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Across another ocean thousands of kilometres to the east and 11 hours after the first giant wave overwhelmed Aceh on 26 December, the tsunami registered on the Pacific beaches of Mexico. With an amplitude of a few centimetres to one metre at Manzanillo, it was small, but measurable none the less.

In the terrible aftermath of the Asian quake and lethal tsunami, other earthquake-prone countries are urgently looking at their own civil protection procedures. Experts in Mexico have cautioned that the current systems to detect an approaching tsunami minutes or hours before it hits the shore are inadequate.

In recent days, Mexican news sources have quoted Osvaldo Sánchez, of the Oceanographic Service and Cuauhtémoc Nava, from the Centre for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Ensenada (CICESE), and backed their calls for Mexico to upgrade the infrastructure to warn the local population of any possible tsunami danger along the unprotected central Pacific coastline. Researchers have emphasised the urgency of installing monitor buoys at 100km intervals along the length of the Mexican Pacific.

The region is not without major tsunami events. Over the past three centuries at least 18 destructive tsunami have struck the shores of present-day Colima, Jalisco, Michoacán and Guerrero states.

On 3 June 1932, a huge earthquake occurred off the coast of Colima and Jalisco, killing 400 people in the immediate area. Three weeks later, on 22 June, a strong aftershock generated a deadly 10 metre-high wall of water that swept away the fishing community of Cuyutlán, killing 75 and injuring another 100. Not a single building was said to be left standing along a stretch of coast 20km long by 1km wide.

The most recent hit on 9 October 1995. After a strong tremor measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, waves up to 5m high pummelled Barra Navidad and Melaque, 200km (120 miles) south of Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco.

Beach scene on Christmas Day – Playa Jardin, Michoacan

For those who return to a favourite Pacific beach after an absence of perhaps a year or two, the change in beach topography can be marked. The ravages of a hurricane or damaging waves associated with tropical storms continuously alter the shape and profile of the coast. Significant sections of beach can be lost making you believe you’ve mistaken ‘your’ beach for another. From my own experience, many of those living on the coast are tuned into the tell tale signs of ‘suck-back’ and the fickleness of the ocean currents. Day-trippers and those new to an area are often blissfully unaware of anything that may get in the way of their holiday.

As many as 85 per cent of quakes in Mexico have their epicentre less than 80km offshore, giving only a matter of minutes’ warning before tsunamis hit land. Up against a super-tsunami, those odds would make even Japan’s cutting-edge system effectively useless, without further advances.

Nevertheless, Mexican authorities have historically been slow to respond to natural disasters, so it will be interesting to see whether there is any fresh acknowledgment or re-assessment of Mexican vulnerability (however small) and a new awareness of the need for an adequate tsunami early-warning system. While earthquake drills are well-practiced, a programme for educating those who live in low-lying coastal areas of the latent risk on their doorstep may one day save scores of lives in the event of similar destructive waves hitting the Pacific coast of Mexico.

Those with vested interests in doing nothing need to heed the lessons of the Indian Ocean disaster and not sweep the issue under the carpet – perhaps for fear of unsettling tourism – rather like the issue of beach cleanliness I have raised in the past.

In November 2004, Mexican oceanographers from CICESE installed the first ‘real time’ observation post in Baja California to detect tsunami. Politicians now need to show foresight and release the resources to extend this facility down the Pacific litoral, as well as setting up the communications infrastructure to issue timely warnings to the general populace living near the ocean. The Asian quake not only set off a series of devastating waves, it set off a number of alarm bells elsewhere.

I’ve been following the Maribel Dominguez story (and posting here) since it broke last month. Today, The Guardian publishes a profile of Mexico’s best female footballer. “She may have fallen foul of the macho world of professional soccer when her ambition to play for a men’s team was controversially stifled, ” writes Jo Tuckman. However, following the resulting media frenzy “…big business names in Mexico are beginning to talk about sponsoring a women’s league, perhaps as early as 2006.”

Football’s world governing body, FIFA, has ruled that a leading Mexican woman footballer is not eligible to play for a professional men’s club. I wrote about this story on Friday.

Serapes
Originally uploaded by Robert Gold

Maribel Dominguez is rated one of the top women footballers on the planet. Now the 26 year-old, 5-foot-4 (161cm) striker has joined the Celeya club on a two-year deal. The (men’s) team currently play in Mexico’s Second Division.

Dominguez has scored 42 goals in 43 matches for the Mexican national women’s team. She told journalists: “This is a dream I have had, and now it is not far away.” Football’s ruling body, FIFA, has reportedly said that the decision as to whether she can play in the men’s league lies with the Mexican Football Federation. Meanwhile, Manuel Lapuente, who was Mexico’s national team coach at the 1998 World Cup in France, scythed in with this clumsy challenge: “My father told me you don’t touch a woman even with a rose petal. Now we are supposed to face a woman and slide in to tackle her.” Now surely that’s worthy of a yellow card for dissent..?

Kudos to our dear friends Ian Mursell and Graciela Sánchez of London-based Mexicolore, who have added loads of stunning new resources for teachers and pupils to their website.

Over the past 25 years, Ian and Graciela have used music, dance, drama, costumes, artefacts, crafts, slides and more than a dose of infectious enthusiasm, to bring Mexican history and culture alive to over 100,000 wide-eyed and curious school children the length and breadth of England. An incredible achievement.

The richness of the educational material on their website is, I believe, without equal and I cannot do it justice here. You’ll need to hitch a ride with their very own Aztec character, Tecpatl – ‘Tec’ for short – for a journey into Aztec life using Flash games & puzzles. Enjoy!

Sabrina Dent ponders her lost Louis Vuitton holdall and electronic baggage tagging in the zesty new travel blog, Wander Lust.

I feel compelled to mention the horrific story in yesterday’s Observer of how Mexican women desperate for full curvaceous bodies are dying in agony after illegal backstreet operations. Two years ago, Jo Tuckman covered the Matabellas, or Beauty Killer case in Guadalajara: ‘She said she’d make us look like Barbie dolls’. Be warned: the surgical descriptions and their horrible side effects are graphic and shocking. Jo’s reporting of this distressing phenomenon deserves wide circulation.

Essay: Latina Identity and the Perils of Femininity (pdf; 55KB) by Kathryn B. Everett.

Three cheers for Oxfam, who this week opened what it hopes will be the first in a chain of fair trade coffee shops, under the banner Progreso.

The move is the result of a collaboration between the charity and coffee cooperatives in Ethiopia, Honduras and Indonesia. Despite a boom in coffee consumption, coffee growers have seen prices slump by 70% since 1997.

The Oxfam-backed venture aims to redress the balance by giving the three cooperatives a 25% share in the business. A further 25% will be held in trust for projects involving other coffee growers.

The first café is located in the Thomas Neal Centre, Earlham Street, London, WC2H 9LD in London’s Covent Garden. Open daily from 10am to 7pm.

A second Progreso coffee bar is set to open on Portobello Road before the end of the year.

A plug for our favourite news service Palapa, a daily web guide to what the international press is saying about Mexico, published Monday through Friday by Scottish-born journalist Ronald Buchanan. Subscriptions are $400 USD/year for corporate groups and $100 USD/year for individuals. Discounts are available for students and educational institutions. For more information email Ronald or call him in Mexico City (+52 55) 5518-5771.