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.'"

Comments

Hope they're all right..

[priestx]

Wow this is pretty major. Unpredictable or overlooked? At any rate I ghope they're ok.

Geez....

[bugbeak]

...set off by the 8.9 magnitude earthquake...

Windows in JAKARTA, Indonesia, were rattling, and some even broke. And that is a 2-3 hour flight away from the epicenter!

Re:Geez....

[digitalchinky]

Didn't feel anything in Malaysia - Kota kinibalu, but that's just me.

Re:Geez....

[acz]

I actually live in Jakarta and didn't notice anything.

Re:Geez....

[The Cydonian]

Based in Singapore, and am just off calling folks back home in India (and elsewhere).

Felt nothing here *in* Singapore myself, but guys, I can't tell you how awed by the sheer REGION this covered; there was a 2m wave in, hold your breath, Seychelles which is about twice as far from Indonesia as the Indian sub-continent is.

Re:Geez....

[fbjon]

It depends on what kind of house you are in, and what floor you're on. The higher you are in a house, the more the swaying of the house can be felt. Once I was sitting in a chair in my room (3rd floor in a concrete house), and felt my head getting bumped against the fridge, loose things mocing a bit, and some sounds. Guys from the 1st floor later asked, "Quake.. what quake?". Also, I think local topography can affect to some degree.

Re:Geez....

[bulliver]

Very poor taste buddy...

Re:Geez....

[Zemran]

I am in northern Thailand (about 1000 miles north) and it woke me up. The chains of the fan rattling against the light. I called some friends that live near to the coast and they had been to hung over from the night before to notice anything. One friend had not even heard about it until I told her and she lives very near the coast but a few floors up.

Difficult to detect / prevent

[mOoZik]

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.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Anonymous Coward]

A BBC World report said that this sort of warning might be available in the Pacific where such things are more common but is not (yet?) set up for the Indian Ocean.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[danamania]

They also have the ability to travel terrifically long distances. Sumatra to India isn't a small stretch, even if they're relative neighbours.

What I'd like to know is - did the wave reach the east coast of Africa? Madagascar? did the Seychelles feel any of the effect? It was only this year a BBC documentary about tsunamis indicated they could easily travel across the largest oceans, but there hasn't been any news of African flooding.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[enosys]

Yes, they're difficult to detect over deep water. However, the earthquake was obvious enough and one should assume that there may be a tsunami after a quake like that. There should have been some kind of warning.

Maybe some of the countries didn't have any sort of tsunami warning system. The west coast of USA and Canada has the NOAA West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[d_strand]

You're beeing a bit harsh. These waves travel hundreds of kph/mph so any warning will only give you a few minutes, at most maybe an hour. All countries in the region are poor and not very well developed so they cant afford the types of systems you're talking about. Mostly they rely on western countries for warnings and the timings are very tight.

A warning system should really be installed along the american southeast coast. The mountains/ocean shelves on several islands of the european/north african coast are extremely close to colapsing into the atlantic which would send enormous tsunamis towards USA. USA, as opposed to the countries struck today, can afford the systems...

going back to hoping my neighbours made it... they're on vacation in Phuket

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Teun]

Tsunamis travel at about 950 km/h, that's about the speed of a high altitude jetliner!

As these events are rare around this part of the world there has so far not been a need to set up a warning system.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[FRiC]

Sorry, but Phuket got hit pretty bad. Right now (11 PM local time) the TV is showing the damage from Phuket, and people are calling in to the TV station reporting names of the deceased.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[mOoZik]

I don't think I am. We're talking about thousands of dead people because there was no system in place to potentially avert or lessen the impact of such a disaster. Instead of making excuses like you and others seem to be, you should instead be concentrating on what COULD HAVE been done and what SHOULD be done in the future. Even if one life is saved as a result of such a system, then it is successful. I understand that funding and related politics may hinder such a warning system, but feel it is in the interest of those countries - as well as humanity in general - to take every step to lessen the impact of such disasters.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[d_strand]

I know. Been watching cnn and bbc all morning. Times like this i wish i was religious.. :-(

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[d_strand]

I agree. I just meant that the nasty political/economic reality means there wont be any systems like this in poor areas of the world. If not even the US will build one (pocket change for the US government) because it "allmost never happens", not many other will spend the money either. A few 1000 deaths every few years or so means nothing on a global scale. I dont agree with this, I think a single life saved is worth millions and millions of dollars, but I'm not the one in charge.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Rakishi]

And those millions would be diverted from something, like setting up schools in those areas or helping to stop famines.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[hughk]

I understand that the main threat is in the Canary Islands, although the article linked says that perhaps the threat is overstated. OTOH, there are boulders that seem to have been displaced in the bahamas that tie to a previous subterranean landslide in the Canaries.

Between this and a possible impact that may cause major damage, it seems that there is a lot more to worry about than a war on terrorism.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[StarfishOne]

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.

First of all I'm certainly not an expert in this area, hence the following question:

If such a wave, despite the fact that the wavelength is in the order of kilometers, is traveling at such a high speed: wouldn't it be possible to detect some kind of Doppler-effect for a particular region of the ocean?!? (using SONAR-like/related technologies)

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Fishstick]

I thought that too, but also, how would the info be effectively distributed to a large area like that and how much time would people have to move out on foot?

No, I'm really curious. I have a vague idea of the area involved and assume that it is very poor and there is not much in the way of communication and transportation infrastructure.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Rudolfo]

Hawaii has an air raid like tsumani warning system along its shores. There are tsunami detecting buoys anchored way offshore in deep water and the motion of the buoys will indicate an arriving tsunami.

Here's a link at the National Oceanographic and Atmostpheric Administration:
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/grounders/tsunam is.html

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[scheme]

I understand that funding and related politics may hinder such a warning system, but feel it is in the interest of those countries - as well as humanity in general - to take every step to lessen the impact of such disasters.

Those funds don't appear out of nowhere. The governments involved probably had a choice of setting up a system to warn of tsunamis or of running schools, encouraging local businesses, aids prevention campaigns, etc. Given the choice between the two and the rarity of tsunamis in SE asia where would you spend the scarce funds that are available?

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[danamania]

Amazing what a little time brings up.

African & Seychelles tides and a little more info here.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[mOoZik]

I don't believe that schools are on the opposite side of the coin. I'm talking about government waste of money, which is true in all countries. Seeing how a few thousand people have died, I don't think they should worry about attending school anymore.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[caino59]

wish? but you aren't...

doesn't that make you think?

seriously.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Malc]

Incompetency? How the hell are you going to evacuate these low-lying places in time? Do you think they have enough plans sitting fueled and ready to go on the runway in the Maldives? Do you think thousands of people on the coast of Bangladesh can move in land quickly enough?

I think you need to educate yourself some more before passing such harsh judgement.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Door-opening Fascist]

BBC News shows Somalia listed on their map.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

Thousands could have been saved in Sri Lanka:

The earthquake of magnitude 8.9 as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey struck at 7:59 a.m. (00.59 a.m. British time) off Sumatra and swung north with tremors into the Andaman islands. A warning centre such as those used along the Pacific Rim could have saved most of the thousands of people who died, A USGS official said. "And I think this will be a lesson to them," he said, referring to the devastated countries.

Article here: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=to pNews&storyID=644515


Harsh? Yes. But realistic. A number of someones in a number of countries saved a few bucks by not having a warning system. Perhaps there were some areas where it would have done more harm than good... but I doubt it. A sad day for hundreds of thousands of people. Let us consider what we can do to help them, and to help mitigate future disasters such as this one.

Just a thought.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[StarfishOne]

That's certainly true re. the speed. But if one has a handful of observation buoys, I figure they should be able to detect something and signal it via sattelite at the speed of light.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[d_strand]

wish? but you aren't... doesn't that make you think?

Not really. I have thought alot about religion and philosphy, even studied it somewhat at university before selecting CS as my major. I came to the conclusion that it is only wishful thinking. We all want the comfort of believing in a good higher power that will take care of us in the end no matter what happens. But no matter how much i want this to be true, there just isn't anything that points to this being the case. Sadly.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[net_bh]

This Indian Express article supports parent about the rarity of tsunamis in the Indian subcontinent.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[norite]

Yes, the tsunami has hit East Africa. Copy & paste the link below for more info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/412 6513.stm

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[CPrimerPlus]

I thought that too, but also, how would the info be effectively distributed to a large area like that and how much time would people have to move out on foot?

This shouldn't even be an issue. The U.S., candada and others should have an international team in place, even if it's only a few ppl to warn the west if and when anything does happen. I find it ridiculous how these so called experts want to dismiss everything they cannot expalain right away. Scientist disgust me sometimes, if it can't be proven, its basically not possible. Science isn't a sure thing, its a best guest scenario and you should prepare for the worst case scenario ALWAYS. I utterly aggree the leader of the group who made the origianl prediction regarding the canary islands.

So Bill McGuire is sticking to the predictions his team have made. Making no apology for backing a worst-case model, he says: "There's no question of hiding things. If you're planning for any future disaster you're not going to consider the least disastrous scenario, you're going to consider the most."

Ppl tend to forget there have been natural disasters in the past and there will continue to be many more, possible wiping out a lot of humanity and forcing us to start over again, much like the great flood sevreal thousands of years ago, and who knows what came before that. How idiotic! reminds of how even einstein refused to even look at the proof of quatum mechanics stong and week force - pretty much ignored it - instead focusing on his general theory of relativity. Now string theory comes along....

Back in 1999, scientists at University College London published a paper about a volcano on the island of La Palma. They predicted that, if it erupted, the volcano could cause a landslide in which a massive chunk of land fell into the ocean. They then proposed that a landslide this big would generate a mighty tsunami big enough to cross the Atlantic, devastating the Caribbean and the eastern seaboard of the US.

this a pretty significant peace of land. If i was in a position of authourity I'd suggest quick and careful attention be paid to it!!!

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[n3m0s]

From Reuters ...
NO WARNING SYSTEM

In Los Angeles, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said U.S. officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami.

But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.

"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said. "You can walk inland for 15 minutes to get to a safe area."

"We tried to do what we could," he said. "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world." ....
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?typ e=topN ews&storyID=7180384&pageNumber=1

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[scheme]

I don't believe that schools are on the opposite side of the coin. I'm talking about government waste of money, which is true in all countries. Seeing how a few thousand people have died, I don't think they should worry about attending school anymore.

Schools and other programs are on the other side of the coin. Given a limited amount of funds, using funds for a tsunami warning network would take away from the amount you can devote to other public services.

A warning network wouldn't be cheap either since you need to setup buoys several hundreds and/or thousands of kilometers out to see, monitor and analyze uplinks for the buoys and regularly service and replace the buoys. The funds for these could probably be used to set up and fund public health programs (vaccinations, public hosipitals, etc) or for some other social good.

