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Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia
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.'"
Tsunamis are notoriously difficult to detect, as they remain underwater until approaching the shore; also, the wavelength is in the order of kilometers, so it's very hard to track. However, I'm surprised earthquake detectors could were not used to evacuate people along the coast. A devastating loss of life is the result of such incompetence/inability.
A blog like any other.
The quake was centered in Summara, an island in Indonesia. I bet that they got the brunt of this thing, so their loss should warrant mention too, I think.
What's more, I hope that we in the first world waste no time getting aid over there. A lot of those countries lack the resources to deal with a tragedy on this scale.
I guess the news here are supposed to be stuff that matters. This matters.
What kind of time delay are we talking about between when the earthquake strikes and when the tsunami forms/hits the coast? I always imagined it was something very short, somewhere near a few minutes.
What could be done in that short amount of time, exactly?
I live quiet close to the shore in Besant Nagar- we got off easy - but it was awesome (not as in exciting but leave your mouth open gaping awesome) to see the sea swell up and eat up the shoreline. I was just driving past and saw a boat go up and down about 20-30 feet from the road!! I parked the car, grabbed the camera - but by then the sea had receded - but that was enough to cause serious damage to the hutments close to the sea. We had mild tremor to start the day - barely noticeable at around 6.30 AM - i looked up the internet and found Tibet post of USGS registering a 8.9 quake at Sumatra -looking at the map I thought to myself - all thats in the line between Sumatra and Chennai is the sea (and of course teeny weeny Andaman). Went out for Breakfast and on my return - this. Its unforgettable and cannot be described. Most of India's coast is devastated - I hear Sri Lanka, Maldives etc are pretty bad too. The Quake here was nothing - a mild shake at best - but the Tsunami that followed was something else Apologies for the verbose post - but I am struggling for words to tell what happened.
Except 80% of Indians are Hindu... and 70% of Sri Lankans are buddhists.
Me too, I hope he is all right, along with the several hundred millions of other people who live in that region.
My site has been following this story since I first felt the temor in Bangkok this morning: http://2bangkok.com/quakes.shtml#quake
3000 people died in 9/11 and people were outraged. 6000+ people die in Asia and nobody cares?
Yeah. Mother Nature.
Punishment for non believers and 9/11 I think?
Please. If you really believe that God's responsible, then you believe in a sick God: He punishes people (including innocent children) via tsunamis just because he doesn't have enough fans? I seriously doubt other Christians would share your view.
Dude, you are fucking nuts. Make a favor to mankind and just shut up, its because people like you that we are heading again to the Dark Ages. People like you spread hate and fear between humans disguised in the form of religion, people like you make war and kill in the name of some kind of god that you never saw or feeled. you represent the worst of mankind
I've heard no word in the news about Arthur C. Clark. While thousands are dead, he likely has a sturdy structure to live in, and it would be unlikely statistically he perished. Has as been posted though, he lives on the coast so really stating any odds would be hard. I hope he is alive, but only to the extent I wish anyone life and happiness. He has lived a full life, and should he be gone our concern should be with the living. Ironically should he have perished, it would probably inspire more aid for those left alive.
Hopefully the now approximately 6000 estimate wont climb much higher, but if the past is any guide expect this to grow at least past 20,000.
BTW is it just me, or does it seem in poor taste for News outlets like FOX and CNN to focus on possible American casualties when these kind of natural disasters happen? I can understand this in the case of Attacks and Bombings, since Americans could be the targets. But with thousands dead, the news agencies are scrambling to find out if one or two Americans snuffed it.
Letter To Iran
a) Disaster management techniques: We in India need better processes in managing relief work after disaster has struck; compared to first-world standards, we're woefully under-equipped in terms of emergency medicine and an infrastructure that can rescue people within, say, two hours of something striking. Perhaps a volunteer force or something; we really can't be falling back on the Army each time shit happens.
b) (My personal favourite) A redundant communication network: More ham radios/VSAT terminals/whatever throughout the nation. Cheap and requires more of a community participation than governmental intervention (which (a) would need).
More than mere navel gazing.
Are you from the US? Probably more people have just died than died in 9/11 ... did you see *anyone* say anything as crass and insensitive then? Whether it affects you directly or not it affects a lot of slashdot readers.
You, matey, are an arsehole.
