Tsunamis in South Asia

[Grey_Wolf]

indonesia. Shri Lanka. Thailand. India. Its hit all over southern Asia.

JAKARTA, Indonesia Dec. 26 -- A gargantuan earthquake centered off the west coast of Indonesia unleashed a series of tidal waves Sunday morning that crashed into coastal towns, fishing villages and tourist resorts from India and Sri Lanka to Thailand and Malaysia, killing more than 10,000 people and leaving many more missing.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the earthquake at 8.9 on the Richter scale, making it the fifth strongest since 1900. It was the largest since 1964, when Alaska was jolted by a quake measuring 9.2.

In the news this evening we're told that thousands had died as monsterwaves hit the coasts of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Maylasia and Indonesia and the mid-Bengal Bay-islands.

Update: the number of dead has risen to ca 70 000.

[Insidious Rex]

Two Swedes?? Over 10,000 people have been killed all over the south pacific! This was devistating. Thousands more are missing and feared dead. Many more havent been counted because their bodies were literally washed INTO TREE TOPS by the waves. This is an enormous catastrope.

[Insidious Rex]

indonesia. Shri Lanka. Thailand. India. Its hit all over southern Asia.

JAKARTA, Indonesia Dec. 26 -- A gargantuan earthquake centered off the west coast of Indonesia unleashed a series of tidal waves Sunday morning that crashed into coastal towns, fishing villages and tourist resorts from India and Sri Lanka to Thailand and Malaysia, killing more than 10,000 people and leaving many more missing.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured the earthquake at 8.9 on the Richter scale, making it the fifth strongest since 1900. It was the largest since 1964, when Alaska was jolted by a quake measuring 9.2.

[Jonathan]

Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, the Maldives, Indonesia... Several countries have been hit by the giant tidal waves after the quake.

Sri Lanka suffered the heaviest casualties, 4500 so far are feared dead. Three quarters of the Maldives were flooded. Tourists from all over the world were swept away from tourist resorts in Thailand.

There are seldom this many countries that ask for aid at the same time.

[Radagast The Brown]

Terrible ... more than 10,000 killed overall. I heard that with the right tools many of the deaths could be prevented... as it took the tsunami about 2 hours to get to Thailand - they had 2 hours to run away if they had those things that detect quakes.
They (TV) said it was moving at about 800 kph, and was 15 meters tall.

[Nerdanel]

Nature has shown her forces again. This is terrible..

[Insidious Rex]

Am I hallucinating or did my post work its way into grey wolfs first post?

[HOBBIT]

Yes I did it. I recieved a PM from someone, and I agree that it was not appropriate that the title be that "Two Swedes" die in this disaster and then proceed to only talk about 2 Swedes dying in it, when over 10,000 people perished.

[Lizra]

No warning system??

[mithrand1r]

Asia Quake's Tsunamis Kill Over 11,600

I do not think there was any warning for this event. I briefly heard about this on CNN channel. CNN mentioned that at some points the waves from the tsunami went about 2 miles inland from the shoreline.

Hopefully people will be able to predict and properly prepare for these types of tragedies in the future. However, short of packing up and moving, I do not know what can be done to prepare against a tsunami with 20-foot (~6 meters) waves.

[Grey_Wolf]

Sorry. Of course it is horrible that thousands of people perish in these floodwaves. Didn't mean to be a nationalist.

[Sister Golden Hair]

Here's an update from the Associated Press.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Dec. 27) -- Rescuers piled up bodies along coastlines devastated by a tsunami that obliterated seaside towns in Asia and Africa, killing 21,000 people in nine countries. Hundreds of children were buried in mass graves in India, and morgues and hospitals struggled Monday to cope with the catastrophe.

The death toll rose sharply a day after the magnitude 9 quake struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia. It was the most powerful earthquake in the world in four decades.

Walls of water sped away from the epicenter at more than 500 mph before crashing into the region's shorelines, sweeping people and fishing villages out to sea. Millions were displaced from their homes and thousands remained missing Monday.

"Death came from the sea," said Satya Kumari, a construction worker living on the outskirts of the former French enclave of Pondicherry in India.

"The waves just kept chasing us. It swept away all our huts. What did we do to deserve this?"

The governments of Indonesia and Thailand conceded that public warnings came too late or not at all. But officials insisted they could not know the seriousness of the threat because no tsunami warning system exists for the Indian Ocean.

Officials said the death toll would continue to rise, and the international Red Cross said it was concerned about waterborne diseases.

Sri Lanka said more than 10,000 people were killed along its coastlines, and Tamil rebels said 2,000 people died in its territory, raising that country's toll to more than 12,000.

Indonesia reported about 5,000 deaths and India 3,000. Thailand - a Western tourist hotspot - said hundreds of people were dead and thousands more were missing. Deaths also were reported in Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Somalia, 3,000 miles away in Africa.

