Agence France Presse

Hong Kong, January 6:

Just 11 days after Asia’s tsunami catastrophe, conspiracy theorists are out in force, accusing governments of a cover-up, blaming the military for testing top-secret eco-weapons or aliens trying to correct the earth’s ‘wobbly’ rotation.

In bars and Internet chatrooms around the world questions are being asked, with knowing nods and winks, about who caused the submarine earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, and why governments were so slow to act in the minutes and hours before tsunamis slam-med into their shores, killing almost 150,000.

“There’s a lot more to this. Why is the US sending a warship? Why is a senior commander who was in Iraq going there?” whispered designer Mark Tyler in Hong Kong. “This happened exactly a year after Bam,” said Tyler. “Is that a coincidence? And there was no previous seismic activity recorded in Sumatra before the quake, which is very strange,” he said, nodding somberly.

After every globally shocking event conspiracy theorists emerge with their own sinister take on events. This time the Indian and US military are in the frame. Among the more common suggestions is that eco-weapons which can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves were being tested. More outlandish theories include one that aliens caused the earthquake to try and correct the “wobbly rotation of the earth”.

Scientists give such theories short shrift. “This was a natural disaster,” said Dr Bart Bautisda, chief science research specialist at Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. “It’s impossible.” Scientific evidence, however, cuts little ice with many conspiracy theorists.

The Free Internet Press has an article saying the US military and the State Department received advanced warning of the tsunami, but did little to warn Asian countries.“Why did the US State Department remain mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe?” Author Michel Chossudovsky pondered. The India Daily’s website joined the conspiracy theorists noting, “It seems the whole world decided to fail to do anything at the same time. Are we missing something? Can it be that all the government agencies knew what was happening but were told not to do anything? Who told them? Or is this just a tragic coincidence?” wrote Sudhir Chadda, a correspondent.

“Some in Nicobar Island say that it was an experiment conducted by the alien extra-terrestrial entities to correct the wobbly rotation of the earth.” In Hong Kong, Tyler laughed at the alien idea, but remained convinced humans had a hand in this disaster. “Wait and see. There will be a lot more to come out,” he said.