Condolences thread to people hit by Tsunami

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

I just wanted to make this thread as a place where you can express your condolences to the people that were killed and made homeless by the massive undersea earthquake (8.9 on Richter scale) off the coast of Sumatra. Death toll is now almost 23,000 dead and millions homeless. This is a truely unfortunate event and i can only hope this horror will soon be over (although i know the damage seen will remain visible for months to come). :depressed

Even though the mechanism behind the earthquake greatly interests me as a student studying Geology, it cannot measure up to the horror of the consequences of the quake.

[rorythedog]

I second this. Truly terrible and a reminder to us all how fragile life can be.

There doesn't seem to have been much anyone could have done either. Here's hoping that was the main quake.

It's always the countries who can least afford this type of thing too. :puzzled:

[madjo]

It is indeed terrible what happened there. Sad new for everyone there :(

I hope that many countries chip in to help them recover from this blow.

[Roj]

I just wanted to make this thread as a place where you can express your condolences to the people that were killed and made homeless by the massive undersea earthquake (8.9 on Richter scale) off the coast of Sumatra. Death toll is now almost 23,000 dead and millions homeless. This is a truely unfortunate event and i can only hope this horror will soon be over (although i know the damage seen will remain visible for months to come). :depressed

Even though the mechanism behind the earthquake greatly interests me as a student studying Geology, it cannot measure up to the horror of the consequences of the quake.
I know not what to say other than a totally inadequate "I'm so sorry". It's truly been a bad year with Mother Nature, what with hurricanes ravaging the Carribean, early snowstorms inundating North America and now this. Many unfortunates have felt her lash.

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

You know also the thing is that if something like this were to happen close to the USA, no serious many lives would have been taken because of an advanced detection system that can alert people in coastal regions to evacuate before the disaster strickes. I'm wondering if this system will now eventually be implemented in that region of the world. But i do fear it will probably be too expensive. Funny how it is no surprise that most of the developed countries lie in a tectonically and meteologically quiet area whereas the developing countries are situated right in the middle of it all - earthquakes, storms, droughts, floods, etc.

[killwinamp]

As it turns out, never in history were India and SriLanka ever hit by Tsunami waves. As a matter of fact India makes and launches her own satellites for these purposes (early warning systems...) However none of the existing ones monitors waves as such, quite simply because nobody ever imagined this to happen. The technology is there but its not been immplemented yet. The Indian scientists and researchers said that after this calamity the reqd system will be placed in 3-5 years. I know thats looks like a lot of time, but hey we make all of these things ourselves.

I do have a little good news though (on a personal front). My dad is in the Indain Army and is posted at Andaman & Nicobar Islands. He is safe and sound. All communication links were struck down when the waves hit. It took us close to 12hrs to hear from him. Those were the worst 12hrs of my life. He was playing golf on Sunday morning when the tsunami hit (the golf course is right next to the beach!) and he had first hand experience of the waves hitting the cost. He says seeing a 10mtr wave travel that fast was really something. The rest of the news is infact very grim. The islands have suffered the highest number of human casualties in India and suffered a lot of damage to properties of the indian navy and the air force. On one instance one whole airforce base got washed away (including the personnel and their families)

The islands are still rocked by earth quake (the one yesterday measured ~6)
So the buildings are not safe either.

The nuclear reactor had to be shut down because of flooding. The reactor has now been declared safe. This had caused major power shortage in peninsular India. The waves were so strong that they have changed India's coastline according to latest satellite images.

Revised mesurement indicate that the killer quake was infact 9 on the richter scale as opposed to 8.9 reported earlier (on the logrithmic scale this really matters). latest news is that total death toll is around 47000 and the figures dont seem to slow down from rising.

Its not just the immediate loss that is huge. Millions are displaced, ppl have lost their livelyhood, with thousands of corpses lying around there is threat of epidemics, ppl need food, medicine...

Its an unfortunate time for humanity. It is my humble request to all the ppl around the world to do whatever it is possible to lend a helping hand.

Thank you

[Roj]

I'm very happy to hear your dad is OK - I cannot imagine what you went through. It looks like your country is well equipped to deal with the issues of early warning from a technological perspective and the time factor does not seem long - these things take time to implement.

I do hope that the world responds to the needs of its own - we're all in this together on this ball of rock.


