7.6 earthquake strikes off Honduran coast

| 10/01/2018 | 106 Comments
Cayman News Service

Earthquake on 9 January 2018

(CNS): Local officials issued a tsunami alert for the Cayman Islands on Tuesday night after a significant earthquake struck less than 30 miles from the north coast of Honduras, east of the largely unpopulated and remote Great Swan Island. The potential threat came after the quake, measuring 7.6 magnitude, some 188 miles SW of Cayman at around 10pm, though the tsunami gauge at the George Town Port did not register any abnormal sea level rise. The earthquake hit about six miles deep and is one of the strongest ever in the region but there are no indications of damage or casualties.

Officials in Honduras have said shaking was registered across much of the nation, but it seems the negative impact was confined to some cracked walls in homes along the coast. Fortunately, given the magnitude of the earthquake, it hit the coastline, which is covered by nature reserves and very few people live in the area.

The tsunami alert was issued in Cayman by Hazard Management Cayman Islands shortly after the earthquake but it was cancelled by midnight.

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Category: Science & Nature

Comments (106)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Global warming debunked forever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxmrO3s6_X8

    CNS: In this video, some bald guy (there’s no indication who he is, at least in the first four minutes) “debunks” climate change. He lost me around the 4 minute mark when he said there was no money in “climate cooling”, which is a bizarre way of saying climate change is a hoax. But his basic premise is that the coal and oil industries have nothing to gain from the status quo. Does anyone really believe that?

    Here is an actual scientist’s view on climate change: http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/09/17/neil-degrasse-tyson-climate-change-sot-gps.cnn

  2. Caymanian facts says:

    I have been reading all the complaints o social media about the Government not giving us enough warning.
    Well, this earthquake happened 190 miles away. A tsunami travels at approximately 500 miles per hour.
    It would have taken approximately 5 minutes for it to hit us in Cayman. Hmmm, not sure our government had been notified by this time.
    Just facts.

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    • Anonymous says:

      I come up with 22.89 minutes using your numbers, but yeah…

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    • Anonymous says:

      Thank the Lord he chose to send us merely a warning.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Now that is a Cayman Education right there, *slow clap*

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      • Anonymous says:

        and what we going to do if even a 15m tsunami comes, not many places to hide out, warning is not going to do much

    • Stop The Crime says:

      Tsunamis slow down as they rise off the sea floor towards land masses. It actually took about half an hour for it to get here. Next time check the warnings and projections at Tsunami.gov.

  3. Anonymous says:

    God would be quicker to burn ya’ll alive than the devil. You sure ya’ll are worshipping the correct god?

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  4. Anonymous says:

    The sky fairy crowd make no effort at putting a positive case for the existence of this “god”. I have asked them.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    So, how exactly are you supposed to know if there is a tsunami alert? What is the alarm? Anybody?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Apparently, some here say you talk to some God, although it would seem that he was a little busy organizing these things, as the creator.

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    • Anonymous says:

      anon 740 pm HMCI is supposed to alert the people but the system needs work. As for the stooges that use this as an oppertunity to take shots at christian believers keeps your eyes and comments on what this is about: Tsunami threat and warning.

      • Anonymous says:

        You’re missing the point
        According to y’all God is responsible for everything, that’s why when a Volcano explodes in the pacific and only kills asians thousands of miles away I’m thankful it wasn’t here
        When an earthquake rips Haiti in two I’m thankful it was them and not me
        When hurricanes destroy the eastern Caribbean I am thankful that God decided they needed to die and not us

        And somehow atheists are the immoral ones

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    • Anonymous says:

      The ground shakes. Pretty good indicator a Tsunami may be imminent.

    • Stop The Crime says:

      TSUNAMI.GOV

  6. Anonymous says:

    I wonder why these persons who claim they don’t believe in God are always so angry. Could it be that they are trying to convince themselves that all of their rhetoric is wrong. Could it be their mind does not believe but their soul does believe and both are having an internal war with each other. My friend I Believe that God is real and your protests cannot really deminish the glory and the power but you are free to believe whatever you want. God’s existence does not depend on whether or not you believe. Before you protest so vehemently against God get a bible and do a little reading, study the word, attend a bible study or talk to a pastor. How can you deny God’ s existence when you haven’t really given it a try. Are you afraid you might find a reason to believe? I pray you will.