On the remote Car Nicobar island northwest of Sumatra, Police Chief S.B. Deol told New Delhi Television he had reports that another 3,000 people may have died. If confirmed, that would raise India's death toll to 6,000 and the overall number to 23,900.

"The Andaman and Nicobar islands have been really badly hit,'' said Hakan Sandbladh, senior health officer at the Geneva headquarters of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Offers of aid poured in from around the globe, as troops in the region struggled to deliver urgently needed aid to afflicted areas.

In Bandah Aceh, Indonesia, 150 miles from the quake's epicenter, dozens of bloated bodies littered the streets as soldiers and desperate relatives searched for survivors Monday. Some 500 bodies collected by emergency workers lay under plastic tents, rotting in the tropical heat.

"We have ordered 15,000 troops into the field to search for survivors,'' Indonesian military spokesman Edy Sulistiadi said. "They are mostly retrieving corpses.''

Refugees in nearby Lhokseumawe, many of whom had spent the night sleeping outside on open ground, complained that little or no aid had reached them. The city's hospital said it was running out of medicine.

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu reported thousands of deaths. Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa called the scene "an extraordinary calamity of such colossal proportions that the damage has been unprecedented.''

Nearby beaches resembled open-air mortuaries as fishermen's bodies washed ashore, and retreating waters left behind others killed inland. In Cuddalore, red-eyed parents buried more than 150 children laid in a mass grave that a bulldozer filled with sodden earth.

The tsunamis came without warning. Witnesses said sea waters at first retreated far out into the ocean, only to return at a vicious pace. Some regions reported a crashing wall of water 20 feet high.

"The water went back, back, back, so far away, and everyone wondered what it was - a full moon or what? Then we saw the wave come, and we ran,'' said Katri Seppanen, who was in Thailand, on Phuket island's popular Patong beach.

Sri Lanka and Indonesia said at least 1 million people were driven from their homes in each country. Warships in Thailand steamed to remote tropical island resorts to search for survivors as air force helicopters in Sri Lanka and India rushed food and medicine to stricken areas.

In Indonesia, villagers near northern Lhokseumawe picked through the debris of their ruined houses amid the smell of decomposing bodies.

One man, Rajali, said his wife and two children were killed and he could not find dry ground to bury them. Islamic tradition demands that the deceased be buried as soon as possible.

"What shall I do?'' said the 55-year-old man, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name. "I don't know where to bury my wife and children.''

Dozens of bodies still clad in swimming trunks lined beaches in Thailand.

In Sri Lanka - an island nation some 1,000 miles west of the epicenter - about 25,000 troops were deployed to crack down on sporadic, small-scale looting and to help in rescue efforts. About 200 inmates took advantage of the chaos, escaping from a prison in coastal Matara.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's magnitude was 9.0 - the strongest since a 9.2-magnitude temblor in Alaska in 1964 and the fourth-largest in a century.

The quake occurred more than 6 miles deep and was followed by a half-dozen powerful aftershocks. A 620-mile section of a geological plate shifted, triggering the sudden displacement of water.

Countries around the world were touched. Italy reported 11 of its citizens had died; Norway 10; Britain four; the United States and Denmark three each; Australia, France, Sweden and Belgium two each; and New Zealand one.

Those numbers likely would rise. Sri Lanka said 72 foreign tourists were killed there, and Thailand said 35 of the dead were foreigners.

President Bush expressed his condolences over the "terrible loss of life and suffering.'' From the Vatican, Pope John Paul II led appeals for aid for victims, and the 25-nation European Union promised to quickly deliver $4 million.

Aid agencies and governments around the world began pouring relief supplies into the region Monday. Japan, China and Russia were among the countries sending teams of experts.

Jasmine Whitbread, international director of the aid group Oxfam, warned that without swift action, more people could die.

"The flood waters will have contaminated drinking water and food will be scarce,'' she said.

In Thailand, Gen. Chaisit Shinawatra, the army chief, said the United States has offered to send troops stationed on Japan's Okinawa island to assist. Thailand was considering the offer.

Tsunamis as large as Sunday's happen only a few times a century. A tsunami is a series of traveling ocean waves generated by geological disturbances near the ocean floor. With nothing to stop them, the waves can race across the ocean like the crack of a bullwhip, gaining momentum over thousands of miles.

An international tsunami warning system was started in 1965, after the Alaska quake, to advise coastal communities of a potentially killer wave.

Member states include the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America. But because tsunamis are rare in the Indian Ocean, no system exists there. Scientists said deaths would have been reduced if one had.


12-27-04 08:07 EST

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lizra

No warning system??

