Korean Job Discussion Forums

Smee · Joined: 24 Dec 2004 Location: Jeollanam-do

(Yeah, I know this is "Current Events" but nobody reads that forum, so please leave this here for now).

Hyeon Een · Joined: 24 Jun 2005

Wow that sucks. The Korean Tsunami. Imagine if that had happened at mud festival time.. probably would have been dozens of people rather than just 9.

How common are waves like this? I don't recall any waves like this killing people in Britain growing up. I don't recall any others like this happening here either in the last few years.

agentX · Joined: 12 Oct 2007 Location: Jeolla province

Hey! I would've read it if you posted it in Current Events!

In this case, I'm looking at the earthquake map. There have been only 2 measured quakes in the Pacific rim above 4.0 around that time: One in the Philippines and one in Papua New Guinea. Hardly killer quake potential but I imagine a rogue wave like this has to start from somewhere.

kiwiduncan · Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Location: New Zealand

It was an example of true tidal wave rather than a tsunami. Apparently the sea to the west of Korea has some of the greatest tidal ranges in the world.

CentralCali · Joined: 17 May 2007

This happens from time to time back in my home of Monterey, California. Sadly, tourists there think it's a good idea to get photographs of themselves standing next to the sign that says, "Don't stand here! Dangerous waves!" I don't ever recall the death count being as high as this one in Korea, though.

So, this takes me to a rant on tourists. The public safety people at the place where you're "touristing" are not movie extras! They're really doing their job of trying to keep your stupid self alive and, one would hope, uninjured. Do at least some meager research on your destination before you go touristing. And definitely remember that stopping your car in themiddle of a one lane road in front of a fire engine with sirens and lights going is not a good idea as those are real firefighters on the way to a real call. (Yes, I personally witnessed an out of state tourist pull that stunt.) Pay attention to where you are and what you are doing. The most importan thing is: PAY ATTENTION!

By the way, now that I've let that rant out, you tourists shouldn't forget to inject a bunch of money into the local economy either. Very Happy

ReeseDog · Joined: 05 Apr 2008 Location: Classified

Monterey rocks!

CentralCali · Joined: 17 May 2007

Thanks. Remember the incident where the honeymooning couple got swept into the ocean? Very sad; the bride perished.

Yaya · Joined: 25 Feb 2003 Location: Seoul

I have to agree, if anything good came out of this incident, it's that it could've happened during the mud festival and many more could've been killed.

I wonder, however, how this tragic accident will affect the festival this year.

Arthur Dent · Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Location: Kochu whirld

This has happened on Vancouver Island as well. During the winter storms people come to watch the waves hit the rocks. The last ones I heard about were tourist from Europe. They seemed to feel it necessary to be in the spray path of the waves. Sad of course, but not smart.

Kimchi Cha Cha · Joined: 15 May 2003 Location: was Suncheon, now Brisbane

Happens fairly frequently along the coast near Sydney. Rock fishermen, particularly those inexperienced or not locals, fishing out on the rock shelf and getting too close to the waves, not predicting the strength of the waves or not accounting for freak waves. There was also an accident several years in Kiama, south of Sydney, which has a famous blowhole. A family, who were either tourists or recent arrivals to Australia, got too close and were swept into the blowhole and out to sea. Even worse was that five years later, two relatives of those killed earlier were also victims to the blowhole. The blowhole was fairly well signposted and I believe now is completely blocked off to prevent similar tragedies.

Tragic events, waves are quite unpredictable and its always best to exercise extreme caution.

Cheonmunka · Joined: 04 Jun 2004

Yeah, I went to Kiama when I was a kid, amazing booom sound.

VanIslander · Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject:

I was at the beach all day saturday. I even floated in the sea. Sunshine and calm weather.

I also "play it safe" and was nowhere near the beach sunday, well aware from the forecast that bad weather was on its way.

Koreans typically don't play it safe.

Sad, but true.

(When I lived on Geoje Island I saw from my apartment window plenty of locals go down to the bay to see the typhoon storm waves come ashore. I did a lot of annual head shaking.)