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TIMES POSTCARD
We have an early warning system
By Rajpal Abeynayake
A monk MP says in parliament that some lady down South saw the tsunami three times in her dreams. Vajira Abeywardene, a UNP MP who is rearing to go, says, "a tsunami has never hit a country twice.''

Who needs early warning systems? We can always ask Vajira Abeywardene - if not some dreaming woman. Abeywardene has just appointed himself a tsunami expert, after simulating tsunamis in his teacup noon and night

He faults the government for making people run 2000 metres when there was a tsunami scare two weeks back.

He says, "why run 2000 meters when in Galle all you had to do was to get onto upper Dixon Road which is just off Galle town?"

So this is what the President should announce in future tsunami eventualities.
"There is a tsunami warning just heard. Don't run. All you people just get onto the highest points available. In Colombo that will be Vajira Abeywardene's head."

Vajira who?
The people have never heard of him before, but that's because until the tsunami came he was no tsunami expert.
He had the manner of waiting for something to come along, so that he can become the expert. The tsunami was deliverance.

He became the one-man early warning system, the tsunami cockerel of biblical proportions. If Vajira Abeywardene crows thrice run for life.
But people are complaining.

Vajira Abeywardne can't stop talking about the tsunami. This is like an early warning system whose play button is permanently locked. He keeps muttering "tsunami tsunami tsunami."
Where would Vajira have been if no tsunami hit?

I think he would have been in search of a subject to become an expert in. He had whiter than white national dress, he had a serious face that politicians can wear at both weddings and funerals, and he can talk down to anybody which is why the President has determined, without any commission sittings mind you, that his head is the highest point in Colombo.
All he didn't have was a subject.

He says: "When the tsunami scare struck two weeks back, I called various international experts. They told me no tsunami was coming.''
Pity.
Why did he go about waking up everybody? He should have just placed that call from his hand-phone to his land-phone. As if the people are going to trust any other expert when Vajira Abeywardene is around??

If there is a seaquake, a tsunami cannot ever be predicted unless there is a tsunami predicting mechanism installed in the ocean, with buoys and equipment which will measure sea levels. The Indian Ocean does not have such a mechanism yet.

This is why after the Indonesian quake struck off Sumatra, all countries including Thailand and Indonesia immediately evacuated their civilian populations near the vulnerable coast. This is also why the UN had a press conference, into the wee hours of the night, trying to fathom whether a tsunami will hit or not. That's because with all the expert systems in the world, there was no way that anybody could have said whether a tsunami was going to hit that night, or not. Period.

In Vajira Abeywardene's case he has found such experts however. Can he name these experts?? Nobody asked Vajira Abeywardene to name the experts he had called in the dead of the night.

We heard he called a bookmaker in London. All politicians have prolific connections with such experts. The London bookie told Vajira Abeywardne, the odds are one in six that a tsunami will hit your country. Why did London bookmaker say it?? He just went on probability. As Vajira Abeywardene says, so says the bookie. A tsunami has never hit a country twice.

But what if a tsunami did hit that night, because scientifically, it could have?? Then, Vajira Abeywardene would have quoted another bookmaker, his second expert. This man would have said the odds are five to one that a tsunami will hit. Vajra Abeywardene will want the President impeached for not issuing a tsunami warning. "Pity" he will say "for all her associating with Thilanga Sumathipala the President doesn't gamble, because you don't need an expert, any old punter would have told you that there is all probability of a tsunami hitting that night, even though small. Well, I don't gamble with lives, that's why I knew there was every chance a tsunami was coming.''

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