theskeptic's Journal: His Warning Ignored,Thai Meteorologist Now Plays Key Role

Mr. Smith's Tsunami Fears
Caused Panic, Scorn in '98;
'We Thought It Was a Joke'
By PATRICK BARTA
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 10, 2005

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Seven years ago, Smith Dharmasaroja shook Thailand with a bold and frightening prediction.

"I reaffirm that a tsunami is going to occur for sure," said Mr. Smith, a government official who had once been the nation's chief meteorologist.

His warning, made first in a speech and picked up by newspapers in the summer of 1998, quickly spread throughout the country, setting off panic -- and outrage. Villagers along the country's western coast thought the threat was imminent and ran into the hills, causing traffic accidents as they fled. Tourists checked out of their hotels.

Government officials, fearful of a washed-up tourist season, branded Mr. Smith a dangerous man with a screw loose. Authorities on the resort island of Phuket fastened loudspeakers to pickup trucks to broadcast a mollifying message to beachgoers -- and warned Mr. Smith not to come to town.

  WAVE OF DESTRUCTION

See complete coverage of the earthquake and tsunami in South Asia.

"Everyone said I was crazy; a mad, mad dog," Mr. Smith recalls. "If they had just listened."

People are listening now.

Two weeks after one of the most devastating natural disasters in recorded history, the 70-year-old Mr. Smith has been called out of retirement to become an unlikely hero and point man in the effort to prevent the next major tsunami from killing thousands.

In the days following the Dec. 26 tsunami, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra tapped Mr. Smith to spearhead the creation of a new tsunami-warning system. Thai officials then removed the head of the country's meteorological agency amid accusations he knew about the tsunami but didn't warn the public. The government has now ordered him to work for Mr. Smith -- who was once director-general of the Meteorological Department of Thailand -- until an investigation is completed.

Mr. Smith, a spry, portly man with well-groomed black hair, says he spent much of his time in the past several years relaxing in bed until the early afternoon, after which he would watch sports on television.

Now, he has an office at Government House, Thailand's version of the U.S. White House. His hastily printed business cards describe him as a Vice Minister to the Office of the Prime Minister. The government is considering giving him the power to interrupt all television and radio broadcasts -- if he senses an emergency.

His life has become a whirlwind of speaking engagements, conferences and television appearances. When he visited the tourist resort of Phuket two days after the disaster, he says, he was mobbed by appreciative locals who recognized him from TV. Days later, he donned his only suit and jetted to Jakarta for a global aid conference attended by Colin Powell and other luminaries. While he rubbed shoulders with the Prime Minister of China and leaders from other countries, a delegation of about 50 Thai staffers lobbied to make Thailand the hub of a new regional tsunami-warning system.

It's been exhausting, he says. "I have to get up early in the morning now, because I get a salary."

Thailand's failure to heed the warnings of one of its leading forecasters raises upsetting questions about whether many of the tsunami's deaths could have been prevented. It also illustrates the delicate task ahead as government officials construct a warning system that doesn't spook travelers, especially in areas where the perceived risk is small.

Until Dec. 26, few scientists believed Thailand would ever face a deadly tsunami. Nearby earthquakes were too small. The island of Sumatra was thought to serve as a shield from larger earthquakes that occur off Indonesia.

But Mr. Smith, a largely self-taught seismologist, reached a different conclusion.

Raised in Thailand, he trained as an electrical engineer at the University of Vermont. While in the U.S., he changed his name from Samith to Smith. He joined the Thai meteorology service after returning to Thailand in the 1960s.

He quickly mastered Thailand's predictable weather patterns, which revolve around wet and dry seasons. So he decided to focus his spare energy on earthquakes and tsunamis, even though they weren't considered a major problem in Thailand.

As Mr. Smith rose up the ranks of the meteorology department, he ordered staff to begin collecting earthquake data. He traveled to China to meet with seismologists. One staff member in his department recalls wondering what all the fuss was about.

Mr. Smith was hatching some disturbing theories. Every tsunami he studied in the Pacific had started with an earthquake that registered at least 7.4 on the Richter scale. Although earthquakes of that magnitude were practically unheard of near Thailand, his data led him to the conclusion that one was inevitable as pressures mounted along the region's fault lines. He figured Phuket was in the direct path of a likely tsunami.

Even today, some experts are surprised by Mr. Smith's reasoning.

"You'd really have to go digging into very old historical records and the scientific literature and extrapolate from what's there to find that yes, there could be effects [leading to tsunamis] in Thailand," says Phil Cummins, a seismologist who studies the region at Australia's national geological agency. "But he was correct."

Mr. Smith says he first sent letters to alert local officials of the risk in 1993, but nothing was done. Then, in 1998, a tsunami rolled over Papua New Guinea, killing more than 1,000. The event troubled Mr. Smith, because it occurred on the same fault line he was worried about, which extends toward Thailand. With just a year left before retirement, he decided to go public with fears he had harbored for years.

When word of his predictions hit the press, Phuket officials were furious.

Pamuke Achariyachai, then head of Phuket's Tourism Association, recalls a meeting at which tourist-industry officials complained to the governor of Phuket and other officials.

"We thought it was a joke," said Mr. Pamuke, as he walked down the Phuket beach amid the devastation Friday. "At the moment, I'm very sorry."

Jadet Insawang, Phuket's former governor, says he still thinks the way Mr. Smith spoke out without direct evidence of an imminent tsunami "was just not appropriate." He acknowledges he helped organize the campaign to convince tourists nothing was wrong.

"More than 10,000 tourists canceled their trips," at the time, says Mr. Jadet, now a national politician in Bangkok. "What would you do if you were the governor?"

In Bangkok, Mr. Smith was ridiculed. A local TV reporter joked at the time that viewers who ran into Mr. Smith should run up a hill to higher ground. Mr. Smith's wife collected critical news stories in a scrapbook. One columnist wrote, "The headwind from Smith's mouth...is much stronger than a tsunami which has yet to happen."

After Mr. Smith retired in 1999, he continued to read up on tsunamis at home, where he keeps file folders on the great tsunamis of the past. Some days he tinkered with a collection of classic cars, including a 1975 Corvette.

On Sunday, Dec. 26, after news of the earthquake broke but before the tsunami hit, Mr. Smith says he tried unsuccessfully to reach the Thai meteorological department. When the waves did hit, they inundated a weather-forecasting station Mr. Smith established years ago near Phuket. Three of his former employees are still missing.

Mr. Smith takes solace in the fact that Thai officials have said they will spare no expense in setting up a warning system he once advocated. Among other things, he wants to install sirens and flags on beaches that can be used to alert locals after a major earthquake.

He wants the region to be better prepared because he fears another tsunami will occur. "Maybe not in my lifetime," he says, "but sooner or later it's going to happen again."