It's very difficult I believe. From what I picked up from the news, the epicentrum of the earthquake that triggered the disaster lay in sea. The earthquake registered at 8.9 on the Richter Scale. We're talking a major earthquake here. And if I'm not mistaken the earthquake originated on a fault line between two tectonic plates that always have been rather mobile. So it will probably be difficult to predict such quakes. But the size of this event is enormous. Thailand, India, Indonesia and Malaysia are hit badly. I heard some of the waves had high velocities (500 km/h!). There's no way a human being can outrun that.

I know what you meant, Grey_Wolf. National news tends to center about your own countrymen. We got the news that among the dead are at least two Belgians and some 15 are still unaccounted for. But compared to the high overal number of victims (around 11 000 dead already according to last night's news) it loses its importance.

This is really a terrible catastrophy. So many dead and missing!

[EDIT: there were two thread about this topic, I merged them together]

[Fat middle]

This is so sad

24000 people! I have no words for this. I only desire now that those countries may now receive all the help they need so they can bear better their pain with the feeling of being understood by brothers all over the world.

[Artanis]

This is terrible. So many people dead, and there will be far more, because now the drinking water is polluted.

Grey_Wolf, I know what you meant too, the news here is also concentrating on those Norwegians who lost their lives or who are still missing.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

It's very difficult I believe. From what I picked up from the news, the epicentrum of the earthquake that triggered the disaster lay in sea. The earthquake registered at 8.9 on the Richter Scale. We're talking a major earthquake here. And if I'm not mistaken the earthquake originated on a fault line between two tectonic plates that always have been rather mobile. So it will probably be difficult to predict such quakes.

I share Lizra's concern. Though it was impossible to predict the quake, it was immediately detected when it happened, and THEN it should be possible to send out a warning. I'm sure someone can come up with an explanation on why it did not happen, I still think it's horrible.

Before a flood wave like this the water is sinking rapidly, so also in this case. From what I've heard, there were a lot of people who went out to the beaches to pick up the fish. They had no way to escape the flood.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Artanis

This is terrible. So many people dead, and there will be far more, because now the drinking water is polluted.

Drinking water will indeed be the major problem now, along with the likely outbreak of epidemics. But from what I heard on the news yesterday the organisation 'Doctors without borders' is checking out the possibility of sending teams to the afflicted areas to purify the water supplies.

Originally Posted by Artanis

I share Lizra's concern. Though it was impossible to predict the quake, it was immediately detected when it happened, and THEN it should be possible to send out a warning. I'm sure someone can come up with an explanation on why it did not happen, I still think it's horrible.

It is indeed horrible. Especially when you consider that India had at least two hours interval before the flood hit them. But since floods like this are rather rare there, I can understand why there wasn't such a warning system in place. Hopefully they will now consider setting one up. Right now, the only warning people had was the sudden, giant withdrawal of the sea, but no one understood what that meant.

[Valandil]

*sigh* - I guess I 'know someone who knows someone...'

A girl I work with at my new firm is from India. A cousin of hers was on vacation with a few of his friends. They were on a small island which was apparently completely covered by the water.

No definitive word... but the family can only expect the worst.

[Andúril]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

24000 people!

55000 and rising.

[Insidious Rex]

Lets just call it an unmitigated disaster of staggering proportions and be done with it. Im already getting a little tired of the dead count obsession. People I work with have gotten into the habit of checking the web every hour or so to see "how many more people have died". They dont seem to fathom the utter tragedy of it. Its like watching stocks to them.

And looking at the countless heart wrenching pictures of parents unconsolable upon finding their children dead. I have to tell you it makes me feel horribly guilty for simply living where and how I live. I feel like I need to pay some penetence just for being lucky enough to be born in a wealthy safe land and have family and friends I take for granted. I feel like a miserable spoiled ungrateful self-centered heartless bastard for living comfortably and complaining about trivial things while half a world a way tens of thousands of people have lost their loved ones, their homes, every posession they own and are left in a land of poverty and ruin to fend for themself. And we sit here and complain about christmas presents we didnt like and delays in airports... *disgusted*

sorry Ive been needing to get this off my chest...

Originally Posted by Artanis

I share Lizra's concern. Though it was impossible to predict the quake, it was immediately detected when it happened, and THEN it should be possible to send out a warning. I'm sure someone can come up with an explanation on why it did not happen, I still think it's horrible.

Its probably the combination of the rareness of the occurance and the fact that most of these deaths occured in very poor places where expensive warning systems are considered not worth installing. I know we have them on the west coast of the US and Hawaii but those are much richer areas.

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by Lizra

No warning system??

Lizra, we have a tsunami warning system here in Oregon. I don't think they had one like ours in those places. My wife (who is a geology nut), suggested that tsunamis are so rare in that area of the world that many were probably taken by surprise, and nobody would think to put in a warning system in those places.