USGS: Warnings could have saved thousands | CNET News.com

Entire countries with no emergency warning systems. Pacific Rim populations with no knowledge of Tsumamis. A 15-minute walk inland could have meant the difference between life and the estimated 23,000+ dead. Welcome to the dark ages.

update U.S. researchers who detected a massive earthquake off Asia’s coast on Saturday tried frantically to warn that the deadly wall of water was coming, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Sunday.

But there was no official alert system in the region because such catastrophes only happen there about once every 700 years, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s center in Honolulu.

“We tried to do what we could,” McCreery said. “We don’t have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world.”