Given that the last tsunami in SE Asia/Indian subcontinent was in the 1890s, I can't fault the governments involved in prioritizing other needs first.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[cammoblammo]

Are you suggesting we want illiterate and innumerate people running this system then?

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Alsee]

Do you think thousands of people on the coast of Bangladesh can move in land quickly enough?

The tsunami often makes it about a half mile in-land. Iin many places there was up to TWO HOURS lead time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. That means you only have to manage 1/4 mile-per-hour. Someone with two broken legs can damn near manage that pushing along with just their arms.

With as little as a 5 minute warning well more than half of those hit could have jogged to complete safety. With 15 minute warning you could probably get 98+% evacuation of all affected areas on foot. The only challenge is getting that message out.

-

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Optali]

Somalia was hit

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[mOoZik]

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

What about Indonesia?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What about Indonesia?

[northcat]

India is sending aid to sri lanka. (Don't what aid, just saw it on TV) Its probably already sent, not sure though.

The quake was centered in Summara, an island in Indonesia. I bet that they got the brunt of this thing

Yeah, last time I checked, about 200 casualties. But its interesting (in a very sad way) that although the quake occured in Indonesia, bigger devastation has been seen in Sri Lanka (and India).

Re:What about Indonesia?

[1u3hr]

The quake was centered in Summara, an island in Indonesia. I bet that they got the brunt of this thing... 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.

Problem is Northern Sumatra is having a lot of political unrest. It's basically been occupied by the army for decades, who have a good line in repression. (You may have heard what they did to East Timor a few years ago before they achieved independence.) Jakarta is unlikely to allow any foreign aid groups access, though they'll probably solicit money, food etc., and promise to deliver it themselves.

From what I've heard on the news, many coastal villages, especially those built on stilt houses over the water, have been erased completely. There will never be an accurate death toll.

Re:What about Indonesia?

[trash eighty]

4000+ now

Re:What about Indonesia?

[thisgooroo]

just have a look at te map: the epicenter was nortwest of the tip of sumatra (in the gukf of bengalia), so the tsunami would just hit that tip, otherwise run mostly parallel to the coast, so woulkdn't effect sumatra too much. the other indonesian islands would be shirlded by the malay pensinsula. sri lanke, india, bangla dash, thailand, malaysia, and probably myanmar (burma) coastlines, otoh, would get the full brunt of it.

More earthquake links

[zxSpectrum]

I keep a list of earthquake related resources.

Re:This is Geek news?

[s3pHiRoTh]

I guess the news here are supposed to be stuff that matters. This matters.

Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX]

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.

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[BigJim.fr]

My cousin is currently on Koh-Phangan Island, but it is on the northern coast of Thailand and the wave hit the southern coast. More information : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4125 847.stm

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[hughk]

As you quote a UK help line, I guess you are UK based so you have GSM phones.If your brother has a mobile then he may be able to at least SMS even if he can't call. Phuket (and surrounding islands) is the main diving location but although it is badly damaged, there seem to be fewer deaths.

Good luck!

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[Teun]

An acquaintance lives & works on the Island of Phuket (yes, a lucky bastard), his shell access from his home to the xs4all.nl server in Amsterdam never went down.
He has already posted some pictures online.

Therefore I imagine that an internet shop would be the best bet to call home.

The government numbers are only pacifiers until the affected people themselves contact their home authorities, which is obviously not their first priority...

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX]

no email yet. Hopefully he's busy tooling around inland Thailand and it hasn't even occured to him to call me!

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[s-orbital]

If they were planning on a dive, it is likely they were in the south (hardest hit area). I am currently in Bangkok, finishing a 2 week long trip. I didnt even feel the quake!

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[W2k]

Earlier today, I had no trouble getting through via regular GSM to my friends, who are vacationing in Thailand (just northeast of Phuket) right now. Maybe you should give that a try.

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[1u3hr]

y cousin is currently on Koh-Phangan Island, but it is on the northern coast of Thailand and the wave hit the southern coast.

Actually, Ko Phangan is off the EAST coast; the tsunami hit the WEST coast.

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[caino59]

links to said pics?

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[Teun]

Sorry, no slashdotting alowed

But I'll give a hint, usenet xs4all.general

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[thisgooroo]

since when does thailand have a northern coast?

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX]

Email I just got:

>Hello James
>
>Stephanie received a text message Sunday afternoon local time >asking her to call Brigid's parents to say they where ok.
>Apparently they were in Phuket.
>Will let you know if I get any more news.
>Merry Christmas
>Peter

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX]

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.

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[automatix]

An email from a friend, on holiday in Thailand:

Hi All,

Just letting you all know, especially those who paid close attention to my itinerary detail rantings, that although Muzz and I headed for Phuket today, all is well.

It is a strange story. We should have, by all accounts, been at the patong beach hotel, where we are booked in for tonight (my christmas present to murray). That hotel is now completely underwater.

Instead, our plane was delayed an hour for refuelling and we departed KL for Phuket at 11am, much to our dissatisfaction. After reaching thai airspace and beginning our decent into phuket airport, the plane backed up and circled. the pilot then announced that neither Phuket or Bangkok air traffic control were responding to communications.

We circled and circled until the pilot, quite frankly and worringly, stated he was giving up communication and heading back to KL. so thats where we went.

But we are now finding out about what happened. News is still breaking (its 5 pm here) but we think that the tsunami hit patong beach, and our hotel, no more than 10 minutes before our ETA (which had of course been delayed an hour).

so, instead of being in a disaster area we're both here in KL at the Hart's house drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits watching CNN.

so this is just to let you know all is well. we dont know what we're going to do now, we got a refund on the flights and might go somewhere else instead.

hope you are well...im off to eat my biscuits and have a drink.

Re:This is Geek news?

[mOoZik]

Not only that, geologists and such people can also be nerds. Seeing how this event is record-setting - in terms of magnitude - and also given the huge loss of life, it is apt, IMO.

Quake Coordinates

[Shag]

According to the helpful earthquake hazard folks over at USGS, the epicenter coordinates were 3.30 N 95.78 E, with a depth of about 10km. There are quite a lot of other entries in that region since, some or all of which may be aftershocks.

(A friend in Madras mentioned the quake as soon as he felt it; I've since seen the estimates go from 650 dead to 1500, 3000, 4500, 6300, and now 7000.)

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[Ralconte]

Geeks who were online found out about it pretty quickly. I heard about it on Fark. :P People in fishing villages and vacation sites my have missed the info, to their peril.

If you need a tech discussion, here's one, "How can you get the info to the people who needed it?"

Once the earthquake hit with a sea floor epicenter, everyone with a web browser knew a tsunami was going to hit somewhere. Again, no way to tell the people who needed the information. Seemed like the only thing we could do was just wait for news of further death.

Video?

[Macfox]

Does anyone have links to videos of the event?

Tried Reuters, but there's not much to see.

Re:Video?

[bugbeak]

Check out the BBC News site. There is a link that says "Live Video", given that the earthquake is top news ATM.

Re:Video?

[Xeo 024]

No video, but there are a lot of pictures (includes both AP and Reuters images).

Re:Video?

[mad zambian]

Try the BBC for the article and links to some video of the aftermath. (Real and wmv streams available)

Re:Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can see some pictures here. They're from a Norwegian newspaper.

http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=260157

Re:Video?

[Jack Greenbaum]

Mod me Redundant

-- Jack

Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Altima(BoB)]

Actually only the preceeding earthquake is unpredictable. When you know where the epicenter of the earthquake is and the topography and makeup of the ocean floor, you can see where the resulting tsunamis (if any are created) will hit hardest.

Unfortunately, you don't have much time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed. Mind boggling though.

Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure. I suppose part of this tragedy is how unavoidable it was in these nations' current states. Only Japan has invested any significant amount of money in Tsunami warning systems.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Rob Carr]

I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed.

Nah. 500 mph seems to be a bout top speed quoted on the net. That's only about 800 kph - and Sri Lanka is about 1000 miles from the epicenter. There was time. Not much, and apparently not enough.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Xenna]

Every country on earth has radio and TV, if you call them and let them broadcast a warning it will be heard. Hell, many people (tourists, expats) watch CNN via satellite so even that might work.

OTOH I don't think Tsunami's are a common event in this region so no one is prepared. If these things travel as fast as they say you're pretty much SOL.

I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Rob Carr]

I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?

As the wave approaches shore, the speed changes and the amplitude increases markedly. The water had to come from somewhere - as the wave approaches, the "tide" appears to pull back - but it will be replaced.

There's a Japanese story (don't know if it's true or a legend) about a man near his grainery on a hill who saw the water rushing out. The only way to warn the people below was to set fire to his grainery. Everyone came running to put the fire out....

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Xenna]

Thanks, I'll try to remember that next time I'm on a beach. I have been in Krabi and Phuket/Patong so it feels close to home in a way.

I remember thinking about sudden huge waves while lying on beaches and how long it would take before you realized something was wrong.

Only this year in the South of France a sudden change in the weather killed 3 bathers right in front of our apartment. :(

Best be careful out there.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Anonymous Coward]

There was ample time - the P-wave of the quake hit Madras, India at about 6.30 AM (local time), about 4 minutes after the quake occurred. However, the Tsunami reached only at about 9 - 9.30 AM (local time), giving a clear 2.5 to 3 hours after the quake.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[OneDeeTenTee]

That is normal for tsunamis.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Daengbo]

My girl and I saw this news earlier today and heard that Phuket got plastered and that many people were missing. I told her a story about how, when I was in HS in Hawaii about twenty years ago, there was a giant earthquake in Alaska, and I was kept at school until about 11:00pm because my house was in the zone that could've been destroyed, about three blocks from the beach. Scary.

I am waiting to hear the final death toll on this. Should be huge...

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[ToKsUri]

Which is that Canary Island you are talking about that is ready to fall into the sea?? I live here in one of the 7 canary islands, and as far as I know they are all pretty stable. Ok, we have a 4km high volcano called Teide but it is quite dormant, and lets hope it continues like that for a long time. But never have heard of any island falling into the sea.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure.

Media infrastructure is not that bad here, and transport system is good enough for this type of an evacuation, given that there were two hours from the time the earthquake took place to the time the waves hit Sri Lanka. However, I don't think they did a good job in using the media to bring about a reasonable warning, which would have made a big difference in the number of lives lost (2500 so far :-( ).

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Anonymous Coward]

A sudden, abnormal "low tide" is one of the few warning signs for a tsunami. This unexpected exposure of the sea floor lures many victims to their deaths. If you ever see it happen, don't stay to investigate or ask questions--run for high ground as if your life depends on it--it does!

