Tsunami victims to sue US Government.

Tsunami victims to sue US Government.

all i can say is WTF?!?

Austrian, German tsunami victims to sue U.S. warning center

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 at 07:11 JST
VIENNA — Fourteen Austrian and five German victims of the Dec 26 tsunami catastrophe in the Indian Ocean intend to file suit against a U.S. tsunami warning center, the Thai government and a French hotel chain for suspected negligence, their lawyers said Tuesday.

American lawyer Ed Fagan and two Austrian lawyers accused the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii of having failed to act on registering the quake, Thailand of not having put out an advance warning despite knowledge of the impending disaster, and the Accor Hotel, the parent company of the Sofitel hotel in Thailand's Khao Lak resort, for its insufficient safety measures.

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

They said the suit was not, at present, 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 disaster, when a powerful undersea earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra sent huge waves pounding into coastlines around the Indian Ocean.

Nearly 290,000 people died, including several thousand Western tourists who were holidaying in Indian Ocean resorts, notably in Thailand and Sri Lanka.

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

The lawyers said that if the NOAA and Thai authorities, which 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" from 6.5 on the Richter scale, Hasslacher said. The quake measured 9.

"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?" asked Fagan. "Nobody telling them it's coming. This is incredible!"

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

Accor is named in the lawsuit because the plaintiffs say the chain did not properly inform relatives of the victims after the disaster and had built its Sofitel hotel, in the Thai resort of Khao Lak, on a quake fracture line.

Fagan told the news conference he would ask the U.S. court this week, probably Thursday or Friday, to ensure the preservation of key documents needed for the case, such as satellite imagery and contacts between the NOAA, Thailand and Indonesia.

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

"But people want to know, even if they (their relatives) had no choice," said Fagan, who has filed class-action suits on behalf of Holocaust victims to receive compensation in Germany and other European countries. (Wire reports)

Alright, so the US in defence closes its warning center, then they are truly fucked... what a bunch of retarded idiots...

ah whatever..

i fall down at mcdonalds, i sue mcdonalds..

wave crashes over my head, i sue the ocean?

giv me a break.

baahahahah

i think i should sue God for making me so ugly.. :emo:

if they aren't suing for money, that might be a just argument. but if they decide to push for compensation, it'll probably be someone just after money

im pretty sure thatd be your parents fault.... sue them

like we didnt already send more than we should have over there....

LOL omg you sure gave me a good laugh

hahaha dood nice one.... ppl sue for the stupidest reasons now days.... like this one lady that spilled her hot coffee from McDonalds in her legs and sued and won..... she said that the guy in the pick up window practically threw the coffee at her but it was a lie no one would do that...