Cell phones, Net could have saved thousands from waves

Textually has covered an article claiming the distaster in the Indian Ocean was the result of an information breakdown, not nature. “An effective viral campaign could’ve been launched in minutes,” says Toronto-based tech author Don Tapscott. Why didn’t thousands of tourists’ cell phones chirp with a call or text message saying, “Run away!”? If I received an SMS out of nowhere telling me to “Run away” I’d take it as a hoax, and I’m sure most other people would too. After all, the SMS “viral campaign” about a fish virus that went around after the wave was a hoax.
The suggestion that the resort TVs should have shown CNN (guess who’s american) with warnings of the Tsunami is a better idea, but how do you contact every resort and get them to change channels? In several different countries that speak several different languages? The scientists in the Pacific who noticed the Earthquake spoke English and would have great difficulty trying to convey the importance of the event to someone who only spoke Thai. They contacted embassies in the country, which hopefully passed the word on as fast as they could, but the biggest barrier would have been disbelief in the message. The only way for such a campaign to work is if the message unabiguously came from an organization that would be instantly believed – which is effectively a Tsunami warning system.

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