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Malc]

I don't watch CNN when I'm at home, least of all when I'm travelling ;)

To be honest, as a tourist, I'm not going to be watching any TV or listening to the radio. With less than an hours warning, I don't think I would have had any advance notice of this. The funny thing is, I work from home so I would probably have had more chance of a warning of such a thing as a tourist. Radio and TV are only any good if you're paying attention to them (which I don't for most of the day), or you're in contact with people who do (which again, I don't for most of the day). So it's rather presumptuous to assume this.

My heart goes out to these people. What happened was horrific. I have friends who honeymooned in the Maldives a couple of years ago. Those islands are already suffering from rising sea levels, a 5 m wave would have just completely covered some areas - even with advance warning there's little they could have done in time.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Xenna]

You're lucky then that some of us do and could warn the others. I remember having breakfast in a Krabi place with CNN on in a corner of the room.

I usually take long holidays especially to American standards and I do like to keep an eye on what's going on in the world. CNN or BBC world are available in most tourist places in Asia, most other stations are in the local language so it's an easy choice.

Phuket, Krabi and Koh Phi Phi have plenty of higher altitude locations so even a 30 minute advance warning could have made a huge difference if only to clear the beaches. The maldives may well be a different story. I've never been there, but I hear it's quite flat, I also heard it wasn't hit that badly.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

The 2000 km/h figure is wrong: the speed depends on the depth of the ocean, but doesn't exceed 700-800 km/h (wikipedia says 700, I've seen 800 somewhere else).

Anyway, at least in India they had enough time to warn people, but it seems that didn't happen.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Altima(BoB)]

I suppose CNN would be a possability but to be honest I've found them to be woefully inadequate as an information source (this applies to pretty much every 24 hour news provider, except for two or three British channels), if there was something to warn people in Asia about, my question is would they do it?

Not only do most of the news networks that happen to be broadcast to hotel rooms internationally reflect almost exclusively American interests, when they mention international events that do so after the fact. Were the governments of the countries affected to put out a warning to people to get to high ground, would CNN pick up on the message and broadcast it as a public service? I find it unlikely that they would do anything beyond that little tickertape they run along the bottom of the screen.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[PedanticSpellingTrol]

What's really shameful is that here in the US, Fox News Channel is the only outlet that's covering this, and generally the only one that covers any story that takes place on the weekend. CNN and MSNBC are still running their people magazine tripe.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Xenna]

Well here in Europe CNN have been running this story almost continuously since I turned on my TV ~9 hours ago. I think CNN have different 'versions' world wide.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Diag]

Yes we get an Asian CNN here in Australia which has been covering this continually. Also BBC World and Sky Australia (which switches to Sky UK overnight).

Last night the only network that WASN'T covering this here was Fox, which we get straight from the US. But it was probably 4AM in the US at that time and they were showing O'Really reruns.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Zemran]

The tide rushes out and any (poor and maybe uneducated) people see lots of stranded fish waiting to be served to the family for dinner. Those that have been to anywhere that educates people about the dangers of tsunami knew to run but some local people seize the opportunity and rush out onto the sea bed. Often tourists wander out to investigate the strange event, they also die. Most wealthy places around the pacific tell the people about the fact that before a tsunami the tide will recede before the approaching tidal wave. One person in the south of Thailand (Phuket) yesterday said the sea went out a very long way and she ran inland and lived although she still had to face the flood that followed her into the shop where she sought shelter. Most of the shops etc in this area are little more than wooden sheds and offered little defence.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Basehart]

Drudge Report was what first alerted me at around 10:00PM PST (Seattle), then the BBC live feed and USGS. Nothing on the TV (Fox, CNN, Local) even as late as 1:00AM. It it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have known about this until this morning.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[will_die]

The tsunami from the Canary Island would take longer then that. From a couple of sites it would take around 6 hours to reach England, the wake would travel over 1 mile in land and the wave would be around 40 feet tall. It would take less then an hour to reach africa.
To reach the US would take around 7 hours and because of the open ocean would reach about 20 miles in land and be around 200 feet tall.
Speed at land fall would be around 500 mph for both places.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Optali]

> I don't think Tsunami's are a common event in this region so no one is prepared.

Indeed the Maldivas archipielago had no emergency response plans at all, they live 2.500 Km away from the epicenter in the middle of the Indian ocean between Africa and Asia, the last thing they would expect would be a earthquake in Sumatar affecting their coast.

What I wonder about is the fact that in spite the high volcanic activity in the zone tsunamis seems
actually to be rare in this zone, I read that it was the first time such a phenomenon reached the Indian coasts, so this could explain why nobody took any preventive messure.

You USians indeed have a very accurate surveilance system in the Pacific (NOAA and the USGS), as those monster waves are relatively frecuent in the pacific, but there is also more time for evacuation. Yesterdays's tsunami travelled at 800Km/h and crossed the 1.600 Km from Sumatra to Thailand in 30m, the earthquake's shockwave arrived in India about 3h later and the tsunami hit the coast other 30m later.

As India and Malaysia are well equipped and reminding that Indonesia has lots of international volcanologic observatorys I would thing that this disaster was fully unexpected and very uncommon.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Optali]

El Hierro. Not the whole island, but a good part of it. This is a frecuent (geologically speaking) phenomenon in volcanic islands, the same is expected to take place in Hawai... AFAIK the last time such a thing happened in el Hierro was 50.000 before current, you will prolly have to wait 50.000 years more if you want to take pictures of this, LOL

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[qoa]

CNN had near nonstop coverage over the last couple of days.

Is there even enough time to react?

[Moskie]

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?

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr]

What kind of time delay are we talking about between when the earthquake strikes and when the tsunami forms/hits the coast? In deep water, a tsunami goes about 500 mph. Not much time for folks in Sumatra, but the people of Sri Lanka might have been warned.

As near as I can figure out, all the tsunami warning efforts are focused on the Pacific rim. There simply aren't enough tsunamis elsewhere to make it worth the effort. Or at least so the theory went.

Why someone with a seismograph didn't look at the 8.9, look at a map, see the Indian ocean and go "Ya know, maybe we should warn someone" is beyond me. I guess 2 hours isn't that long when you don't have set procedures in place. Still....

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[ashwinds]

Same thing has been bothering me too - guess they never did look at a tsunami possibility. We felt tremors at 6.30 AM - i looked up the seismology at USGS and saw Indonesia's quake -I did look at the map and said gee - there is just the sea between us - but I did not imagine a tsunami would wash ashore - but hey - Iam not the Met or the Oceanography guys - I am sure quiet a few people who could have done something stayed quiet. Even 2 hrs is enough to clear families from the shoreline - they need not have died - we lost about a 100 of them here in Chennai.

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr]

I am sure quiet a few people who could have done something stayed quiet.

Realize that, like yourself, many did not associate the earthquake with a tsunami. CSI Miami (a US TV show) had a tsunami hit Florida in the program. So right now, when I hear "earthquake" and "water" my brain's primed to think "tsunami."

I imagine that a lot of earthquake people have the knowledge and training that they, too would think "earthquake." But they still may have been caught by surprise. The places that were close by could not be warned, and how many would have thought "hmmm - Sri Lanka's gonna get it?" It's a thousand miles away. Again, it may not have occurred to everyone.

For those it did occur to, there's the question "What do you do?" There may have been an assumption - "someone's got the job to issue the warning." If there is an appropriate "responder," often you can make things worse by trying to get involved and tying up resources as a result. So some may not have bothered because they thought that it would be handled. Others may simply not have known who to call.

I'm sitting here wondering. Let's say I'd been online looking at an Earthquake page when the 8.9 quit. Who would I have called to warn about a tsunami hitting Sri Lanka? I don't think I'd have thought my calling would do any good, first off. But let's say I put it all together and decided to start making calls. Who would I call? The Sri Lankan embassy? 911?

I have no freakin' idea.

This is why public safety organizations have emergency drills. Stuff like this happens and you do what you do every day. Who's job is it every day to warn the people of the Indian ocean if there's a tsunami? No one. So everyone did in the emergency what they do every day, which turns out to be just that - nothing.

The more I think of it, the more this looks like one of those events you learn from. At this point the question is, how much do you learn?

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr]

You preview and still you miss the typos.

Third paragraph of the parent article - the second "earthquake" should be "tsunami."

Sigh.

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[elpapacito]

Yeah rather then "bothering" I'd say it is troubling, very much so.

1. Tsunami are not a new scientific discovery
2. Tsunami happen rather frequently
3. Tsunami can be pretty fucking devastating , killing thousands and destroying billions of goddamned property
4. Seismic networks aren't science fiction or experimental genetics, but a _reality_

So I think, what the fuck is needed to make some world seismic network with early warning ? We can make ONU, but we can't make one fucking seismic early warning network which, in layman terms, is a bunch of computers with telephone or satellite lines and a couple thousand people for maintenance ?

I guess that the next days we'll hear that

a. given that the quake was a rare event ( my ass is more rare there have been 5 of that in the last 100 years)

b. that the countries involved are piss poor with poor communication infrastructure ( RADIO goddamit Marconi invented it more then a 100 ago it still works ! Even U.S. NOAA still uses radio ! )

c. that there was some bureocratic problem (there are always buro problems, no matter if republicans/dems/martians are in charge)

d. that there was some economic efficiency problem (there are always economic problems unless you're the one paying for everything, but hey we have skyscrapers full of people counting money...cute)

Therefore thousand died..and we dare call ourselves civilized and advanced, we're bloody apes.

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Jeremy Singer]

Without a procedure, what would you do? Call the local police station? List all the surrounding countries and try to call their presidents one by one? Submit the story to Slashdot?

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[thisgooroo]

given that the quake was a rare event ( my ass is more rare there have been 5 of that in the last 100 years)

sure, but have a look where they occurred: all in the pacific. the indian ocean isn't exactly well known for this kind of event. afaik, the last big tsunami there was in 1883 (krakatoa)

blizzards are also widely known, but i doubt you would think of setting up a blizzard warning system in southern arizona or southern florida

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr]

Without a procedure, what would you do?

The best might be to call the embassy. But who knows if you can get anyone at the embassy, especially after hours.

Freelance warning systems could also be a major problem. Picture the Slashdot user base and pretend you're the 911 equivalent in The Grand Republic of Beachside. See the problem?

This may be one of those things where, come Monday morning, The Powers That Be need to sit down and set up an official warning system.

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Guppy06]

"For those it did occur to, there's the question "What do you do?""

As with earthquakes and tornadoes, you plan ahead when you build things (by doing things like raising buildings and presenting as few broad surfaces to the sea as possible). Things like this have been added to the building codes in Hawaii after tsunamis hit Hilo several times in the Twentieth Century.

