During our trip to India, there was an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. It caused a tsunami that spread in all directions including the south eastern side of India -- we were on the north western side of the country. There as no direct impact on our trip but we watched the story unfold on the morning and evening television news and were struck by the force of Mother Nature and her impact.
I received some photos that were supposed to be of the tsunami from a friend and posted them as part of this site. A snip from one of this is in the heading for the page. It turns out they were fake. They were originally posted at Taamchai Gallery with the following caption: "Sender: Youling Popo, Hong Kong, 2002/10 The Backward Flow in Qian Tang Jiang River, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. It is an amazing natural phenomenon."
Among other places the hoax was reported at: Tsunami with the following caption: Origins: These photographs are yet another examples of many images depicting large waves being grabbed and passed around as "real photographs" of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. These pictures were purportedly taken in Thailand in December 2004, but they actually date from 2002 and depict not a tsunami, but a tidal bore (unusually high tides resulting in waters flowing upstream at high speeds) on the Qian Tang Jiang River, in Hangzhou, China. Tidal bores occur at predictable times, and watching these events is a four-day-long government-sponsored tourist festival in China, hence there were plenty of people and photographers on hand to observe the one captured in the pictures above. Several news outlets in a variety of countries have been taken in by these photos and have run them as genuine pictures of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami."
The Internet lets us share information and mis-information equally quickly.
Specific information about this one
One of the top 5 since 1900 Since 1900, the strongest earthquake was a 9.5 in 1960 in Chile. There have been one 9.2, one 9.1 and, counting this one, two 9.0 earthquakes.
History of tsunami events in the Indian ocean
from 1750 to 2004. The largest previous
event took 36,500 lives in 1883 as part of the eruption of KRAKATAU. As of the last
report the 2004 tsunami has taken 150,000 lives.
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