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Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the thats-never-good dept.

pfb writes "From reuters, 'The world's fifth-largest quake in a century has hit southern Asia, triggering a speeding tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India, drowning hundreds, and swamping tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives.'"

14 of 744 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Arthur C. Clarke? by mOoZik · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, he lives in Colombo. As you can see from the picture, he is on the coast. I hope he is all right. :(

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    A blog like any other.
  2. More earthquake links by zxSpectrum · · Score: 4, Informative

    I keep a list of earthquake related resources.

    --
    http://virtuelvis.com/
  3. Brother vacationing Thailand... by RefuX · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah my brother and wife (John and Brigette) are currently in Thailand and were planning to dive today... unfortunatly I have no idea where in Thailand they are....

    He hasn't cotacted me yet, but even if he wanted to I doubt he could.

    Fingers crossed!

    p.s. The British Foreign office have set up an emergency help line: 0207 008 0000, I havn't been able to get through yet, its really busy.

    1. Re:Brother vacationing Thailand... by RefuX · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well just got off the phone with Bridget's folks.
      It was a very close call, Bridget got up in the morning, looked out of the window and saw it coming.
      John and Briget started running
      On the way they overtook one person, he was unable to keep up.
      Some others who they were running with showed them the way to safety, the one guy they overtook, heh didn't make it...
      John's feet got badly cut up and they lost alot of their items.

  4. Re:Arthur C. Clarke? by Phosphor3k · · Score: 4, Informative
    From CNN's article on the subject:
    Sri Lankan officials imposed a curfew as night fell, and tourists were being evacuated from the eastern coasts to the capital, Colombo, unaffected on the west coast.

    http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/asia .quake/index.html
  5. 6300 dead at 15:13 GMT by fbjon · · Score: 5, Informative
    And it was around 3200 just a few hours ago. Here's the Reuters article. Watching BBC world, it appears that some northern areas of Sumatra still can't be reached, and the situation there is unknown. Here's a map of the affected area.

    It seems that a displacement in the sea bottom ocurred, moving 10-30 metres up along a rupture of 1000 km, causing a wave of hundreds of cubic kilometres of ocean water.

    --
    True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
  6. Latest News ... by sunsrin · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can find the latest news at http://news.google.co.in (The Indian Version of Google News )

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    >> Techflock-flock onto the best bits of technology
  7. Tsunami by sunsrin · · Score: 4, Informative

    More on Tsunami at Wikipedia

    --
    >> Techflock-flock onto the best bits of technology
  8. Re:Energy release by Snarfangel · · Score: 5, Informative

    A 9.0 earthquake would release the equivalent of 1,800 Megatons, so it would be in the same ballpark.

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  9. Creepy... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative
    ..I saw Phi Phi was hit hard. I've been there, and I understand why. It is shaped like a concave lens with the settlement in the bays on either side. The "ends" of the island are pretty tall with jungle and all, but inbetween, where all the people are it is maybe 2m above sea level. The floodwave sounded big enough that it'd pass straight *across* the island. I expect the cabins we used to rent are leveled to the ground.
    .__
    <..> <-- high ground
    .\/
    .|| <-- people, low ground
    ./\
    <__> <-- high ground

    Dots to avoid anti-ascii art crap :p
    It always feels so much more personal when you've been there. I don't think the odds are any different if you've been in one place or traveling the world, but it is always creepy to know "I've been there. That could have been me there."

    Kjella
    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  10. I live in Coastal South India by EqualSlash · · Score: 5, Informative


    I live in Chennai(Madras),(Capital City of the State Tamil Nadu - the region worst affected by the Tsunami in India ). For us, this is the first time ever something like a Tsunami hits our coast. The earthquake itself was not deadly but the tides alone were responsible for the death of more than 1000 people according to some reports. Since this happened early in the morning and the day being a sunday, not many people were awake at that time. In my city alone almost 100 poor fishermen who live in the huts along the seashore were washed away. Coastal regions in the Southern parts of my state where even more affected - a lot many were drowned in the flash floods. The fact that I was sleeping unaware of the whole thing at that time, less than a kilometre away from the sea, sends a shiver down my spine.
    You can find some pictures here.

  11. Re:Oh, STFU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Until 3 years ago the nation that gave most was Japan. They've cut back in the last few years though, and the US has given a lot of money recently to Pakistan, even though it has been selling its nuclear secrets to terrorists.

    The country giving the largest proportion of aid per unit income is Norway, which gives about 6 times as much as the US per unit income.

    I found some stats here if you're interested

  12. Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami? by Weird+O'Puns · · Score: 4, Informative
    It's explanied here: http://www.news24.com/News24/AnanziArticle/0,6935, 2-13-1443_1639881,00.html.

    Quote from the article:

    Seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said it caused buildings to shake in the island state for up to 15 seconds, but did not cause a tsunami or unusual tidal activity because it was of horizontal rather than vertical displacement and struck far off the coast.
  13. 'Inamura no hi' by suikyo · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a Japanese, and I feel I heard of the legend, but uncertain.
    So I googled.
    see the full story(Japanese page)

    The story was known as one article of our very old language arts schoolbook of national elementary schools. It was published about from 1937 to 1947. I've never seen the text, of cource, but I think I heard this story from my teacher.
    This is a story about a farmar and an earthquake which hitted Kishu (now, Wakayama Pref.), in 1854. Outline of the story is totally same as Rob Carr described above. In addition, he is not just a farmer, but a 7th meister of Yamasa soy sauce factory, a first chairman of council of Wakayama Pref., and a first minister of Post Office Dept. (It was a era of revolution...)
    For foreign countries, Lafcadio Hearn (known as Yakumo Koizumi in Japan) introduced this story first, in his book 'Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (ISBN:1596050217 or other)'. One Japanese teacher rewrited this to a simple and dense text for children, and choosed as an article of textbook by the nation. This version is re-translated to English, and taken in textbook of Colorado state elementary school, titled 'The burning of the rice fields' (the page is saying so. I don't know it's true or not).

    Actually, in Japan, everyone knows, I believe, that sea surface oftenly drawn off before a Tsunami. We live with earthquakes, typhoons, volcanos, and fires (because of densely build old wooden houses). We are so careful(even an exess sometimes) and preparing for such disasters, so we can imagine to some degree what is going on. It is terrible to have a great Tsunami without no warning and information. Systems and informations are required.