IIRC, with Hawaii's advantage of being fairly distant from major fault lines, they also have a fairly decent early warning system with sirens and such placed here and there, much like you see in the plains states WRT tornadoes. The only real problems there are the "false positives," since they currently have little idea how big (i. e. small) an incoming tsunami may be.

Of course, being in a "First World" country helps...

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[elpapacito]

Well guess what ? It happened and now more or less 50K people are dead. Maybe a lot more, maybe we'll never know as sea will not give back all the bodies.

But hey if that happened in Europe or America, you'd be hearing outcries, heads would "roll" and many politicians would be tiptapping on burning coal.

Or maybe not and that's why things like that can still happen in year 2000.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Phosphor3k]

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

Mod parent down!

[bcmm]

That's pretty tasteless really, this is a major disaster and people have died.

Pay some attention to the real world.

Re:Mod parent down!

[Mister Transistor]

Oh come on. Like we all didn't think it for a moment, at least. I'm not completely insenstive, and I'm very sorry that some have died, but if you can't laugh once in a while, you have some serious issues. Lighten up, Francis.

Re:Mod parent down!

[Ed_Moyse]

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.

Re:Mod parent down!

[maximilln]

Cry me a river.

Re:Mod parent down!

[maximilln]

Oh wait. Given context and all, I guess the more correct form would be,"Cry me a tsunami"

6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[fbjon]

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.

Re:6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[maximilln]

That's a big effing wave. Just thinking about the amount of energy of all of that water swirling backwards from the original fault, along the sea floor, that entire way...

whew.

Re:6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[erikdalen]

the energy released in a 8.9 earthquake is more than the total annual energy consumption of Sweden (9 million inhabitants). to give a bit of comparison :)

Re:6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[nwbvt]

Remember these are all early reports, these numbers often go down. In the initial confusion a lot of people end up reported dead who are merely out of contact, and there are often duplicates. Hopefully that happened here.

Re:6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[Evil Pete]

I heard yesterday about the earthquake and they mentioned that there were tidal waves along the Sumatran coast and a reported death toll of 3. Immediate reaction was to remember the death toll from the tsunamis that followed Krakatoa's destruction in 1883, around 30,000 dead (from memory). So I figured the final death toll was going to be very high (I'm sure there are more people in these villages now than in 1883). But last night in a late item they said that the earthquake was 8.9, my jaw dropped (literally). Those poor people. The death toll is going to be very very high I fear. Hope I am wrong. What's worse even as the toll mounts the towns nearest the epicentre are ominously quiet. Not much you can say about a tragedy like this, just pray to whatever deity or otherwise that you never experience that kind of trauma yourself, and that you can somehow help.

Re:6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[fbjon]

Just for the record, BBC is now reporting 20 000 dead at 12:30 gmt.

Latest News ...

[sunsrin]

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

Re:How long until we blame America

[fbjon]

Let me try...

[flame class="ignorant bashing"] Since there are now more than twice the casualties in a single event compare to 9/11, shouldn't we start a War on Tsunamis now? [/flame]

Re:This is Geek news?

[cybergrue]

A good friend of mine, and fellow slashdotter (Viduliya (39839)) is currently in Sri Lanka getting married. If he's OK, I'll joke with him about his earth shaking honeymoon when he gets back.

Tsunami

[sunsrin]

More on Tsunami at Wikipedia

Tech that would help?

[aynrandfan]

I have to ponder as to what kinds of technology could have made the impact from this disaster less horrendous than it was. Better monitoring for earthquakes, better medical care and better building materials for houses and such are some immediate things, although the latter two has more to do with socio-economic status than anything else.

I'm thinking of keeping things relatively cheap, yet as functional as possible.

Re:Tech that would help?

[antifoidulus]

Not much really. The 2 richest countries on earth are both affected by earthquakes, and have invested heavily in the area of earthquake prediction(esp. Japan), and yet do not have very accurate earthquake prediction technologies. It may be possible, but not for a long, long while. Now technology for disaster relief is a different story, but for the time being cheap accurate earthquake prediction is a pipe dream.....

Re:Tech that would help?

[Shag]

IMO, it's not so much technology that's the solution, as improved practices and policies.

For example, it's generally not the greatest idea to build right by the ocean. This is true just about anywhere - on the eastern coast of North America, beachfront houses get nailed by hurricanes; here in Hawaii we get the occasional tsunami; just about anywhere there are issues of erosion and at times high surf.

If you're somewhere - or across the water from somewhere - with seismic activity that can trigger tsunamis, this is even more true.

We'll see whether the policymakers learn from this. Hilo, where I live, was nailed by a tsunami in 1946. The destroyed area was rebuilt - which turned out to be a bad idea since it got nailed again in 1960. Now it's all parks and memorials. (You can see more at the Pacific Tsunami Museum.)

Re:Tech that would help?

[The Cydonian]

Two things:-

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).

Re:Tech that would help?

[kcelery]

I just wonder how the Japanese would react to a 10 metre Tsuinami when they detected one and its gonna hit the coastline in 15 minutes.

Re:Tech that would help?

[will_die]

We are starting to get some reports on the technology available, and the warning systems for the pacific ocean. The problem with this is that the event is extermly rare, and it is even rarer in the place it took place. So don't expect much to happen technology wise.
The US USGS did send a warning but most of the countries effected were not one the list.

Full Moon

[Shag]

Of course, this all happening at full moon will probably fuel the people who study whether the gravitational pull of the sun and moon impacts the occurrence of earthquakes like it does tides.

Re:Full Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

+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.

Re:Full Moon

[b1scuit]

I can't imagine how it wouldn't though. (disclaimer) I have no real formal knowledge of either subject (/disclaimer), but it makes perfect sense that the pull of the massive body responsible for keeping the planet going around in a big circle, and the pull of the not-so-massive body that goes in a big circle around the planet would have some effect on it.

Hell, the tides alone probably present some serious rythmic loading/unloading of the earth's crust. I know when I swing something heavy around it has a noticeable effect on me. I know when I'm swung around in a circle, it has a noticeable effect on me. I know when my cat jumps on my shoulder while I'm typing this, it, well you get the idea.

I don't really care either way (nor do I have any idea, it's why other, smarter peopel are looking into it), but it's not like those people researching it are quacks or anything. It seems totally possible. To me, anyway.

Re:Full Moon

[Shag]

You're correct that the highest tides are expected around New Moon, when both the Sun and Moon are "pulling" on the same side. But they don't "cancel each other out" so much at Full Moon; things just get "stretched" in two directions, resulting in the second-highest high tides of the month (after the New Moon tides).

Re:Full Moon

[Shag]

I probably shouldn't dignify this with a reply, but:

1. The moon's orbit is elliptical, and as any Slashdotter who "knows about science" can tell you, that means its gravitational pull on Earth varies. :)
2. Even if the moon's gravitational pull didn't vary, the interplay between the gravitational pulls of the moon and the sun does vary, with the greatest combined effect occurring at new moon, the second-greatest at full moon, and the least effect at the quarters. (Read a tide table to see what I mean.)

Hope this clarifies matters somewhat...

Re:Full Moon

[cheekyboy]

more like a lot of geologists didnt study ANY astronomy at all, there are very few scientists skilled at both sectors.

And they have prooved that the moons orbit does effect the land like tides, they did GPS measurements and found the land does indeed move, but you cannot see/feel it.

But dude, please do a statistical analysis of all quakes vs moon positions and get back to me.

Re:Full Moon

[Zardus]

GPS isn't that accurate. I think its accurate to within a meter for military applications, and less so for civilian. Are you saying that gravitational force from the moon moves land by over a meter? (I'm genuinely curious)

Re:Full Moon

[Shag]

Heh. Yeah. The university I work for has an Institute for Astronomy and an Institute for Geology and Planetary Science. Planetary Science apparently isn't the same as Astronomy... it's all confusing. :) I've heard that last time the two tried to get together, the Planetary Science folks wanted images of something that moves non-sidereally, but didn't provide the non-sidereal rates. Whoops.

Next month, I get to see what happens when the Planetary Science folks take a hyperspectral imager (infrared thingummy that can image water temperatures, spot land mines, yadda yadda, when slung under an aircraft), turn it upside-down, mount it on the Astronomy folks' telescope as a "spectropolarimeter", and point it at the Moon.

(This, too, I find confusing. But I think it has something to do with analyzing the geology of the Moon's surface by measuring its reflectivity in certain infrared wavelengths.)

Re:Full Moon

[hesiod]

> I think it has something to do with analyzing the geology of the Moon's surface by measuring its reflectivity in certain infrared wavelengths

IANA(Planetary Geologist), but I believe you are pretty much spot-on with your description. Different materials reflect different wavelengths. In addition, the difference in times between sending the signals & receiving the reflections can give a very good map of topography. The two of those combined can give very interesting results.

For instance, if most craters of X depth show a rock layer under the surface, but another very similar crater is covered by some other material, it's probably MUCH older than the others. This is very useful information. Unfortunately, since IANAPG, I'm not sure how.

It could conceivably "see" materials or features that "shouldn't be there," (in the unlikely event they are) forcing us to rethink our understanding of the moon.

Re:Full Moon

[cutesatyrboy]

N Rajeshwar Rao and N Venkatanathan claim to have predicted this earthquake, based on their planetary alignment model http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/00220041 2291719.htm http://216.132.172.10/indiadaily/editorial/12-28c- 04.asp

Energy release

[SteveAstro]

Can anyone put some kind of comparision between the energy release here and the energy release of the prospective planet impactor 2004MN4 ? It would help to put things into scale, if not perspective.

If MN4 were to hit, estimated release is 450-2000 MT of TNT, so how does a Richter 8.9 compare.

Steve

Re:Energy release

[Snarfangel]

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

Re:Energy release

[SteveAstro]

but the epicentre is very small isn't it , so a comparison is reasonable ?

I found a formula which attempts to give a rough Joule equivalent
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Mathematics/geoma th/logcontex t/qn2.html ...which I then translate at roughly 450 MT yield.

Steve

Re:Energy release

[RockDork]

Earthquakes over M8.0 are called 'great,' as in catastrophic, for a good reason...

There are several kinds of earthquake 'magnitude' measures, all of which yield similar numbers. Moment magnitude may be converted directly to energy:

Magnitude = log (energy in ergs)/1.5 - 10.7

For moment magnitude 8.9, this works out to 2.5 x 10^29 ergs, which is about 6 Million Megatons of TNT. The impact of 2004MN4 works out to an earthquake magnitude 6.2 to 6.6.

Re:Energy release

[erikdalen]

my encyclopedia (a swedish one) says the energy released from a 9.0 earthquake is a bit more than the annual energy consumption of sweden (9 million inhabitants).

Re:Energy release

[WhiteBandit]

That seems wrong... an 8.0 is equivalent to ~1,000 Megatons of TNT. Reference

This energy released by this quake was ~30,000 Megatons!

