But the data streaming into the computers of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization served no purpose Sunday.

The 300 staff are on vacation until Jan. 4. The organization itself is still nothing more than a nascent group of seismic experts and bureaucrats who await signature or ratification on the test ban treaty from 11 more countries before they can officially act.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/12/29/nuke_ed3__5.php

The CTBTO Preparatory Commission: Nine Years of Blatant Fraud

‘The PTS and the Tsunami Tragedy‘

CTBTO commits mass murder: Warning system could have spared tsunami victims

http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=3205

[CTBTO] A new $30 million UN early tsunami-warning system? They already have one!

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover012405.htm

[CTBTO] Nobody home at international arms control organization

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover010605.htm

[CTBTO] Tsunami warnings, UN style

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover081305.htm

A-bomb system can warn of tsunami

Jeffrey Hanson and Roger Bowman from the Science Applications International Corporation (Saic) in San Diego have now analysed the signals coming from the hydroacoustic detectors, or hydrophones.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4330286.stm

India seeks to keep Pak out to Global seismographic network

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to which India is not a signatory depends on the IRIS data to determine the nuclear detonations and hence Ramamurthy’s daunting task would be to see how India can be part of IRIS without signing the treaty.

http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/48274.asp

http://www.wmo.int

Regarding the rant on the inhabitants of centalized AC homes in US not knowing of caring about india. That idea is what is outtdated. Its similar to gaddar indian leaving india and causing brain drain kind of idea that was in vouge during Indira Gandhi era. FYI i dont have an AC in my home in US.
I am a penny pincher and a passive environmentalist.

Furthermore, it is interesting to see the kind of press that India has been getting in the handling of the earthquake’s aftermath, and the corresponding lack of criticism of Pakistan’s treatment of the victims.

Make up your mind from your air-conditioned homes in US of A, that you want millions of Indian (fellow desi) be put in harms way because of some outdated notions of security and pan-nationalism. India will never be USA or Japan in terms of earthquake mitigation but not even thinking fresh in event of a tragedy is a high crime.

A seismometer has nothing to do with a nuclear testing or defense things like that – it is just it is clock sitting next to your test site recording all your disturbances.

The problem with not sharing data is threefold:

Reason I: You cannot make any decisions in real time accurately. Sure, USGS website puts up the magnitude of an earthquake within 5-10 minutes of the event and Harvard within 20-30 minutes, a fairly accurate magnitude and location. India and Pakistan are outside the loop, other than they can access the data through website like you and me or anyone else. V.IMP: The accuracy of detection depends on the proximity of seismometers near the earthquake events. Examples, Southern California and Japan – the denser the network talking to each other the better.

Isolated seismometers run by India and Pakistan are practically useless, other than publishing papers 3 years later in a journal. They have no “societal, real time value”.

Yes, there are dense array of seismometers all over the world on every continent and ocean bottoms (you name the place, they are there), and they share the data in real time through IRIS (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology). That is why the security mindset of India and Pakistan is tad quiant.

Reson II: The second one is very serious omission. India and Pakistan can never think of making an advance warning system for tsunami and earthquake unless they share the data in real time for triangulation. Say, you live in Delhi, and there is an earthquake in Kathmandu, to have red-lights flashing up in lifeline buildings within less than a minute, you need very tightly triangulated and meshed on a local and regional basis. The same holds for tsunami warning. Even Mexico City has one similar because of devasting earthquake in early nineties.

You cannot do detailed local seismic analysis in real time required for first responders without sharing data. It cannot be done in isolation.

Reason III: You can never even make realistic building codes, unless you have rigorous shake maps and strong motion data (sorry for jargons, please google). All this needs that one is cooperating and tied to real world in real time.

A seismograph is like a clock recording distrubance which needs to be calibrated to other clocks. My wristwatch on its own is practically useless if I do not constantly check time with others in the world and duly make time corrections (Day time savings, etc).

I am done. Also, if you include earthquakes from 1947 onwards, it will be more 100,000 deaths (1993 Latur earthquake was 22,000).

It is not only eartthquakes or tsunami – the AIDS data is hardly shared by India and Pakistan (Please correct me if that has changed).

Well officialy there wasnt a declaration of the war in many acts of violence between the 2 countries. I’d consider partition and the prepartition riots as a quasi civil war atleast.

Yes, data should be shared….but that is in an ideal world. India definitely has reservations when it comes to putting sensitive data in the public domain. But then with a terrorist-supporting dictatorship on the west and communist despots in the north, what do you expect.

I understand your concern and have empathy for. I do agree that India and Pakistan are special case. Since I actively work with Indians in India (I myself carry an Indian passport).

Hopefully, I’ll be working with Pakistani soon, I have no intention to berate and belittle any of them in public.

The data sharing in seismology will be through a third party, the worldwide repository, like IRIS with universal safegaurds and rules that apply to others. IRIS has nothing to do with CTBT. They are independent of each other. Same for tsunami monitoring and medicine – all other fields.

Opening up of data has some real hope in India – because Indian scientists in India do want it but it is the matter of “what battles are worth fighting for, and why put your neck out”.

We have enough “whys” nows.

Are you happy with “status quo”?

I’m not giving you a tough time – I admire people like yourself who go out of their way to do something good, unlike the rest of us who just talk.

Real time sharing will be the way rest of the world does – part honor system, part monitoring, and data is given to worldwide respositories. They already exists (IRIS), and every country except India and Pakistan uses them

Agreed. But isn’t Indo-Pak a unique case?

Name two countries in the world that have fought three wars, one major skirmish and still trust one another.

Name two border countries in the world where one is a democracy and the other is a military/islamist dictatorship and share seismic data.

Name two countries in the world where one has continued bred terrorists to bleed the other by a thousand cuts – and share still sensitive information.

Name two countries in the world where one openly taunts the other in world forums and calls for the democratic country’s breakup.

One must look at every situation in the whole context. You may convince Pakistan since it is a dictatorship. But no political party in India will incur the opposition and voters’ wrath when it comes to sharing information with a country that comes as close to the textbook definition of an enemy as it gets.

M. Nam