http://www.drudgereport.com/ Quake May Have Altered Earth's Rotation // May have shortened the day by 3 microseconds...Rattled Planet orbit, changed map of Asia... Quake, Tsunami Death Toll Passes 22,500 http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041228/D878DN100.html Dec 27, 11:05 PM (ET) By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA GALLE, Sri Lanka (AP) - Bodies washed up on tropical beaches and piled up in hospitals Monday, raising fears of disease across a 10-nation arc of destruction left by a monster earthquake and walls of water that killed more than 22,500 people. Thousands were missing and millions homeless. Humanitarian agencies began what the United Nations said would become the biggest relief effort the world has ever seen. The disaster could be the costliest in history as well, with "many billions of dollars" of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief coordination. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything, and millions face a hazardous future because of polluted drinking water, a lack of sanitation and no health services, he said. More than 12,500 people died in Sri Lanka, nearly 5,000 in Indonesia, and 4,000 in India. The International Red Cross, which reported 23,700 deaths, said it was concerned that diseases like malaria and cholera could add to the toll. Late Monday, Indonesian Vice President Yusuf Kalla was quoted as saying he believed the toll in the country could be as high as 25,000, that would be 20,000 more deaths than confirmed there so far and push the overall death toll to 42,000. "We don't have confirmed data, but I think between 21,000 and 25,000 people (have died), he said, according to the Antara state news agency. Dazed tourists evacuated the popular island resorts of southern Thailand, where the Thai-American grandson of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej was listed as one of more than 900 people dead. Scores more died in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives. The waves raced 2,800 miles across the Indian Ocean to Africa, killing hundreds of people in Somalia and three in the Seychelles. Eight Americans were among the dead, and U.S. embassies in the region were trying to track down hundreds more who were unaccounted for. Sunday's massive quake of 9.0 magnitude off the Indonesian island of Sumatra's northern tip sent 500-mph waves surging across the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in the deadliest known tsunami since the one caused by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa - located off Sumatra's southern tip - which killed an estimated 36,000 people. A large proportion of southern Asia's dead were children - as many as half the victims in Sri Lanka, according to officials there. A bulldozer dug a mass grave in southern India for 150 young boys and girls, as their weeping parents looked on. "Where are my children?" said 41-year-old Absah, as she searched for her 11 youngsters in Banda Aceh, the Indonesian city closest to Sunday's epicenter. "Where are they? Why did this happen to me? I've lost everything." Officials in Thailand and Indonesia conceded that immediate public warnings of gigantic waves could have saved lives. The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India more than two hours after the quake. But governments insisted they couldn't have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he would investigate what role his country could play in setting up an Indian Ocean warning system. The head of the British Commonwealth bloc of Britain and its former colonies called for talks on creating a global early warning system for tsunamis. Egeland said the issue of creating a tsunami warning system would be taken up at the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan from Jan. 18-22. For most people around the shores across the region, the only warning Sunday of the disaster came when shallow coastal waters disappeared, sucked away by the approaching tsunami, before returning as a massive wall of water. The waves wiped out villages, lifted cars and boats, yanked children from the arms of parents and swept away beachgoers, scuba divers and fishermen. In a scene repeated across the region Monday, relatives wandered hallways lined with bodies, searching for loved ones at the hospital in Sri Lanka's southern town of Galle - one of the worst-affected areas of the hardest-hit nation. People lifted blankets and soaked clothes to look at faces in a stunned hush, broken only occasionally by wails of mourning. A tractor brought in about 15 corpses of mostly women and children, some wrapped in white plastic sheets, while a Buddhist temple across the street tried to help people find their missing. "The toll is increasing," said Brig. Daya Ratnayake, a military spokesman. "We are finding more bodies." Indonesia and Sri Lanka had at least a million people each driven from their homes. Helicopters in India rushed medicine to stricken areas, while warships in Thailand steamed to island resorts to rescue survivors. In Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province at the northern tip of Sumatra, the streets were filled with overturned cars and the rotting corpses of adults and children. Shopping malls and office buildings lay in rubble, and thousands of homeless families huddled together in mosques and schools. The minaret of the city's 125-year-old mosque leaned precariously. At least 3,000 people died in the city of 400,000, which was virtually unique in the region in that Banda Aceh was destroyed by the temblor rather than the floodwaters. Officials said Indonesia's death toll could double to 10,000 when the full devastation in Aceh province becomes known. In Thailand, the government offered free flights for thousands of Western tourists desperate to leave the southern resorts ravaged by the tsunami. Chaos erupted at Phuket airport as hundreds of tourists, many bandaged and brought to the airport in ambulances, tried to board planes for Bangkok. Bodies were pulled from roadsides, orchards and beaches at Khao Lak resort, where the Swedish tour operator Fritidsresor said 600 Swedes had not been accounted for. Jimmy Gorman, 30, of Manchester, England, said he saw 15 bodies, including up to five children and a pregnant woman, on Phi Phi island, one of Thailand's most popular destinations for Westerners, "Disaster. Flattened everything," Gorman said. "There's nothing left of it." The United States dispatched disaster teams and prepared a $15 million aid package to the Asian countries, and the 25-nation European Union promised to quickly deliver $4 million. Japan, China and Russia were sending teams of experts. Egeland said he expected hundreds of relief airplanes from two dozen countries within the next 48 hours.
its complete insanity. anyone see the footage of them kids who went out to the look at the unusually low tide on the beach? it doesnt have a happy ending
my bestest friend tessa is in india right now doing work programs for the physically and mentally disabled to help teach them the skills to live independantly from government subsidies. if there is any form of higher power, or any justice in this world she will be safe and still on the west coast, and have not travelled to the east coast yet before the tsunami hit.