Be well...

[duckie]

More than 68000 deaths confirmed now. I have a good friend who had family holidaying in Phuket, no word has gotten through yet if they are ok. All I can do now is pray and make donations, which are such insignificant things against this tragedy.

[chicubs]

I know a lot of us here have major differences in political philisophies and beliefs but I think we all agree that helping the survivors of this much tragic event is of utmost important. My hopes and prayers are with all of those who have been affected by this devasting event.

[chicubs]

140,313 dead and still rising. It makes me sick to even think about it.

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Yup, luckily the world is very willing to help out. Over 4 billion dollars has been collected and is rightly so badly needed. I just saw a video that was newly discovered. It shows one of the streets where water slowly moves its way into (i cant remember where that was). The water level continues to rise and an enormous pile of debris can be seen floating in it, including cars and trees. This truely shows the awesome power of water. On the other hand, it makes me realise how devastating and lethal such a flood really is. :grimreape

[jkrzok]

I'm waiting to see what the money situation is 6 months and later from now. It's easy to give money now and that is fine and will meet immediate needs. But it will take years perhaps more to fully recover from a disaster of this scope. Will the money still be flowing when the news cameras are at the next tragedy? Will people be so eager to give once the inevitable stories of waste mismanagement and fraud come out? How big a difference did the tragedy's proximity to Christmas make in the money flow and will anyone still care come the Fourth of July?

[rorythedog]

It seems to have happened again. Not on as big a scale (touch wood), but to the same peoples. My heart goes out to them.

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Aye, indeed. I was shocked also when i found out yesterday. An earthquake, 8.7 on the scale of Richter is BIG. Luckily it seems there was no significant tsumani this time. That may mean the movement on the fault blocks was strike-slip (That is one block sliding past another instead moving below another). Yet CNN reports possible death toll is in the hundreds. And still that wont be the last big quake. The trouble is that the tension in the earth's crust is slowly transferred southwards due to the nature of the fault system and the direction of movement of the Earth's plates. So inevitably the next big quake will be even further south along the same fault line. The good news is that once this is all over, there wont be any big earthquakes for the next hundreds of years to come. No one even guessed there would be a major earthquake in the region in the first place because there are no records of any earlier big quakes which means that the tension in the crust had been accumulating over a very long time span.

Anyway, lets hope these people living there will get aid as soon as possible.

[rorythedog]

But if no-one could have predicted the last one how can you say there won't be another for hundreds of years?

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

But if no-one could have predicted the last one how can you say there won't be another for hundreds of years?

Because, like i said, it takes time for pressure (equivalent and opposite of tension) to build up between the moving plates (i hope you know about plate tectonics). Thanks to the presence of water, it is possible for oceanic and continental plates to even move at all. Mars has no plate tectonics, just what we (geologists) call "hotspot" volcanic activity. Hawaii is a prime example of a hotspot volcano. It's located smack in the middle of the pacific oceanic plate. Most volcanism and earthquakes take place at the borders of plates. But im digressing...

Think it of as two blocks of wood with glue on each side. Move the blocks together and make a sliding motion. There will be a lot of resistance to movement because the blocks want to stick together (because of the glue). When you build up the pressure by pushing harder and harder the glue will yield at a certain moment. The blocks will then move. This is what i mean by 'it will take time' because there needs to be a certain amount of potential energy to build up to cause another earthquake.

No one predicted the earlier quake because there were no records of quakes in that area. It was of course foolish to assume that earthquakes occur only where we know them to occur.

[Todd The Kiwi]

jeez, talk about getting kicked when you're already down :ermm: :(

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Another big Earthquake has caused a tsunami off the coast of Java. This Earthquake was 7.2 in magnitude with an aftershock of 6.1. I'm not surprised really. This was predicted very well with geophysical models and strain distributions in the rocks in the subduction zone along the west coast of Indonesia. The only problem with these predictions is that they cannot be constrained within hours or even days. You'd be looking at a time scale of months to years. However, as geophysical models improve, so will the Earthquake predictions. The waves were 3 - 6 metres in height and caused major damage but they did not go inland very far. Still people died and that is very unfortunate. At least India is properly warned in time now and other places...I hope...they better... Here (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2VYmEiB85C4&refer=)is the news article.