Re:Energy release

[bubbaprog]

Richter is a logarithmic scale, not linear.

Re:Energy release

[zippthorne]

Why do people studying BIG THINGS always use rediculuously tiny units. cxample: I took an astronomy course once where all the units were ergs, centimeters and grams.. we were talking about size and distances of PLANETS!

1 erg = 1.0 × 10-07 Joules or 1 erg = 2.39 × 10-11 kilocalories A good light beer might be about 140ish kcal.

Conversion from earthquake magnitude to beers drunk is left as an exercise to the reader.

Re:Energy release

[RedWizzard]

That's way too high. I found a powerpoint presentation that contains that figure, but they've got the calculation wrong. They say the energy released by a 9.0 is 3.98 x 10^18 J or 32,000MT, but since 1 MT is 4.18x10^15 J the correct megatonnage of a 9.0 is around 950MT.

All the other sources I've found work out to about 300MT for a 8.9, which agrees with 950MT for a 9.0 (since an increase in Richter scale magnitude of 1.0 represents an 32-fold increase in energy release). See here (cached, original no longer found) for one reference.

Re:Energy release

[RedWizzard]

That table looks wrong. For example, they have a 1.0 equivalent to 30 pounds of TNT, but a 2.0 (which should be 32 times more energy) equivalent to 1 ton of TNT. But 30 x 32 = 960 pounds = 0.5 tons. Most sources seem to work about 1000MT for a 9.0, so that table seems to have the Richter magnitude out by one.

Re:Energy release

[RedWizzard]

Can you provide a source for that? Most of the stuff I've been able to find has a 9.0 around 1000MT, or 300MT for an 8.9 (e.g. here).

Re:Energy release

[Snarfangel]

Earthquake energy statistics from About.com

I also saw the 1,000 MT figure for 9.0 magnitude quakes on other pages. I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies, though perhaps there is a range of energy possible for a given magnitude of quake. Since the possible range for an impact of 2004MN4 is in same order of magnitude, it makes for a fair approximation.

Re:Energy release

[RedWizzard]

I also saw the 1,000 MT figure for 9.0 magnitude quakes on other pages. I'm not sure where the discrepancy lies, though perhaps there is a range of energy possible for a given magnitude of quake. Since the possible range for an impact of 2004MN4 is in same order of magnitude, it makes for a fair approximation.

I suspect some of these tables are created by figuring out one of the lower magnitudes and then just multiplying up the scale. Any small error would get magnified. I see this quake has now been revised to a 9.0 so the comparison is even more valid now.

Re:Energy release

[Guppy06]

"A 9.0 earthquake would release the equivalent of 1,800 Megatons,"

IIRC, that's a measure of the total energy released for the entire duration of the quake, which can be anywhere between seconds and minutes. A meteorite, though, would release all that energy more or less instantaneously.

I live in Penang, Malaysia

[Xpilot]

I'm on an island right next to Sumatra (relatively), and there were huge tsunami's hitting us too. The last I heard 15 people died in the floods. It's not as bad as what people in Sri Lanka and India experienced, but still...

My mom felt the quake at around 9, I didn't notice anything though. I'm very thankful Malaysia is relatively safe from quakes, but I feel so sorry for all who were affected.

Re:I live in Penang, Malaysia

[MtViewGuy]

I have an aunt who lives in Penang. I need to call her and find out if she's okay. :-(

Re:I live in Penang, Malaysia

[bwass24]

I'been trying to reach a friend in Penang for hours...with no reply.

Re:I live in Penang, Malaysia

[roror]

I am surprised that you still have internet connection and power line working.

Re:I feel for them

[nativespeaker]

Quake devastated my social life my first year of college.

Ha ha. Hilarious. Now do one about the AIDS epidemic.

From the shores of Chennai India

[ashwinds]

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.

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[Anonymous Coward]

What time exactly did the tsunami hit madras? Seems like early morning. Could have been much worse if it was say at 5 in the evening

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[ashwinds]

The Tsunami would have peaked at around 9 AM...

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[oneiron]

Wow... Thanks for the inside peek... I'm in awe just pondering your words. Can't imagine what it was like to see it first-hand.

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[Anonymous Coward]

Dei Thevdiya paiyallae.Velai vetti illaya

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[limekiller4]

ashwinds writes:
The Quake here was nothing...

You're obviusly a slashdotter...

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[flynns]

You're obviusly a slashdotter...

So're you, kid.

Re:From the shores of Chennai India

[hesiod]

> (Score:1, Funny)
> Dei Thevdiya paiyallae.Velai vetti illaya

Hehe, that's great... uh, what's it mean?

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Tokerat]

Ah, thanks. I knew I had read that but I didn't really retain it to make the connection once I learned where Clarke lived. Good stuff.

Re:How long until we blame America

[CrashPoint]

Hey, you're either with us or you're with the tsunamis.

It will be funny soon if...

[cloricus]

...These quakes don't continue. We had a 8.3 down south of Taz (Australia) a few days ago and it is on the same plate. Got me slightly worried that there will be another bigger one. If not this post will probably be funny in a day or so.

Live Indian News ..

[sunsrin]

You can watch live Indian News at http://www.ddinews.com. I hope they can handle the Slashdot effect :(

Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except 80% of Indians are Hindu... and 70% of Sri Lankans are buddhists.

Re:How's A.C. Clarke doing?

[Tokerat]

Seeing as the first post on this thread was me asking that same question, I think redundancy can be your only excuse for being annoyed.

And by the way, asking about the well being of one of the most notable science-fiction writers/inventors of all time on a tech-oriented website with relevence to the current topic is hardly something ill-natured to say, as you make it seem.

Re:How's A.C. Clarke doing?

[tuoppi]

What should I say? Maybe I should tell how I feel for those who are suffering right now? Well. I am worried - diseases will attack the people as infrastructure has suffered major damage and there are alot of dead and injured people, but why should I tell that in slashdot? It doesn't help them in any way, and at the moment, I actually don't have any means of giving those people a hand. They most likely can't read slashdot at the moment so they could see how someone "feels for them" - or they might have some better things to do right now.

Instead, I am trying to get information that interests me, as I haven't managed to notice anything about this in news.

Re:This is Geek news?

[Shag]

Well, a single natural disaster that manages to affect upward of a half-dozen nations across thousands of miles is pretty darned impressive...

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[cypherwise]

According to this bbc picture Colombo, Sri Lanka also saw some destruction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictur es/4125643.stm

goto picture 10.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[mangu]

I hope he is all right

Me too, I hope he is all right, along with the several hundred millions of other people who live in that region.

Newsfeed from Bangkok

[angkor]

My site has been following this story since I first felt the temor in Bangkok this morning: http://2bangkok.com/quakes.shtml#quake

Re:How long until we blame America

[Stevyn]

Or maybe it's just plate tectonics moving around under our feet. I know it's human nature to think a higher power is standing ready to punish the wicked and reward the good, but when a rock this large cools over billions of years, you have to expect it will jiggle a little.

Re:This is Geek news?

[Anonymous Coward]

3000 people died in 9/11 and people were outraged. 6000+ people die in Asia and nobody cares?

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[mOoZik]

I didn't mean to disregard the others, but since the parent was about Clarke, I don't think I was insensitive to everyone else.

It got reported in a somewhat timely manner

[zogger]

I heard about it late last night on a net radio feed (my time EST 0 dark thirty am sometime, I was half asleep) right after it happened, but a tsunami wave travelling roughly the speed of a commercial jetliner doesn't give a lot of leeway even if the people in the soon to be affected areas hear about it.

And this one follows that 8. something quake that hit between tasmania and antarctica just the other day.

I think this story should be taken into consideration along with the asteroid stories, as this wave was only roughly 40-50 feet high, yet by some reports it traveled up to half a mile inland in some places. Just imagine one ten times higher (something like that) from a large asteroid oceanic strike.

But ya, you would think that their would be some sort of emergency alert tied to seismographs, that would automatically get posted to various radio and television and internet sources if it was of sufficient strength, ie, danger. I know we have this alleged emergency alert system in the US that will over ride the TV and radio stations OTA broadcasts, but no idea in other nations what they have for that. Civil defense is always lesser funded than military offense in most nations it appears. What would it really cost to develop a radio based alert system for these various nations? Cost of one jet fighter or tank? And it could be tied to cellphones for that matter through the various national carriers, say, in a true natural disaster (impending or otherwise) scenario, your phone might ring with a pre recorded short message.

I realise in the poorer areas it might be problematic, but surely someone in most areas has a phone or a radio or whatever, you don't have to get the message to every single human directly, just to enough of them in any given area for word of mouth to help out a lot. Wake up and alert one dude per poor village, he can go running outside yelling his head off for that matter, like "dang evac! Tsunami coming! Move it people!" something like that anyway. The old church bells ringing hard and fast deal.

7000+ dead at 15:30 GMT

[Shag]

According to the Associated Press.

And if that number isn't big enough, they're saying a million people displaced from their homes.

Creepy...

[Kjella]

..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

Re:Creepy...

[The Cydonian]

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."

Tell me about it. Just heard from a friend that they're fishing boats on top of cars in Langkawi; just spent a relaxing holiday out there last month, and boy, is it scary to imagine the scene. Something about it no longer being a BBC video, for instance, and it being about a real place with real people.

Re:Creepy...

[Xenna]

I've looked it up on a map and it seems like the vulnerable part is somewhat shielded against a wave coming in from the east. Not that it looks anywhere near safe...

http://perso.inooi.com/v2/fr/th/PhiPhi-map.gif

Re:Creepy...

[X86Daddy]

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.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[hughk]

Once the earthquake hit with a sea floor epicenter, everyone with a web browser knew a tsunami was going to hit somewhere.

Why didn't someone in India or Sri Lanka work this one out? It was early morning there and the country isn't predominantly Christian so there should have been people around and services available to warn people via radio/TV.

Re:This is Geek news?

[geeveees]

I have excellent karma. Obviously the Internet is not like real life.

Score:-1, Flamebait

Time to update your sig...

Re:How long until we blame America

[CrashPoint]

1. You're probably just trolling, but what the hell.

2. The flood happened in the morning ours ofafter Christmas.

3. It's a safe bet that there are some Christians among the dead.

4. Any god that would kill thousands of people for worshipping another (or in the case of Muslims, calling him another name) is simply evil.
4a. Make that evil and stupid, since history shows that you cannot wipe out a religion by murdering its followers.

Re:In....

[ginotech]

yeah, i agree. more than 7,000 people were killed. have a fucking heart, you insensitive bastard.

Re:How long until we blame America

[old_and_gray]

Wow, you're a geek and a religious zealot. Congratulations!