i hope your friend's okay, dm. i bet that if she's in one of the affected areas that she's helping to make a difference to a lot of people. drudgereport is saying 60 000 now.
wow.........lots of love and prayers to the victims families and nation as a whole and by the way...this sure looks like a good reason to give what we can and since we cant give of ourselves...well...i said my peice in another thread about charitable acts
I've been watching the news all night, couldn't sleep. I steel myself for the fact that someone might call and tell me I knew one of the missing persons. Talked to a friend today who's uncle with family stayed in one of the disaster areas, they were all ok but one of them was missing for a day 'til they got reunited. I haven't got a clue if anyone I know is down there, a lot of people go there on vacation. I guess time will tell...
my sister was vacationing in thailand on one of the little islands that was affected (phi phi, i think?). anyways, there was some sort of screw up with their reservations, and they ended up having to leave on the 23rd. they had wanted to stay until the 26th. so, she was safe in bangkok when the waves hit. she's so lucky. and i guess they were royally pissed off that they couldnt stay in their pretty little bungalow on the beach for xmas day. the mix up might have saved her life. she's at home now. friends of theirs that stayed on the beach lost everything that they had with them, and had a horrible and very scary night waiting on a little knoll on higher ground with about 100 other people. the tourists are the lucky ones, they get to go home. millions of people have lost their homes and are facing epidemics because there is no clean water and because there are so many dead. ps, there are watchdog websites who rate different charities. pick a good one, and you'll know that your money is going to be used wisely. http://charityguide.org/charity/charityratings.htm <--there's one. we are so blessed and have so much, donations will make a world of difference to the survivors.
i dont have money to give but there are un-used items around here that i would like to give... does anyone know a good organization and/or site for stuff like that?
for something like this to happen, much less the day after Christmas. It confirms my belief in a 'supernatural' creator, or creation - that's clarifying a message. Right now it wouldn't matter if somebody sent a billion dollars to those poor people. There aren't enough people to bury the dead that they have found so far, and it's possible that they've only found about half. Nobody who gives updated death tolls have said if that's the amount of bodies recovered or the amount they are 'projecting' to have died overall. So many of the countries and their leaders who are sending out letters of condolence, and pledging a few million dollars for the relief fund are going to look back on theese past three days as some of the worse decisions they've ever made in their lives. The U.N. is investigating a 22BILLION dollar scandal with the 60BILLION dollar "oil-for-food" program and they have approximately 150,000 thousand soldiers working to maintain a daily fight in Iraqi, which isn't far from this disaster. I don't know if I would want to send enough of my troops to the other side of the world to help bury or dispose of 50,000+ bodies , to prevent the US/UN from having to go over there in a few weeks to bury a Quarter of a Million people who are full of diseases... but If I had the power or the luxury of making that decision, it would be "a shoe in"... and they are already 3/4 of the way there. This government and others will probably keep doubling their measly dollar amount to provide relief to the "region" and to the Red Cross, as if money can change the outcome of this event in it's most crucial stage. Maybe nobody has really assessed this situation for what it already is and has the potential to become in the upcoming days... I just don't understand why no government in the world has starting sending People! They are about to learn a lot about responding to a "world rescue and relief effort" I hate this shit,, feeling sunk
from... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142719,00.html "Pacific Command also is assembling small assessment teams that will be dispatched to three countries in the region to assess how U.S. military resources can best be applied in those countries. The U.S. Navy said it sent three P-3 surveillance aircraft from Kadena air base on the Japanese island of Okinawa to Utaphao, Thailand, to conduct survey operations, and possibly help with search-and-rescue efforts." I guess the dozens of video's showing the amount of water that flooded the land or the amount of bodies on the beach and hanging in trees doesn't provide enough of a survey of the situation for them. Oh well, at least they can say they did something.
Death toll is now past 55,000. The US has pledged $15million in immediate aid money and the EU $4million, somehow I don't think that is enough.
well since the area is in the millions of square miles .... and to get an overall image as to were relief resources should be sent ...surveying is required... not trying to see whats on a few tourist tapes.
It's far from enough, but I don't think that anyone has claimed that this is all that is going to given--yet the criticisms weren't slow in coming.
All this is beyond my comprehension. Now it says on the news that there's been more than 60 000 dead this far. And it's only the beginning. What's gonna happen to all these people that have lost their homes... What's gonna happen to all these countries.. No clean drinking water... Diseases spreading... It just breaks my heart. We went to collect money today for the Red Cross to be sent there and it felt like every single person on the streets were so horrified of this disaster and everyone just wanted to help. It's sad though, that it takes 60 000 people killed before people wake up to realize that they have a chance to help. There are at least 5 people in my class in uni that were supposed to go to Asia (Thailand and India) for christmas. 3 of them are still missing. It's just heartbreaking. Everything is.
Nature: 55,000+ Humans: 0 Edit: But, seriously, don't you think this happened to Asia for a reason? It's because Asia is too fucking crowded. We've over-populated the earth, and now nature is doing its part by fixing that. Humans died! Wah wah wah! Shut the hell up. Look, it's either we over-populate the earth, or a shit-load of people die. Either way, it's unfortunate, and something gets fucked up. I, myself, would rather see the human race get fucked up. But that's just me.
What if earthquakes can be created or manipulated by people with the right tools? Who would own the tools? We destroy one country, but help another.
