Re: Any net disruptions from Indonesia quake / Tsunami?

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 17:13:52 EST, Joe Abley said:

> I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that any under-sea damage would be 
> isolated to shallow approach to shore, and that the cable would be well 
> below the wave action while the tsunami was in deep water. Cables are 
> generally trenched pretty deep on the approach to shore as protection 
> against dragging anchors, but I don't know what protection that would 
> give against the undertow from a 10m-high wave.

News reports say the actual quake was a "thrust" fault - meaning that on the
one side of the fault line, the rock went down, and on the other it went up,
forming a cliff where it used to be flat.

The cables may be trenched near shore, and in deep water they're safe from wave
action - but if the cable happens to go across the fault line, the
carefully-laid no-slack cable is suddenly going literally off the edge of a
small underwater cliff.  Even though it's got the tensile strength to allow
several miles to be dangling while they're laying the cable, a sudden yank like
that can't be good for it. 

This of course only matters if the cable actually crosses the part of the
fault line that was in motion.  I have no idea if any cables were in that
exact area....

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