Terrible Earthquake, Thousands killed,,,,,,,,,

seventies'hippy

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Sunday December 26, 06:29 AM

Quakes and tsunamis hit Asia
By Arjuna Wickramasinghe

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A huge has earthquake rocked Southeast Asia, setting off tsunami tidal waves that killed more than 150 people in Sri Lanka, sent residents rushing to high ground in Indonesia and washed into the Indian city of Chennai and the Thai tourist island of Phuket.

The quake of magnitude 8.5 as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey first struck at 7:59 a.m (12:59 local time) off the coast of Aceh province on the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra and appeared to swing north into the Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean.

Thousands of people are killed

Rob_The_Pom

The quake has been upgraded to 8.9. This is an enormous quake and I desparately hope that the devastation isn't as bad as indicated.
It is a horrible coincidence that it is a year to the day since the Bam quake.
My heart goes out to those suffering.

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Dayglowhamster

It was a Poya + Christmas day in SL - that will have saved countless fisherman's lives!! I can't get through to SL landlines of friends.

The death toll there might be as high as 1300 - it looks like the south east coast was the worst hit!

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Vasko

It seems Chennai and other areas in south-east India have been hit pretty bad, too. Terrible. My condolences to everyone affected...

I'm just watching BBC and I fear that the destruction is on a larger scale than first thought...

rab

Looks nasty. There is some coverage at www.bbc.co.uk/ but not much definite news yet - it reckons there will be over 2,000 dead in India and Sri Lanka, a lot of people simply swept by tsunami tidal waves out to sea.

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mira4bai4

This is awesome - terrible, shows just how vulnerable so many are, the number of apartments in Chennai that have been damaged from the quake is worrying but the number of fisherman that are lost out at sea, thats almost the whole of the fishing population. There are so many ramifications from a double wammy like this.

mercedes10

This is such depressing news! My thoughts go out to all those affected. India & Sri Lanka seem to have been worst hit. Latest death toll is 1500 in India and 2000 in Sri Lanka :-(

If anyone knows of anything going on to provide help/aid/fundraising please let me know as I would like to do something to help.

Vadim Chiline

Oh god, this is just the worst news we can hear. My heart goes out to everybody there. I hope world organizations can help as best they can. The death toll is 6,300 so far.

Makes my life seem just so meaningless, I'm here typing, and I can't lend out a helping hand.

8.9... jeez, that's incredibly strong. I think the most I've experienced here was 4.5.

Shiver me Timbers

No news on the Andamans - it doesn't look good for the islands

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Wanderratte

Appartently the airport is damaged and especially Nicobar has suffered badly. Our plane was supposed to leave for Port Blair tomorrow morning, but of course they canceled all flights now. The crack in the earth seems to run from Sumatra all the way to the Andamans and they are expecting some pretty hefty afterquakes. They sent the navy out for crisis relief.

We were on Chennai beach when it happened and already that was scary enough. Thousands of people running from the beach in pure panic. After the first tidal wave people actual ran TO the beach to rescue people and belongings or just look on. They were caught by surprise by the second tidal wave. I've seen quite some bodies been dragged out of the water...

It really is bad and of course the ones that don't have anything to begin with were hit worst.

Rob_The_Pom

There seems to be an appalling envitability that this will turn out to be one of the worst natural disasters in history. The death toll seems to be rising dramatically every hour and the information feed is still extremely limited. One can imagine that there is virtually no link with some of the communities in northern Sri Lanka due to the political climate in country. The same can be said for Aceh in Indonesia. I suspect we will hear little from Burma at this stage due to their Govt.(Their coast appears to be hit as well)- If Shimla reads this post please let us know any more information about Burma.
Bangladesh is also a cause of concern because of its geography - we've had almost no information from there as yet either.
As Connor and Wanderatte mentioned above it looks bleak for the Andamans.

I hope my pessimism is proved very wrong.

I pleased that the UK has already despatch rescue teams to the region. This is a time for the world to do all it can.

Jeroen

Truly horrific. I'm sitting here in Holland between the Christmas decorations thinking of the places I visited in South India this year that must have been struck by this disaster - even Kochi was hit, I read. My sympathy to all affected in the region.

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skell

I just heard the heartbreaking news from friends I was traveling with last week. Our hotel and the coastal restaurants in Mammallapuram have been severely damaged and many are missing. In Chennai, the esplanade with all the food venders and a couple of hundred people who were out jogging were all hit be the tidal waves, with many missing.

I am looking into where best to send money to help out. Would welcome suggestions from IM also.

Dayglowhamster

The death toll in Sri Lanka alone is now reported at 2,300.

Shiver me Timbers

I'm sure it's also occurred to everyone here, there may be many fellow IMers in the region - off the top of my head I can think of Maree in Sri Lanka, it would be reassuring if we could locate them.