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    • Entropy says:

      I was brought up as a Baptist from birth. Attended church every single Sunday. Read the Bible front to back. Got baptized. Prayed daily.

      Then, I went off to university, spent four years studying biology, genetics, organic chemistry, archaeology, physics, microbiology, etc.

      The facts are there. The archaeological record coupled with peer reviewed methods such as carbon dating is direct proof that we’ve been here longer than 6000 years. It’s also empirical evidence that validates the concept of evolution.

      Creationism and gods are the product of naive humans who couldn’t and didn’t understand how evolutionary biology works. Do you also believe the Sun orbits the Earth like they did?

      We are not angry. We’re educated individuals who see the truth and are frustrated that people like you try to force your religion down our throats.

      You are a puppet for a magical ghost invented by people who had no idea what bacteria was, yet you demonize atheists for preferring science that discovered antibiotics over blind faith in a ghost that has never been proven to exist.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Fellow skeptic
        Good Day sir

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      • Anonymous says:

        Sad !! Sad!! I really feel it for you

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      • Anonymous says:

        Science and faith go hand in hand

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        • Anonymous says:

          Basically all you religious nuts are just afraid to die, so you cling to some ancient story book hoping it will give you eternal life. News flash!! This is the biggest scam in the history of big scams! We all die and once we’re dead we are dust. Grow a pair and accept there is no eternal fairy land in the sky.

          Bunch of cowards is what you are.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Paul was spot on when he stated ‘much learning will make you mad’.
        However, there may still be hope.

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      • Anonymous says:

        anon 0809 pm i am a scientist as well but not from the biological side as you are. my study involves the planets. That being said we can agree that scientist dont know everything. we can also agree that this earth is a remarkably unique place. The scientific explanation of how man came to be is in itself also filled with holes and is every bit the fairy tale.

        in the end i will hold out as mankind learns more about itself from a scientific poit of view but also from a religous one.

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        • Charles Darwin says:

          You’re a scientist who doesn’t know how to use an apostrophe or capital letter at the beginning of a sentence?

          Sure, and I’m a billionaire while we’re at it.

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          • Anonymous says:

            Charles Fake Darwin when we get to an English class you can complain to the teacher.

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            • Anonymous says:

              Who determines what is “real” and what is “fake” \

              Other than Donnie Tiny-hands the Orange faced buffoon Trump that is

      • Anonymous says:

        Ode de joy! You must have disappointed your parents so much and now you boast about it. That speaks volume about who you are. ” Father forgive them for they know not what they do”

    • Anonymous says:

      Assuming you are replying to my comment down in the depths

      You couldn’t be any more wrong

      I was raised in a Christian home
      Told to believe for entire childhood by parents
      Taught at a young age how to be a bible apologist and how to refute Christian Criticism
      Baptized (as a child without me understanding what it really meant)
      Brainwashed in school by telling me that if I didn’t believe in God I would be cast into a lake of fire, along with other tactics that generate fear and suppress individual thought
      Read the bible quite extensively (I quite enjoy works of fiction)
      Went to a Christian School for 8 years
      Attended Church weekly for more than 12 years

      I can just do this magical thing called thinking for myself
      I can see the inconsistencies and the shortcomings of the Bible along with the hypocritical nature of most Christians and Christian groups along with the tribalism that you are known for

      So you see I am in fact exactly opposite to what you claim I am, in fact I am your worst nightmare. Someone who has been freed from the chains of blind faith, someone who has been just as brainwashed as you are and who knows how the system works.

      Nice try though

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      • Anonymous says:

        Thanks for all the answers regarding how we all got here. So, what’s your thoughts on the earthquake.

      • Anonymous says:

        Christians are not afraid to die. We get to meet our Creator, it will be a happy day. Not so much for you, because you will discover you were wrong all along, rejected Christ and be sent to hell for eternity. It is the unbelievers who should be very, very scared of dying. They have no faith hence no after life.

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        • Anonymous says:

          How christian of you, really inspiring

          Next time, try “Convert or die”

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        • Entropy says:

          So your god made me attend church all my life and go so far as to be baptized, only to send me off to get a Bachelor’s degree which will send me to hell because my education prevents me from being able to believe in creationism?

