Qld: Tsunami warning sparks panic

AAP General News (Australia)
04-02-2007
Qld: Tsunami warning sparks panic

By Roberta Mancuso and Rosemary Desmond

BRISBANE, April 2 AAP - The threat of a tsunami hitting Queensland eased today but
widespread panic was triggered, with many coastal residents evacuating their homes and
fleeing to higher ground.

It also sparked a massive emergency response statewide which involved the cancellation
of surgery at hospitals, the closing and evacuation of beaches and the cancellation of
flights.

Emergency services across Queensland had braced themselves for a possible tsunami after
a strong earthquake off the Solomon Islands early today.

However, the Bureau of Meteorology said in an update that "no destructive tsunami is
expected, (but) there may be a small rise in sea levels".

The quake, measuring 8.1, struck at 0640 AEST about 350km west-north-west of the capital
Honiara at a depth of 10km, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii said.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre
in Melbourne warned a possible tsunami could affect Willis Island in the Coral Sea at
0830 AEST and Cooktown in far north Queensland around 0930 AEST.

But the bureau said the Willis Island weather station reported no noticeable effect
of waves at 9am by which time the tsunami should have passed.

"They are checking to see if there has been any affect to beaches," it said.

"Visual inspection in the Cooktown area has shown no sign of a destructive tsunami.

"This indicates that the possibility of a destructive has eased considerably."

The warning sparked an emergency disaster response across the state, with Cairns Base
Hospital cancelling elective surgery and outpatient clinics.

Childcare centres in the Cairns CBD were evacuated while Townsville City Council activated
its local disaster management group.

Some shops around Cooktown, which was the first Queensland coastal area expected to
be hit, closed for the day while panicked locals fled in their cars to higher ground.

"There has been a degree of self-evacuation this morning and people have shown some
vigilance and are on alert," said Emergency Management Queensland (EMQ) spokesman Andrew
Berkman.

"We've had it happening from Cairns, Cooktown (and) Bribie Island (north of Brisbane) even.

"The threat was statewide and so we've had people packing up and moving away from the
beaches there.

"But when the threat came through, it was a serious threat so we really wanted people
to be on alert, so they should be congratulated for doing that.

"There are obviously logistical issues with moving people away from coastal areas,
but I think it was done successfully and the warnings reached their mark."

David Young, manager of Cooktown's West Coast Hotel, said there was a "lot of movement"

around the town.

"People are fuelling up cars ... they want to make sure they can get out just in case," he said.

Penny Johnson from Bart's Bush Adventures in Cooktown cancelled all her four-wheel-drive
tours and closed her booking centre in the town's centre.

She said Skytrans airlines had cancelled flights between Cairns and Cooktown until
further notice.

"In Cairns apparently there's a lot of traffic heading up the Kuranda range up to higher
ground," she said.

"I think everyone still remembers the impact of the last one (tsunami in Indonesia)."

Cook shire CEO Mark Pitt said Cooktown was breathing a collective sigh of relief after
a nervous morning.

"There was a fair degree of nervousness as you would imagine `cause this isn't something
that happens every day here," he said.

"We're much more used to cyclones rather than tsunamis."

Education Queensland said it was not aware of any schools closing, but a kindergarten
on the Gold Coast was understood to have been evacuated.

A Geoscience Australia spokeswoman said any resulting tsunami would have been between
10 and 20cm, posing little threat to residents in isolated areas.

University of Queensland geophysicist Dion Weatherley said the earthquake was 30 times
smaller than the tremor which generated the Asian tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.

AAP rm/pjo/maur/de

KEYWORD: QUAKE AUST QLD LEAD

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