Re:How long until we blame America

[Dante Shamest]

I know it is an unpopular view and I will be immediately marked down for saying so, but I believe this is an act of a higher power.

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.

You think that's crazy?

[Anonymous Coward]

the NYTimes even said it disturbed the rotation of the earth.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[andersa]

Why not call him? I hear he always answers the phone?

Don't look at me?! I don't have his number.

I live in Coastal South India

[EqualSlash]

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.

Re:How long until we blame America

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Ao Nang in Thailand?

[aluminum boy]

Can anybody find any info or posts about Ao Nang in the Krabi province of Thailand? I Googled, but could not find anything. My wife and I were just there a couple of weeks ago before heading back to the states. Pretty scary when you realize that it could have been you or your loved one washed out to sea.

Re:Ao Nang in Thailand?

[aluminum boy]

Thanks for the post, glad that you both got out okay.

Re:Remember to plug your stuff for every disaster

[sunsrin]

Excuse me. Its has been my signature from a long time. Do i need to change remove it because a disaster happened?

CNN

[edittard]

Slashdot aint CNN.

Is it devoid of any original content or in-depth analysis?
Does it show the same stories over and over and over again?
Are the adverts intrusive and increasing?

You may wish to reconsider your statement.

Low Early, Tasteless Later

[DumbSwede]

I saw this in the news last night and the death estimates where ludicrously low. This always seems to be the case for these types of events, while death estimates in Western countries always seem to start on the high side and trend down. I'm not sure why this should be. I understand that some less powerful countries (or more centrally controlled) always want to put the best spin on things, but during disasters it always ends up sounding like a Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition routine. Since this type of news is certain to get out, why delay it? Perhaps it is not purposely delayed in this case, but one certainly sees this happening often in other parts of the world. Granted downed communication networks make getting precise news hard (impossible), but perhaps I have already answered my own question. Maybe it's not so much about owning up to a terrible human tragedy, but an unwillingness of admitting not having the technology and infrastructure to make better estimates.

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.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Rob Carr]

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?

For some reason, the human mind categorizes things according to how the object is related to the individual. If something is near, it's far more impactful than if something is far away. If you can see it, it has more impact than if you can't. If you are somehow related to the individual, the event makes a greater impression.

News organizations know this. By focusing on some aspect that relates to their viewers, they're more likely to draw in the viewer's interest.

Look at the readers of Slashdot. They immediately related to Arthur C. Clarke living in the area. It's how our brains work.

As far as numbers, on a cognitive level, we all know that 7000 is larger than 3000 is larger than 10. But our brains don't really grasp numbers over 7 too well. We might have a general feel for 100, and there's some indication that the largest natural human groups wind up around 160 or so. Beyond that, we don't connect to the numbers on a primative level. It's just big numbers.

As a human, it helps if you understand how your brain works, so that you can compensate.

Me? I like to snorkel. Reading about the scuba divers that probably got wiped out caught my attention. Through those scuba divers, my brain can now emotionally link to the tragedy. Stupid, but it works.

You think MS Windows is buggy? Look at the home-grown software your brain's running.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

They are American news channels, they focus on the angle that has the most impact to their viewership. Why does Slashdot focus on Arthur C. Clarke, an author who hasn't written anything on his own in over 30 years? Same reason really, a personal connection of a sort.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[oneiron]

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?

It may be poor taste, but the vast majority of barbaric americans (of which I am one) seem to eat it up. Fox and CNN are just giving the viewers what they want so they can get their $$$. The real poor taste comes in with the citizenry and the politicos. It's all the "power of pride" bumper stickers...the "you're with us or you're against us" mentality.

What they don't realize is that we're all in this together, and the only thing worth being proud of is being alive and human.

...and the human part of that only lasts until we find out that we're not alone in the infinity of the cosmos.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[DrEasy]

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 think the idea is that they're informing people who might have loved ones involved in the disaster.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[DAldredge]

I just checked several national news outlets based in other countries and, SUPRISE, they are focusing on the number of citizens of their respective countries that may have been killed.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[nwbvt]

"This always seems to be the case for these types of events, while death estimates in Western countries always seem to start on the high side and trend down."

Early reports are never accurate, and shouldn't be expected to be. Actually, I've seen reports of disasters in non-Western countries where the first estimates were much higher. Remember the train collision in North Korea a while back?

"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?"

Well if I have family/friends in the affected area, I want to know if they are ok. Fox and CNN (or at least the versions you are probably watching if you are in the States, I know CNN and NewsCorp have international channels as well) are reporting primarily to American viewers who are more likely to have American family and friends in the area. Its really no more tasteless than you expressing concern over one possible fatality (Clarke) when thousands are probably dead.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[rsidd]

I saw this in the news last night and the death estimates where ludicrously low. This always seems to be the case for these types of events, while death estimates in Western countries always seem to start on the high side and trend down. I'm not sure why this should be.

Because these aren't estimates, but known deaths? No conspiracy here.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[YE]

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?

FWIW, it's not just you, and it's not just American media. Bulgarian media are doing the same for the past few hours - ringing up embassies, expats and tour guides of Bulgarian groups in the affected countries, trying to find out if there are Bulgarian casualties.

Bad taste is universal. As some would say, we all descended from the same ape.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Diag]

Um, it's Christmas, lots of people from all over the world are holidaying in these areas. Worried families at home want to hear this kind of information.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[CmdrGravy]

Usually I'm not averse to having a crack at Americans but in this instance I think you're being daft - ITV news in the UK is largely speaking to British people and covering the resorts where the Brits are likely to be but that is totally to be expected.

Obviously Americans are going to be more interested in other Americans caught in the disaster ( friends, families etc on holidays there ) just as Brits are more interested in the fate other Brits and the Irish in the fate of their countrymen.

At this stage it's not in poor taste at all, later on we will all be more interested in the rebuilding effort and the people who live their but now most people are going to immediately worry about any people they know in those areas.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Saeger]

Indeed - it's our primitive evolutionary psychology in conflict with our exponentially advancing technology that'll probably be our undoing.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[ntrfug]

You think MS Windows is buggy? Look at the home-grown software your brain's running.

That's not a bug; it's a feature!

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Captain_Chaos]

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?

Dutch media do that too (report about Dutch casualties, I mean). I guess that's how the news media work all over the world. I used to think it was slightly inappropriate, but now I think not. They are Dutch media after all, reporting to Dutch viewers. There's nothing wrong with relating the events to Dutch people. After all, people may be watching who have family or friends there. Same goes for American news media.

It would be inappropriate if the news media somehow gave the impression that Dutch people dying is in any way worse than locals or other nationalities, but I've never noticed that.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[bogado]

This is not a "American" thing, I usually read the Brasilian, french and american press and as I can tell all of them did this. While all of them concentraded in the large numbers (arround 150.000 now) they would do side news with local numbers.

Since this is very far and expensive for Brasilians we had a few casualites, from what I heard there were more germans tourists.

Re:Oh, STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Earlier earthquake of 8.1

[Devar]

What is interesting is that there was another quake on the 24th of 8.1 off the coast of Tasmania, the other side of the continential plate that caused this one ( AFAIK). That end of the plate gave way and that affected this one? A warning? I don't know, but it might have been related.


Massive earthquake felt in Tasmania
December 24, 2004 - 7:55AM

The world's biggest earthquake in almost four years has struck 800 km
off the coast of Tasmania, Australian seismological officials said.

Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale
hit the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am. [...]

Re:Earlier earthquake of 8.1

[IroygbivU]

Speaking about patterns and earthquakes, it's an interesting coincidence that the Sumatra earthquake occured almost exactly one year and one hour apart from the last earthquake that involved major loss of life, at Bam (Iran) last boxing day.

Sumatra:
12,000+ deaths (and rising).
Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:50 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav /

Bam:
Approx 31,000 deaths.
Friday, December 26, 2003 at 01:56:52 (UTC) - Coordinated Universal Time
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2003/eq_031226/

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[the_mad_poster]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4125643.stm

Dude, come on. That only took an extra 6 keystrokes.

I can't believe the prejudice here

[postbigbang]

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.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Anonymous Coward]

So have you only just realized that so many Americans regard the rest of the world as scum? Why else did you think there was do much ill-will towards Americans in the rest of the world?

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bhima]

All I can say is: Welcome to Slashdot

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about?

1. I have no family or friends in that part of the world so no they are not my brethren.

2. 6000 dead is not an astounding loss of life.

3. This is a tech news site not CNN.com. Does this event increase the price of RAM? If not then it does not belong here.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Anonymous Coward]

What a totally stupid, biased and ignorant remark. You're probably an astroturfing terrorist.

"So many Americans" have given their lives to rescue many parts of the rest of the world from dictatorships in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Where were you and where was your country when the Taliban were shooting women in the head on just the accusation of adultry, and Saddam Husein was killing hundreds of thousands just for sport? Perhaps you are from France, Germany or Russia, countries that were reaping big $PROFITS trading military hardware to Iraq for oil? Or, perhaps you are a Radical Islamic teaching your young to tie bombs to themselves and blow up innoocent civilians because you are too much of a coward to do it yourselves? What do you tell them, that Allah will be grateful and will give them 72 virgins in paradise?

Did you dig the graves for the bodies of the Americans who lost their lives in WWI fighting to free you, or are you the one defacing the graves of Americans buried in France because they rescued your mother and father from a life under Hitler's rule?

With the $Billions spent on the Marshall Plan in Europe following WWII the US has contributed $Trillions to the rebuilding of countries around the world. Americans have freely redistributed more of our wealth around the world than the collective contributions of all the Socialist/Marxist countries combined. The major export of those nations has been guns, bombs, violence and "revolution", and everywhere they've succeeded the result is a people even more oppressed than before.

How much money did you or your country give to the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after WWII? Did your country start a Peace Corp? Have you been sending Billions of tons of Care Packages packages around the world over the last 50 years?

Maybe you're a self-rightous Canadian who is vitriolic about American military power but enjoys letting America pay its military protection bill? Canada has a total of only 55,000 serving in all of their armed forces combined and they depend on the protection of America's military might.

But, maybe you're right. What if, from now on, we keep to ourselves, and when you flirt with tyranny again we won't come to your rescue after you take the dicator's bait? What if we dig up our sacred dead from around the world and bring them home to rest in peace and respect here? Besides the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corp and Care Packages, we have redistributed more of our wealth via job outsourcing than any other country in the world. Everything we buy here is made somewhere else by folks who are earning 10X more than they did before. Ninty percent of all programming jobs in the USA have been shipped overseas since 2000. Americans standard of living has dropped in direct proportion to its rise elsewhere around the globe.
We even let foreign Billionaires buy citizenship and then setup websites here using disgruntled Leftists/Marxists in an attempt to influence our Presidential elections!

