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

Shiver me Timbers

I've been thinking about this too. Very shady information from Indonesia, and no news from Burma. I can't think of any reasons why these countries should be less affected than Sri Lanka. Once accurate figures are released from these places, it's hard to see where it will stop.

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maree

Thanks for your concern, Conor M... yes, I was in Sri Lanka and was heading to the south coast from Ella that morning when we were diverted away by police who said that Matara was under water. Didn't know what the story was at that stage but put the radio on in the car and found out... drove 12 hours on side roads back to Colombo hearing more and more of the deaths and devastation. I'm very worried about the friend I was meeting in Ahangama, between Matara and Galle... there are no communication lines open. I'm very shaken, teary and just count myself very lucky to be alive. I'm back in Bangkok now... and the news is grim in Thailand too. I teach in a school and a lot of students and staff were vacationing on the south west coast. If anyone is here in Bangkok, you can donate blood at the Nation Blood Centre, 1871 henry Dunant Road, Patumwan, Bangkok 10370.

Vasko

Now it's not only Asia, it's Africa too: deaths have been reported in Tanzania, Kenya and Somalia!

nessie

The news stations on Indian tv make for very distressing viewing. The scenes of parents clutching the bodies of their children are so horrific. I'm sure it's the same in each of the countries affected.

The BBC website has personal accounts from people all over the struck areas, including Burma and near Aceh : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4125619.stm

Isn't there some sort of alert system once there is an earthquake and surrounding countries are informed and ready to brace themselves along the shores? I'm not sure how this would be achieved in places like Chennai where they are so densely populated but no warnings seem to have gone to any of these countries.

manojb

I think that's a bit unfair. One prepares for contingencies that one thinks are likely to happen. We do not prepare for volcanic eruptions in the UK, for e.g. The last tsunami in the Indian Ocean was in 1506, according to one news report. Nobody even thought of the possibility, not even scientists. Hindsight is always 20/20 and it is easy to criticize after the fact. Now the Indian Ocean rim countries will perhaps set up a monitoring system.

DouglasT

Hello everyone,
Right now I'm in Chennai and it's not so bad here. The one thing that I did find to be very strange though were the police at the beach. They were doing nothing but guarding the beach. Sonja Ghandi was here today but I'm trying to figure out why. They used up so many police resourses when they could have been helping people. Yesterday, there were still a few bodies floating around. This is really overwhelming. I also know now that everyone I knew in Marrisa, Sri Lanka is dead!
I was wondering if there are any India Mike people here that wouls want to get together. I'm staying at a place called the R. K. Lodge in room 301 the phone number is 2848 7550. I was just thinking it would be nice to meet up with some other IMer's.

jay_kiran

Forget about the The US Geological Survey, even the INDIA METEOROLOGICAL DEPARTMENT in Chennai knew about the Quake. They have it on their website with the exact time (down to milli seconds) and latitiude and longitude etc ..

http://www.imd.ernet.in/section/seis...ic/welcome.htm

They clearly had 3 hours before the Tsunami hit Chennai. I cant believe they could not even put up some kind of warning atleast in Chennai's main beaches !



Looks like they expect local fishermen to log into their website for updates before going fishing !!

jay_kiran

Just amazing to note that many of the earthquakes that appeared all
over the world in the recent past
were all on the date 26.


Year Month and Date Place of Earthquake

2001 January 26 Gujarat

2001 September 26 Chennai

2002 December 26 China

2003 January 26 Newzealand

2003 May 26 Japan / Taiwan

2003 September 26 Japan(Hokaido)

2003 October 26 China (Sunsu)

2003 December 26 Iran

2004 December 26 South east Asia

Rob_The_Pom

If anyone has Asia Miles (which is the Cathy Pacific and a few other airlines air miles programme) you can turn those miles into a donation and Cathy will match it.

www.asiamiles.com

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Matty Gee

How can a country that has the knowhow to make Nuclear Weapons, not be able to get it's people 2km inland away from danger?

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lose

hey,
I'm Lieselot from Belgium, and a friend of mine Sofie Colpaert is travelling in india for the last few months. Saturday she called her parents to wich them a merry Xmas (9pm, probably from Pondy) She was going to find a place for the night and spent the next day there.
We haven't heard from her since then, so please if you know anything, let us know.
Communication is probably very hard in the area (she doesn't have a mobile phone either) so we have to rely on information from anyone to know whether she is alright.
Does anybody know what the situation is in Pondy?
and again if you know anything about Sofie Colpaert, please let me know.

picture from sofie on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3881705...sofiecolpaert/

thanks

vistet

I think this is probably unfair . As somebody else said earlier : we can only prepare ourselves for the things that are within our experience , as individuals or as a society. I agree it`s scandalous that no warning was issued , but the effect of this warning would necessarily have been hampered by the lack of any prior experience remotely like this.

deepsesame

Matty,

Just the same way like a country that had advanced fighter jets that could shoot down planes hitting the twin towers,actually saw nearly 10000 of its citizens die in broad daylight

And that was not even a natural disaster with no prior experience,Apparently the US had enough warning on attacks.

-Deepa

wonderwomanusa

>>Isn't there some sort of alert system once there is an earthquake and surrounding countries are informed and ready to brace themselves along the shores? I'm not sure how this would be achieved in places like Chennai where they are so densely populated but no warnings seem to have gone to any of these countries.<<

I think the last time there was a tidal wave in this area was when Krakatoa blew up in the late 1800s; I suspect that because it's a rare occurrence, the decision was made to NOT put in a warning system.

And really, the way things are maintained in India, do you think a warning system installed in, say, the mid 1980s, would be working this week?

lose

Sofie send a mail today, so she 's alright. she took a bus sunday and was away from Pondicherry. I'm very relieved off course. Still thousands others are dead, so my thaughts go out to their families.

thx anyway