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          • Anonymous says:

            God didn’t send you to a university, you think you are smart so I guess you could figure that one on your own. God also gave you free will to make your own decision no matter what.

  7. Anonymous says:

    Looks like some folks should look into the geography of where they have relocated to before spewing crap on the internet.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    I am appalled at the lack of information supplied. There should have been texts with advice, whether that be “go to your upper floor if you have one” or to Trashmore, or Motor museum, or East End, Camana Bay multistory car parks or just stay at home. Whilst I agree a large Tsunami would not be good for any of us, a small one could still take lives if not prepared for it…I only found out because I felt it and decided out of interest to see how quick the quake trackers put it up (thinking it was a minor one)…I see this as a complete failure of Cayman to protect its citizens and visitors and lessons better be learned before we have a proper one.

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  9. "Anonymousir" says:

    Tsunami? It would slam into the Cayman Trench “Wall” LONG before it was to reach the shorelines of Cayman. Tsunamis start from under the ocean, not above. As it the ocean floor begins to get shallow, it rises. We have a wall! It would slam into that first ….

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    • Anonymous says:

      depends on the direction it comes from, from north and south I’d agree with you, but along the ridge, it would be bad. Doesn’t need much height to wipe out most of cayman’s populated areas

  10. Anonymous says:

    The lame excuses by HMCI staff on the Radio show today were awesome.
    Eg. a ship hit our harbor monitor and now it is lost.
    Wow. did you get a signal that it had been struck?
    How do you know it was hit?
    Does it not have a tracker?
    How long has it been lost?
    Also, other excuses (eg ‘did not want to frighten people or release info until it is all verified – it the Next Day?!!)
    Wowwie

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  11. Anonymous says:

    our island is so damn flat that’s all it would take to wipe us clean from the map

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    • Anonymous says:

      Wash us off the map actually,
      Flush us down the proverbial drain
      at least we’ll have a unique drowning as we fall into the trench

  12. Anonymous says:

    Earthquake exposed government Hospital Lack of Disaster Preparedness. Despite bitter lessons from the past Hurricane Ivan. Health Services Authority is far from ready to protect patients when disaster strikes their facilities. FOI ?

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  13. Anonymous says:

    My alert system was my bed shaking.

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  14. Anonymous says:

    No point in warnings Cayman. You are below sea level, where are you going to run? Unfortunately, You have no mountains to climb to avoid the atrocity. Let’s hope such disaster will never threaten these beautiful islands.

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    • Charles Darwin says:

      *Looks at the bluff* well bobo, if you see a wave jump over that, we done.

      • Anonymous says:

        Tsunamis can easily rise higher than the highest point on the bluff, although I doubt we have enough space for the water to pile up due to us not having a continental shelf or large build up toward the island
        doubt a Tsunami would get any bigger than 50-100 feet at most, still destructive but not 300 feet which they can easily be

  15. Anonymous says:

    The only thing worse than knowing about a Tsunami alert is not knowing how big it will be. I was worried about another Fukushima event but eventually found a website that published a warning for a 3 foot wave. Come on Cayman – let’s get better organized!!!

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  16. Anonymous says:

    At the very least we need some type of audible siren system set up at various points across the Islands for these situations. Phone and internet warnings are great but not everybody has access to these. We need to be proactive and take these threats seriously due to our location and flat topography.

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  17. Anonymous says:

    I use an app to warn me of quakes. Everyone would be dead if left to Hazard Management or local media to warn of a real shaker and impending tsunami.

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  18. Anonymous says:

    You spelled Honduranian wrong CNS.

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  19. Anonymous says:

    See that on the map south of Cayman? That is the Cayman Trench. Its sheer walls make us an excellent diving destination. Its sheer walls also could serve to effectively reflect most Tsunami energy. Has anyone actually modeled what would happen to a Tsunami headed our way from the south? My limited training in physics would suggest we would do pretty well and certainly much better than anywhere with a sloping coastal shelf. Hazard Management?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Would actually push the volume of water higher than the issued warning.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Folks, sunamis travel on the surface, not the bottom. The trench will do you no good. Having no coastal shelf for the surface wave to pile up on is a plus.

