isn’t exactly donated to the victims … along the way there’s always money being siphoned off under the table. It’s all about corruption. That’s how it works back home.”
Lynett said that whether the Indian government knew there was a tsunami coming is debatable because any information the Indian government would have received beforehand would have been speculative or have come after the tsunami hit.
“There are parts of the world that are more susceptible to tsunamis, correlating with their proximity to seismic activity,” Lynett said.
He added that Hawaii is one such place. However, if a tsunami ever hit, Lynett said, the monetary damages would outweigh the mortality rates because the populace is educated on the characteristics of the hazard.
“It’s really incredible what a little bit of education can do about saving lives,” Lynett said.