Group cites lapses, files tsunami suit

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

VIENNA, Austria -- A group of Austrian and German victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami are to file a lawsuit demanding that Thailand, a French hotel chain and U.S. forecasters prove they reacted adequately to the disaster, their attorneys said yesterday.

The suit, which names the French hotel chain Accor and the U.S.-run tsunami early warning system in the Pacific as well as Thai authorities, will be filed in a New York district court this week, the attorneys said in Vienna.

"We found that serious lapses were committed," said Herwig Hasslacher, one of the three attorneys.

They said the suit was not designed to demand compensation but to uncover evidence that would prove negligence.

The case was presented as the first of its kind arising out of the Dec. 26 disaster, when a powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra sent huge waves pounding into coastlines around the Indian Ocean.

Nearly 300,000 people died or are missing, including several thousand Western tourists who were vacationing in Indian Ocean resorts, notably in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

The suit will be filed on behalf of 15 Austrian and four German victims of the disaster.

The targets are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington and its Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the Accor group of hotels where some of the victims stayed and the Thai government.

The NOAA is accused of having registered the earthquake but failing to alert Indian Ocean countries of the impending tsunami, as the Hawaii center covered only the Pacific Ocean.

The attorneys said that if the NOAA and Thai authorities, who had their own information, had passed on their alerts in time, it would have enabled people on shorelines to flee inland.

"We have evidence they did not warn us, even though they knew a quarter of an hour later about the strength and location of the quake, and although there is supposed to be a tsunami warning" for a quake of magnitude 6.5 or more, Mr. Hasslacher said. The Dec. 26 quake measured 9.0.

"The U.S. government claims "we are the protectors of the world.' [But] if we know there is a tsunami on its way to wipe out a major population, do we tell them?" said Edward Fagan, an American lawyer.

"Nobody telling them it's coming. This is incredible," said Mr. Fagan, who is best known for filing lawsuits seeking reparations on behalf of Holocaust victims.

Mr. Fagan said precautions, however, were taken to evacuate U.S. military personnel from the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.

"At the end of the day, it's quite possible it will show that nobody did anything wrong," Mr. Fagan said.