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    • Anonymous says:

      anon 1229 thanks for confirming that you dont know this science. its not the trench walls that would impact the tsunami but the deep water in the trench itself however if this tsunami had come it would not have had to cross that trench as it is mostly to the east of us.

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  20. Unison says:

    Thank God

    ☝️?I can’t see why we can’t have a phone system in place that rings everyone’s phone when there is an alert ?

    Trying to notify people through internet and media is a waste of time; especially, when people are in their beds sleeping ?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Sorry are we meant to thank the God who caused the earthquake for not killing us all

      Next you’re going to thank drunk drivers for driving carefully and not killing people

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    • Shhhhhhhhhh. says:

      Get real folks. The likelyhood of a tsunami in Cayman is almost zero. A close offshore shelf is a prerequiste to create one. This “ramp” is what allows the water to build up to danger height before coming ashore. We have no such “ramp” offshore here. Cayman is in reality, like a needle sticking up from the great depths of the Cayman Trench, and any tsunami waves would simply flow past almost un-noticably. Sorry drama queens!

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      • Anonymous says:

        Using your hypothesis, a tsunami coming from the North/North East would be dire for Cayman. The North Sound is 5-10 foot deep, plenty of space to build up height before reaching land.

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        • Anonymous says:

          100 north sounds isn’t enough volume (or area) to create a tsunami.

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          • Anonymous says:

            the deep water of the cayman trench would weaken it but the trench is to the east not to the west or southwest. water is not as deep there.

        • Shhhhhhhhhh. says:

          Negative. The North Sound is a flat shelf close to a sharp wall or drop off, NOT a sloping ramp needed to build up a tsunami wave.

  21. Anonymous says:

    If you are one of the people thanking God for sparing the islands from disaster just remember according to your logic God is the one responsible for the earthquakes in the first place

    Also according to all the people who claim that natural disasters are just God’s way of punishing sinners then why were people on Cayman worried? Aren’t the majority of you good God fearing Christians. Where are all the people who comment every time a hurricane hits New Orleans or Haiti (all the people who comment about obeah, gay people being the cause for natural disasters)

    When it comes down to it even the faithful are filled with fear at the thought of being struck by their “eternal lord and savior” or else this would not have been an issue at all, faith is a facade so that your inevitable death is that much less lonely

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    • Anonymous says:

      Don’t waste your time. Your attempt to explain what logic is is wasted on religious folk.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Yes. It’s much more logical to belive to universe spontaneously sprang into existence from nothing. That actually worse than magic, in magic you early least have a magician. Atheism is a religious cult of Godless incoherence.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Yet there is still observable evidence of our beliefs, the same cannot be said for your invisible sky God and his zombie jew son

          My kingdom for some individual thinking

      • Anonymous says:

        The sheer petulant arrogance from these Godless liberals is astonishing.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Arrogant – “having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities”

          Tell me which one of us has an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance and ability

          Me the person who believes that he is just a small part of and infinite and natural universe

          Or you, the person who clearly believes yourself to be God’s divine creation placed on this earth for a special purpose that is unique to yourself

          I can’t tell which one of us is arrogant
          I am not claiming to have all the answers but I do know for a fact their are inconsistencies in the bible that are unexplained, that the bible is littered with contradictions and clearly was inspired by religions and beliefs that predate it and that has been changed by people over the years (entire portions have been left out, lost in translation, edited out or removed in various councils of christian clergy and compilations of canon documents)

          Tell me again of how I am some clueless liberal who has no idea what he is talking about, I have studied the bible for years
          You’ll have to do better than that

          The only thing astonishing is your belief that an immortal, omnipotent and omniscient is concerned with the lives of individual people on one planet, in one solar system, in one galaxy, in one galactic cluster, out of trillions and billions and millions of each in the vast observable universe and that we are somehow special

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          • Anonymous says:

            The fact that you can observe it from here and talk about it on a blog site, thus far appearing to be one of the very few blog sites in the entire f*ing universe as far as we can tell should give you a clue just how special the earth and consciousness is. But noooo!!, not to a Godless arrogant fool that says onto himself “There is no God!”….in the face of full blown design and purpose.. There is no much design in the universe is basically slapping in the face with a shovel!