What if we stop outsourcing our manufacturing, programming and other jobs and stop all HB1 and other job imports, canceled free donations of food, clothing, medical supllies and money? Would that be treating othes with more respect?

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[halr9000]

FWIW, I browse at +3 for this reason.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[wk633]

But a couple of thousand in two towers is?

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Gatton]

What are you browsing at? I read at +2 and very few posts have been insensitive. If you're reading at 1 or 0 I am sure the number of f*cktards is far higher.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[analog_line]

Welcome to the planet Earth. Many people on this planet are happy the the twin towers were brought down. We are not a species that is nice by nature. To paraphrase the Princess Bride, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Fnkmaster]

Pretty insightful post for an AC. You are correct - I don't think it justifies flagrant insensitivity and meanness, but experiencing the full grief of the death and misery that afflicts the human race would of course destroy a person's psyche.

So we do our best - when a newsworthy event happens that is associated with mass death and destruction we should pause, give a moment of respect and sadness for the people affected and try to move on with our lives because we don't have much other choice. Yes, humans have evolved to be tribalist, to care first and foremost about those we are in some way connected to, those we live near, work with, talk to, and interact with and their loved ones. Let's not try to overly rationalize emotional experiences, they don't always fit into a neat logical framework.

But we could at least show a modicum of respect (and the vast majority of posts in this story do, it's just a few trolls and dickheads who are being actively nasty).

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[justins]

Yes, it's a tragedy, but I suspect a large portion of the world didn't give a rats ass about the 2000 who died in the Twin Towers either, so turn about is fair play.

It's only "fair" if you think ethics is entirely subjective, which is sad.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[justins]

Where were you and where was your country when the Taliban were shooting women in the head on just the accusation of adultry, and Saddam Husein was killing hundreds of thousands just for sport?

Where was the United States, for that matter? If the Taliban weren't dumb enough to host Bin Laden's little brigade, they'd still be engaging in the human rights abuses that have you so outraged.

I'm sure Iraqis are glad Saudi Arabians blew up the WTC so we could fight the evil of Saddam Hussein. I'm sure they're glad we waited for that, rather than supporting their previous attempts at revolution and overthrowing him themselves. That wouldn't have made any sense.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Art Tatum]

I'm browsing at +1 and I haven't seen anything nasty yet. But I'm coming to this late (after a lot of moderation has been done) and I always browse sorted by score.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bulliver]

Fuck you you pompous asshole. I *am* a Canadian. Just what or who have you protected us from? I think if you look at the history the last attack on Canadian soil was by *Americans* for fucks sake.

Here's a news flash: we don't want your fuckin help, Canada has build a great reputation as being a friend to the entire world. Again, who exactly have you protected us from? BTW, Canada was in WW2 from pretty much the begining...America didn't declare war until after Pearl Harbour. I consider Americans great friends to Canada (that is American people, not your fucked up government) but people like you and your ignorant attitude is exactly why Canadians (and others in the world) can't fucking stand you.

If it's not clear yet...we don't want your help, go fuck yourself)

Disclaimer before I get flamed: This post is directed against the anonymous coward above...not the american people as a whole.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[thisgooroo]

Where were you and where was your country when the Taliban were shooting women in the head on just the accusation of adultry, and Saddam Husein was killing hundreds of thousands just for sport?

most likely he was not there supporting saddam as the americans did when he was attacking iran and gassing kurds at the same time

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Cro Magnon]

It's not an American thing. Most of the world thinks everyone else is scum! Including those in your country, whichever one it is.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bljohnson0]

"we don't want your fuckin help, Canada has build a great reputation as being a friend to the entire world"

Sure - you don't think you need it now. But when the shit hits the fan guess who you'll be calling. If you're such a friend to the entire world then why would you need a military at all!? You could just "Eh?" and "Aboot" your way out of conflict.

"BTW, Canada was in WW2 from pretty much the begining"

The war went from 1939 to 1945. From 1939 to 1941 the Canadians sent troops over to England to train and prepare for an invasion by Germany. Their first major contact with the enemy was in Hong Kong against the Japenese where they received a major ass pounding.

Guess what date that was? The US officially entered the war on December 8th, 1941 (a day after Pearl Harbor). Guess what day the Japanese attaked the Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong where the Canadians first got into the action? December 8th, 1941.

So shut your damned hole.

The Canadian army didnt do shit until the US entered the war. Then AFTER that they only provided support to the allies. Case in point.. Sicily.. the US and British closed in from the west and north.. the Canadians were sent in to clean out the Germans who were fleeing from them. Then the Canadian army withdrew their troops into reserve while the Americans and British entered Sicily and took it back from the Germans.

So anyways.. then in 1945 the allies are preparing for a full scale assault in the Pacific.. and I quote from the Veterans Association Canada:

"Canada, too, prepared for the assault. Nearly 80,000 Canadians volunteered to join the Pacific forces and began concentrating at nine stations across Canada in July 1945. Canadian naval participation was also to have been impressive: 60 ships, manned by 13,500 men. However, the war was over before this help was needed. President Truman of the United States had made the fateful decision to use the atomic bomb."

Bang. End of war. So get your damned facts straight. Repeat after me... "Thank you America!"

So all you anti-American slashdotters.. flame away. I dont want to sound like I'm belittling the efforts of Canadians in WW2. It was a combined effort by all the Allies.. but dont get on your high and mighty horse putting down the US as a whole just because you dont agree with the decisions of the present-day US government. There are many Americans who may not agree with them... but damnit.. our soldiers are there dying to try and keep a little peace and give the Iraqis (and others) a little taste of freedom. They deserve some support and respect.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bulliver]

First of all, I apologize for the bad language. The poster I responded to was particularily condecending and arrogant. He pissed me off.

Second, thanks for the history lesson

But when the shit hits the fan guess who you'll be calling.

What shit? What fan? Again, mention a single attack on Canada that you have saved us from and I will concede this entire debate. And btw, there is little point in mentioning what might happen in the future. It hasn't happened, no one knows what will happen, so mentioning it here is pointless. Besides, unless our government does a complete about face as starts acting as pompous, arrogant, and imperialistic as yours, we have little to fear of a foreign attack.

The war went from 1939 to 1945. From 1939 to 1941 the Canadians sent troops over to England to train and prepare for an invasion by Germany.

So why exactly do you consider what I wrote wrong? Whether involved in actual combat or not, Canada was commited to the effort from the beginning, whilst the American people were sitting at home mad at Roosevelt(sp?) because they didn't want to send their boys over to Europe to fight a war that 'wasn't their problem'. No matter how you spin it, Canada was in from the beginning, and the US didn't get involved until it affected them directly.

You could just "Eh?" and "Aboot" your way out of conflict.

That's right we all sit up here saying eh and aboot. That's all we fuckin do. It is the tendancy for someone with no real ability to create an intelligent rebuttal to start with the childish name calling. Way to live up to that stereotype, you do America proud.

Repeat after me... "Thank you America!"

Repeat after me: 'thanks but no thanks'. I cannot imagine the kind of arrogance that would lead to your statement, and is exactly why I responded to that first post (was that you?). I will be first in line to thanks the Americans if and when they start treating us as a brother and an equal, instead of a stupid, defensless kid next door that needs your help to stay alive.

but dont get on your high and mighty horse putting down the US as a whole just because you dont agree with the decisions of the present-day US government.

Here you just completely ignore what I wrote in order to bolster your argument. Read the disclaimer at the bottom of my post. It was directed at *that single person*, not the "US as a whole".

but damnit.. our soldiers are there dying to try and keep a little peace and give the Iraqis (and others) a little taste of freedom. They deserve some support and respect.

Indeed they do, but see the soldiers are actually doing something, instead of sitting smugly at home telling people that they owe the US a huge load of debt for their existance.

It is this smug attitude that pisses off the rest of the world so much. True story: My best friend is an American, born in San Fran, he moved up to Canada at the age of 13. We have great fun debating about political issues, and something that he always tends to come back to is that "America is the best country because we could kick anyone's ass". I ask him, "why does that make you better" and he just goes in circles, "because we have the best Military in the world". Granted, the Americans could kick anyones's ass, but it is this attitude of the American people that Military might makes them "the best" that disgusts so many other people. Maybe the American scale of what makes a country better than another is military might...but not Canada's, and not any other Country in this world. Until the American people can take a step back and realize how arrogant this attitude is, the rest of the world will never respect you (and indeed some will hate you).

I'm going to say this one more time, so it is perfectly clear to you...I am not anti-American...I am anti-asshole

Good day sir.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bljohnson0]

Ooops - wasnt logged in. The above comment was obviously posted by me. And again let me make sure I make it completely clear.. no I was NOT the original AC that posted this comment. I do not share his strong views that the US is above everyone else and all other countries should be kissing our asses :)

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bulliver]

Ok, one more post then hopefully we can put this to bed...

That was meant as a joke. Settle down. And my response was an intelligent rebuttal.. with joke about Canadians thrown in.

Can you do me a favour, if it is a joke put in a smiley :) as it is very difficult to tell it was a joke from your written words. I took it as a direct insult. I watch enough American TV to realize that Canadians are frequently the butt of American jokes: Homer Simpson calling Canada "America Junior", Canadian cars having square wheels on South Park. I also have enough good sense to take this good natured ribbing and laugh at it...but in the written word it is difficult to tell the intentions of the writer.

..and yes your response was intelligent. Just alittle name calling of my own there...sorry.

"we don't want your fuckin help," and "who exactly have you protected us from." I'm pretty sure you didnt mean that one dude.

I guess this is my fault too... I was responding to the 'attitude' of the OP and people who hold that attitude...thus my use of words that imply a response to multiple people. I did not mean to include all Americans at all, and if that is how you (or anybody else) read it, I am truly sorry.

True - but you also cant sit smugly in your Canadian home up there acting as though you need NO help from the United States and your life would be just as peaceful (or moreso) and great if we didnt even exist.

To this point I am afraid I cannot concede. Corelation does not imply causality. Sure we haven't been attacked by anyone in all the years that you have been our neighbor..but you indirectly (and the OP directly) seem to be saying this is because you have been protecting us. Perhaps it's because we are a well respected nation that has no direct enemies? Let me tell you something, and while I don't speak for all Canadians, I know many who share this belief...we are much more scared of reprisal from your government for not adopting "the American way" then we are of an attack from another foriegn nation. I am not saying we would be better if you didn't exist...I'm saying we would be just fine without your help.

I just dont agree with you jumping all over his ass as though you yourself speak for the Canadian government. Canada needs us...and I dont mean just our military. In 1996 the US exported over $6.1 billion in agricultural goods alone to Canada. I'm sure in 2004 that figure is much higher.