This is an astounding loss of life, and a healthy fraction of the posts are just evil. If this is what slashdot has come to, prejudice, intolerance and ill-will for those that have suffered, I'm outta here. These are your brethren. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts that have been hit by an unannounced, unpreventable, and unknowable tragedy. I'm appalled.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Am I the only one who finds these death countings insensitive and dastardly? It sounds like you folks are keeping score in some video game, 7000, 8500, 11500! Yeah High score! ... Let's just say thousands have died and millions affected and get to the task of fixing things up again.
And no, I don't buy that "every life counts" BS. Of course every life counts, whether it's the first one affected by this or the last. But IMO, this running total has quite the opposite effect, it dehumanizes the event into a mere sensationalized news item.
+5 interesting? Give me a break. The moon exerts the same gravity pull on earth whether it's full or not. It's like nobody on this site knows about science.
It's not like the punishment was meted out by man. They chose to live there, they die. Welcome to real life.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Various bits of the net are hard to get at right now (from Oz, that is ...).
... anyone heard any reports?
Wondering if the quake has caused any probs
Uh, you do also realize that there were a large number of Christian tourists at these beaches, correct? I was reading articles about people snorkelling/sunbathing being swept away. If God's after the "non-believers", he shouldn't wave his hand and wipe away hundreds/thousands of his own disciples.
Did they really have the choice?
Before you click "Troll," please hear me out:
On each anniversary of September 11th, I've consistently encountered people who asserted that our grief was selfish and unjustified because "worse disasters had happened elsewhere" - that is, had a higher bodycount.
Here's just one example: This seems to be the prevailing attitude among many: the scale of a human tragedy is directly proportional to it's bodycount. It's an attitude I've encountered multiple times in Real Life as well as on
Well, I'd like to write now what I wrote then, over two years ago...someting to keep in mind while you're reading this coverage:
The very notion that the relative significance of human tragedies can be "ranked" by their respective bodycounts is itself sickening.
This is truly a sad day for all of humanity. 11,000 people is a huge incredible loss of life. We can talk about the science behind tsunamis all day long, but let's all take a moment to pray for the victims of this catastrophe. Keep in mind that it's not just 11,000 dead, but it's millions homeless, without clean water or food, or a place to live.
If you can, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give some money to one of the many relief organizations that is working to help feed and shelter people in the affected zones. I am sure the International Red Cross would be a good place to start.
I was snorkeling at Phi Phi just a few weeks ago. And I stayed at the Holiday Inn resort on Patong beach... just a couple blocks from the Zen sushi restaurant in this AP photo. I agree that it is a very odd "I was just there" sensation. Especially since my thoughts while there centered on how it is such a nice and relaxing place to live. My thoughts turn to the boat captains, the receptionists, the nice guard at the hotel, the watresses at the Todai down the street, the metal sculpter I bought a beautiful Alien figure from... Many people I recently interacted with, and no telling if they're still alive. Even if they're okay, they surely have friends and family who aren't.
These types of events are always very tragic, and with a closer perspective, all too real.
"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."
too bad you weren't right in the path of the tsunami. it would have considerably improved the IQ of both the world and your country. you might want to check out the predominant religions in the hardest hit countries
In a reply to both siblings. You are probably right, this is not specifically geek news. Maybe we should alter the story tital to "Tidal waves seek out and kills hundreds of computer users and destroy thousands of computers. Oh and 20000 poor people died." No that would be too cynical.
My main point though is wether or not the incident is natural or man made the story matters. The geek side comes in all over. This will probably see major tech spending on new facilities and warning systems. New research into quake prediction (if the Indian scientist was correctly predicting to within a short distance and less than a half hour then someone is about to throw money at him). There was likely a number of readers of slashdot killed by this ( with a million+ readers, someone was almst certainly in the area ). Geeks also dig, big natural disasters like volcanoes earthquakes etc, so that makes it geeky as well. Good grief the ultimate geek bit is the fact a worker from the special effects team of the LOTR's was in the area and unheard from so far.
Now as to the apple and oranges excuse as to why 911 was news for geeks (with numerous articles spread over weeks) and this isn't. I personally think it is pretty close to nationalist relativism or possibly even racism. Complaining about one story on a big disaster (which is at least 8 times worse in lives lost and 500 times worse in people directly effected and probably 5 times worse in monetary damage) while trying to justify the stories about a smaller disaster ( with just as little geekiness) appears simply wrong, and suggests ulterior motives.