Mary Garvey's reaction is similar to my initial reaction. I didn't cotton on too quickly to the facts that there had never been an occurrence in the Indian Ocean even close to this tragedy. And I was listening to NPR tonight where one of the Americans who monitored the earthquake (from a continent away) made it clear that:

1) Initial readings led them to think the magnitude was one tenth what it was.

2) Not every earthquake spawns a tsunami, that occurs when the displacement in the earth is apbruptly vertical.

When the early damage reports came in, they did the best they could to make calls to local authorities. Unfortunately there was no emergency system in place to deal with this, and also unfortunately, it was the weekend.

The conclusion is that without an actual tsunami warning system, the information they had left them with no time to warn the early victims, and no system to distribute an effective warning to the later victims.

Unfortunately, this will not bring any cheer to the millions of people whose lives have been turned upside down by deep personal and financial loss.

3) The last earthquake that was comparable in size (slightly larger) was the Good Friday quake in Alaska in 1964. It spawned a local tsunami that wiped out at least one Alaskan village. However, the population at the time was pretty sparse. Even Anchorage at the time was more of a 'town' than a city. The next time this occurs there will billions and billions in property loss, but the people are so distributed that I doubt there will be a large loss of life. About two years ago there was a magnitude 8 quake in uninhabited land but right near the Trans Alaska Pipeline. No loss of life, some loss of road, no leakage of oil.

Wolfgang, I was intrigued by the German song "The Perfect Wave". What is the title in German?