OMG....giant tsunami!!

[TheRogue]

Giant quake creates giant tsunami...

Hey, Gus O, hope you're far away from this one.

Sad the warning systems not being in place were a big factor in many being killed. Heart goes out to the thousands and thousands of families affected. Now, they have to deal with the aftermath of a major disaster, disease and decay.

EDIT: Cool, Seaside is finally up with the rest of the coast, and has their warning and escape route signs up. Thanks for the clarification, Bluepig.

TR

[ampersat]

I caught the story on this yesterday. Amazingly tragic.

Heads up everyone. It really could happen here. Read up on subduction and northwest tectonics. It's scary stuff.

[ryleysmom]

My friends father lives in Thialand were this tsunami hit, thank goodness he decided to come over to the states to see his grandson for the first time and spend the holidays with his family.. Good thing he was here because he would have been home when this hit there country.

[StinkyH]

Pretty pathetic regarding the news coverage of this yesterday... I saw news blurb on google about this shortly after it hit and turned on the TV - NOTHING on any of the news channels or broadcast channels.

StinkyH

[hawgcatcher]

One of these could easily hit Oregon. In 1964 when the terrible earthquake hit Alaska, there was one that traveled down the coast. A family was camped at Beverly Beach near Newport and they were swept up in it and drowned.

The wave went clear down to Cresent City and there were lives lost there. We were all fortunate that no more were killed. Imagine if one hit during the summer when all the tourists were swarming the coast line and it hit during the day. A large loss of life could be here too, although probably not as many as in Sunday's devastating one.

At last count it was 24,000 dead but so many more missing. God bless their souls and be gentle with the ones that remain and may yet die from loss of food and disease.

[Striper Club]

My stepfather has been working in Thailand for the past 4 years. I am sure glad he comes back home for holidays. Such a tragedy that so many lost their lives. :depressed:

[Fast Water]

While I would agree that the coverage of the events were lacking initially, there are a few plausible reasons for this occurring.

First off the event(s) started Christmas evening when the amount of news coverage people available would be at a minimum at best.

Secondly, a significant amount of the affected South Central / SE Asia coastal villages hit by the tsunami(s) are reasonably low tech societies and do not have the connectivity and resources to report in what the Western world might consider a quick manner.

We are now getting a deluge of information and reports and I feel the reporting will continue to improve as the days pass.

I wish the people of that region all the best in rebuilding their lives, communities and economies.

[Kentucky Hog Hunter]

What a tragedy :depressed:

Could you imagine this happening and not being forewarned...

Some of those people didn't know what hit them.... This will be one of the most costly disasters in regards to loss of human life in our lifetime.

Someone said it right, this could happen in our own backyard very easily.

The ring of fire is definately active right now with active volcanos & earthquakes and we should all understand what happened in SE Asia could very possibly occur here.

God Bless those families.....

[Fast Water]

1991-2000 International Federation of Red Cross / Red Cresent Natural Disaster Summary Report

"Natural disasters killed a reported 665,598 people from 1991-2000. Of all those killed by natural disasters, 83 per cent were Asians. On average, natural disasters accounted for 88 per cent of all deaths from disasters over the last decade."

CLICK HERE FOR THE REPORT

[HammondSeaRanger]

seaside has warning signs up & South county dispatch has a pretty slick warning system in place.

The local emergency teams drill for this to happen. Evacuation maps are available throughout the area.

me .. I'm going west when the siren goes off ...

[fish assassin]

Let's see, the Cascadia Subduction Zone is like 25 or 30 miles off of Pacific City, OR.
The prediction is that we will see a 9.0+ earthquake when if finally pops. The resultant
Tsunami is being estimated to be around 90 feet (!!!) and to move on shore at approx.
100mph. You'll have about 15 minutes (give or take) before it hits.

If you are out to sea you could do a lot worse than heading West! (IMHO)

WORST thing to do if you are on shore and feel the earthquake or see the water
receeding very quickly is to run down to the beach and try to follow the water as it
receeds. If *EVER* you see the ocean receeding at a very fast pace ... run for higher
ground!!!! It means a tsunami is in the works regardless if you felt the earth
shake or no ...

I hope the folks get over this without too much more loss of life or suffering too much
more. Water born illness will be the big problem there for a while.

~assAssin~

[TheRogue]

United States pledges initial offering of about $15 million for relief efforts in southern Asia

Edit: Hope we (the US) can help out a little more than this, given current world situations.

Post changed due to political content (sorry, TR)

[Gus Orviston]

yep,, all is ok in China, the epicenter was well south and around the corner, blocked by the land bridge from Thailand to Malaysia.

Over here the news has been 24/7 on World CNN and the World BBC since it struck on Sunday 7:00am.

I don't know whether to think 7:00am provided the lowest casualty number or not, if it was later would more people have been near the water, or less ? ; especially since so many live right at the waters edge. Or if it was Monday would more children have been in school.

Geo religion background.
As for religion, some of the impacted is Muslim but to a lesser degree than posed earlier. India is Hindu (mostly) and its toll is 6,200 last night when I saw the news. Sri lanka is Buhdist , but other religions are practiced freely to the tune of 12,000 and climbing. Thailand is mostly Theravada Buddhists, and I think their numbers are also around 850 so far.

The key muslim countries are Indonesia and Maylasia, reporting 4,500 and 50 respectively.

here is the CNN break down
Bangladesh: 2;
India: 6,200;
Indonesia: 4,448 (est. may rise sharply);
Malaysia: 52;
Maldives: 46;
Myanmar (formerly Burma): 34;
Seychelles: 3;
Somalia: 38;
Sri Lanka: 10,529;
Thailand: 870.

The two countries that crossed my mind were Seychelles, which I thought was too far away, and Maldives. Both are only 3 feet higher than sea level (don't ask why I knew this) Anyway, being in the open ocean the wave was only about 2 meters high, it swept right over the entire Maldives islands!!!!! AMAZING.

Our neighbors in China had just left Xmas morning for Thailand, we have not heard from them and neither hvae their closest freinds. I knew they flew to Bangkok which was unaffected, but I don't recall where they were going from there?

I was wondering why there were no ifish post on it, I was assuming you all hadn't heard since the first numbers were in the couple of thousands.

gus

[StinkyH]

Much of this area is Muslim. What a way to reach out and try to "score some points" with this group, race over with piles of relief workers and money, and do whatever we can to help.

Instead...

We spend $1 BILLION a month in Iraq. I bet $1 Billion would go farther to help US relations across the world in the next month to help out in SE Asia than the next $100 Billion spent in Iraq.

TR

Not much oil in Sri Lanka...

StinkyH

[ampersat]

Now, now. Let's not make this political. I know the urge is there but let's just not go there, ok?

[StinkyH]

I hear you but:

Total U.S. spending in Iraq since April 2003: $166,500,000,000

U.S. Aid earmarked for Tsunami relief: $15,000,000

more of a token... :depressed:

StinkyH

[GutZ]

Does any one have access to the amount of aid these countries provided to the victims of the hurricanes in Florida?

15 million is just a start.

[Fast Water]

15 million is just a start.

Yeah, I heard that there is another 20 million in the works.

[StinkyH]

I heard this as well - good to hear. :smile:

StinkyH