            Read “The language of God” by Dr. Francis Collins, the leading pioneer of the human genome project that became a christian upon the discovery of the genetic “code” that’s right Godless fool, there is immaterial “software” your DNA!

            Are you smarter than a doctor of genetics Godless Arrogant fool?

            You keep believing that the universe can pop out of absolute nothingness, but that make you a cultist, certainly not a scientist.

    • Anonymous says:

      Uhmmm….okayyyyy?????

    • Anonymous says:

      I hope when you figure out that you have no proof that your cackle is truth, it won’t be too late for you. You believe what you want to and I will believe what the Bible says. Try reading it, you might learn something.

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    • Charles Darwin says:

      Remember back when Irma was supposed to either hit us or go north? People here were praying that it didn’t hit us — well, why them (countries lying northern predictions), and not us?

      “Oh heavenly sky ghost, please don’t let the hurricane that you created destroy us. Make it destroy somewhere else. Or, you know, let’s just break physics for a bit and make the hurricane magically disappear.”

      And they say atheists are the nuts.. smh.

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    • Anonymous says:

      thanks for the pep talk.

    • Anonymous says:

      11:29 am. you have a problem with God take it up with him nah. Since you don’t believe in Hi why are you so then so vocal. I can tell you hat there will be a time before you depart this earth that you will utter the words Oh God, if you haven’t done so already and when you do so again think about your post. Any way Bless you my chile for you know not what you do!

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    • Richard Wadd says:

      If humans (who have only existed for a few thousand years) were able to comprehend and understand ‘GOD’ who would have existed for many hundreds of billions of years and from whom all things came, then we would be the superior beings. But since humans are limited by time & space and can’t even create a blade of grass without first COPYING what already exists then we would be stupid not to acknowledge the existence of ‘GOD’ in any form. The science and architecture behind the simplest organisms is still well beyond human capacity and understanding in spite of all of our technology today.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Exactly. The evidence is everywhere, our arrogance hides it in plain sight.

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        • Anonymous says:

          Ahhhh the “I have no real proof for my beliefs so therefore everything is proof of my beliefs” card

          I’ll raise you one “I use my brain and think for myself and I’m not a mindless brainwashed drone” card

      • Anonymous says:

        But, but Dart didn’t copy a blade of grass fo Caymana Bay. It’s all his baby. In HIS image.

    • Anonymous says:

      What a dark and ugly post. No offense, but I pray that you can find peace.

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  22. Anonymous says:

    What mechanism is in place by Hazard Management Cayman to ensure that the alerts that are issued are reaching the public in a timely manner?

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    • Diogenes says:

      There isn’t one
      Same with potential Prison escapes, fuel depot fires, dump fires and Tsunamis there is virtually no mass messaging system utilized by the government to warn the public of the potential danger

      Yet every day I can get mass text advertisements from my phone service provider

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      • Anonymous says:

        but yet I can numerous unwanted messages a day from flow -_-

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        • Anonymous says:

          Same here with Digicel. CNB and other unwanted ads bombard my phone daily despite me writing to them and asking them to desist from giving my number out to third parties. But I never got no tsunami warning. How was this warning issued?

      • Anonymous says:

        How else are you going to know there is a sale on patties at Esso?

        • Anonymous says:

          I called Flowlimecableandwireless and told them I didn’t want spam from my phone provider. They said that most people want the ads and would be disappointed if they didn’t get them. Sad. Then they lied and said there was no way to take me off their caca list. Sad.

          • Anonymous says:

            If we wanted them we should be able to opt in. When the data protection law comes out I am hoping the public will have some recourse against those that give out our numbers and personal info

    • Anonymous says:

      Reading the news? I mean, was literally all over the Internet about 5 seconds after it happened.

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      • Anonymous says:

        It happened at 10pm in the night when most people may have been up..what if it happened at 2am when you weren’t on facebook??

        Government needs a proper system in place to let us know when these things happen.. I didn’t even know about it until I got up this morning..Had it been a tsunami, I most likely would have died…crazy!

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      • Anonymous says:

        Yeah that works great for families who are already in bed sleeping! Hazard management is a complete joke!

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      • Anonymous says:

        Surely you don’t mean local news?

      • Anonymous says:

        If you have power and internet.

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