I do not speak for my government...in fact I think a great many things my government does are completely stupid. I don't think this changes no matter who your government is. Your point about economic trade is valid, but remember it goes both ways. I have three words for you..softwood lumber tariffs. Why do we have a free-trade agreement when America imposes arbitrary tariffs on Canadian goods imported to the US. Point of fact there are many *Americans* upset about this (mostly general contracters) because they now have to use inferior products or pay extra for the good Canadian stuff. Unfortunatly I cannot provide backup on this point...as It was in a news documentary I saw on TV a while back.

So dont sit there implying that Canada rules and we suck because we're all just a bunch of fat lazy American assholes. Suuurreee... you put some little disclaimer at the bottom.. but its pretty obvious your comments were meant for more than just that one Anonymous Coward.

I don't think I called Americans fat and lazy, I don't even think I implied it, assholes though...sure :) see, this is a joke

There are a number of Americans I respect very highly... Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Henry David Thoureau immediately come to mind, though there are many more. As for who my comments are directed at...see above. They are directed at people who hold an attitude. If you hold a more modest view about the US and the US's role in this world then they are not directed at you... (you doesn't mean *you*, it

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bljohnson0]

Can you do me a favour, if it is a joke put in a smiley :)
Oops - probably should have included that ;)

I did not mean to include all Americans at all, and if that is how you (or anybody else) read it, I am truly sorry.
Great - some people tend to share a common view for all Americans.

To this point I am afraid I cannot concede. Corelation does not imply causality. Sure we haven't been attacked by anyone in all the years that you have been our neighbor..but you indirectly (and the OP directly) seem to be saying this is because you have been protecting us.
OK I suppose I can agree with that. There's been no need for the US to have to step up and help Canada with any military issues.

Your point about economic trade is valid, but remember it goes both ways. I have three words for you..softwood lumber tariffs.
True - I guess I should have also included a Canadian import example.

I don't think I called Americans fat and lazy, I don't even think I implied it
OK I suppose I inaccurately included you in a large portion of non-US (and some US) individuals who think we're all fat and lazy :)

I don't think we will ever see eye to eye on this, so we must do the rational thing and agree to disagree.
Agreed :) Although I think I can understand your viewpoint a little better after a rational exchange of ideas (not to say you were being irrational btw.. but the original AC's post seemed a little irrational).

BTW I am sorry your post got modded down. It certainly didn't deserve it any more than mine did...
It got modded down!? You bastard!!! :) See a joke! Actually I didnt notice that it was modded down. I show a flat score of 1.. so no biggie.

Happy Holidays, OK?
Happy Holidays!

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[bulliver]

It got modded down!? You bastard!!! :) See a joke! Actually I didnt notice that it was modded down. I show a flat score of 1.. so no biggie.

Ah, well I was talking about your AC post because you forgot to log in, or do AC posts automatically start at 0?

Hey, I just thought of something...I think our exchange here is the first time ever on slashdot that a massive flamefest turned into a rational discussion rather than the other way around. We're a shining example to the rest of the world :)

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[hibri]

Last I heard is that he lives at Barnes Place(a street) in Colombo. This is quite far from the coast, and Colombo itself hasn't been affected. So he probably should be safe.

The eastern,southern and south western coasts of Sri Lanka bore the brunt of the tsunamis. This includes a suburb of Colombo.

Sri Lanka is not a place where quakes and tsunamis happen. There were a few tremors, but not strong.There are no major faultlines near sri lanka.So the country is not prepared for this sort of thing.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Suchetha]

clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something.) one of is houses is near mine, and the other is in the heart of the city. long story short .. he's gonna be ok.

the most affected are the squatters living in improvised huts near the beach. call me cold hearted, but they went there, they grabbed the land, refused all attempts to base them elsewhere.

atb

Suchetha

Running total??

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Running total??

[DAldredge]

No, it helps people grasp what is happening and larger numbers of dead people result in larger responses by 1st world goverments.

It may not be 'right' but that is the way things work.

Re:Running total??

[fbjon]

That's true, but people also want information about how big it was, and in this case it was big, meaning a lot of people around the world will wonder about friends&relatives in the region. if it's a "normal" quake, with only a few deaths and some injuries, it's nothing for me to even think about seriously. But when the nbumbers jump from 600 to 3000, to 7000, and still going, there's suddenly a very real possibility that the people I personally know who live there might be affected. Not to mention if you actually live in the region itself (local news).

If you don't know anyone there however, the numbers might still be meaningless, at least in the grand scale of things. Therefore it becomes like a high score, where every new and higher number comes with an increased 'wow' factor, like the ever-incresingly-catastrophic catastrophe movies.

Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[tehanu]

I'm curious as to why a similar magnitude earthquake, also in the ocean, occurring off the coast of Australia shortly before this earthquake didn't cause a tsunami as well?

News about this earthquake here: http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11 778537%255E3462,00.html

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but I'm curious as to what the differentiating factor is between these two earthquakes which means one creates a tsunami and the other doesn't.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[Weird O'Puns]

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.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[Anonymous Coward]

An earthquake along a subduction (upthrust) fault is more likely to generate a devastating Tsunami than one from a lateral fault line (the Andaman fault is a subduction fault).

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[the_2nd_coming]

a quake near land does not cause Tsunami because the water is to shallow.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[jrumney]

Also, the USGS report stated that a tsunami was possible in the open ocean, but based on previous earthquake data would probably not hit land anywhere . So even if there had been a vertical displacement, any tsunami would probably have gone unnoticed.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[apostrophesemicolon]

I'm curious as to why a similar magnitude earthquake, also in the ocean, occurring off the coast of Australia shortly before this earthquake didn't cause a tsunami as well?

• The epicenter of the quake happens to be where several plates meet, thus the vertical movement and the high scale.
• Indonesia, which the epicenter is located is part of "ring of fire", a line of volcanoes that stretches from Asia, all the way to Mount St. Helens down to the South Americas
• AFAIK, as the tsunami moves into shallow waters, the height increases as the speed decreases.. a recipe for deathly trouble for people living on shores.. Imagine a wall of water 100+ feet high chasing you up inland..

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[jrumney]

a quake near land does not cause Tsunami because the water is to shallow

The "Aussie" earthquake was not near land. It was 800km South of from Tasmania, the nearest landmasses were Auckland Island, Macquery Island, and the South of New Zealand, all 4-500km away.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[Magickcat]

I'm from Melbourne, Australia (just above the island of Tasmania for those who don't know).

We noticed that our dog and our friend's dogs were acting very strangely for the last couple of days. They've been very anxious and agressive which is very unusual for their breeds. Perhaps they sensed something.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[The Cydonian]

Mostly coz I doubt anyone was expecting a tsunami. Out there on the Coramandal Coast, we're more on the look-out for cyclones and such; this, apparently, came in within very quickly, within 30 min or so I believe. I'm told the quake was broadcast live on Indian news channels; there was at least one news channel which was filming its bulletin from its studio in Chennai - the cam shaked and there was some chaos while the bullein was being broadcast.

Indeed, the last tsunami we had was in 1977, which came with a cyclone; my grandpa was involved in some heroics [which he loves to narrate whenever we go to his place in rural India ;-) ]. I don't know if this is how it is in, say, Hawaii or someplace, but the morning that tsunami hit the coast, everyone apparently went to work normally. It was only by 10AM or so that word spread that the sea was coming in (to use a vernacular phrase for 'tidal wave') and by then, all they could do was to climb onto rooftops and wait for the waters to recede.

Re:Maybe 10,000+ dead (0800 PDT)

[fbjon]

It seems the body count is now somewhere around 8000-9000, but I do think it's going rise quite a bit still, I recall hearing that even the military can't reach their own in the worst hit areas. Communication is basically down. I'm just glad that I live in a seismically "safe" place on the Earth...

I am glad that you are ok.

[adolfojp]

I send my regards and sympathies to your people. Lets pray for a quick recuperation of the area. Its good to read from fellow slashdotters that survived this catastrophe.

Cheers,
Adolfo

Yes, the Earth's rotation was affected!

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

The quake was so powerful the shockwaves circled the planet.

"All the planet is vibrating" from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation."

Source

Re:Yes, the Earth's rotation was affected!

[BenJeremy]

But HOW did it affect the rotation?

Is it now longer? Shorter? Does the sun rise ealier or later? HOW?!??!?

I hate it when something like that is mentioned in passing without any detail whatsoever.

Re:Yes, the Earth's rotation was affected!

[apanap]

I agree... Technically you affect earths rotation every time you move (you change your momentum - and totally it stays the same, so you take it from/leave it to earth), so just saying it affected earth's rotation tells me nothing.

Re:How long until we blame America

[Rakishi]

So much for the loving god, eh? I guess you should become Jewish since it's the Old Testament which had the vengeful god, and Jesus supposedly changed that. So it seems you don't believe in your own religion.

I'd rather be informed directly

[DumbSwede]

If I were a friend or relative I wouldn't want to find out by FOX or CNN news. My original post wasn't about ignoring American casualties, it's about ghoulishly focusing on them to the exclusion of the larger tragedy. I've seen no (confirmed) reports of any Americans dead (yet), but lots of speculation from the news sources on the possibility.

first person's view

[adeydas]

i am from one of the places where the earthquake has reportedly hit. however, i guess it was too mild 'coz we didn't feel a thing here... thanl God.

Why they use high estimates vs low

[draziw]

Why it is good to start with high estimate: Gets world wide resources. Sets how many people, and how much in the way of funds will be on their way for aid.

Why it is good to start with low estimate: (normally a bad idea), may keep moral up in areas that don't see how bad things are.

Ryan

Re:This is Geek news?

[Loco3KGT]

My point was merely that I come to /. for geek news, which these days they have very little of.

I go to CNN, FoxNews, WSJ, or the drudge for all other news.

Tsunamis aren't news for nerds.

usgs link

[plopez]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/quak es_big.html

Lots of information on global earthquakes. Looks like lots of strong after shocks in the region.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[northcat]

Once the earthquake hit with a sea floor epicenter, everyone with a web browser knew a tsunami was going to hit somewhere.

Are you sure? Because I read somewhere that only vertical movement in the ocean causes tsunamis, that not all quakes in the ocean cause tsunamis. But, not sure about this...

Mod grandarent UP!

[aasitus]

I've never understood why it's so bad to make jokes about serious issues.

Really, as long as it's not something like "lol thousand gazillion people died hahah stoopid niggerrsss they should've moved to New York hahaha", I mean, actually laugh at the disaster itself, I think it's pretty ok to realize that Quake is also a video game.

I'd mod the joke up if I could.

Re:Mod grandarent UP!

[Mister Transistor]

Exactly. I was joking about the headline text, not the disaster. Geez, some people need to get a grip.

Geek tie-in

[Shipwack]

Granted, the loss of life is tragic, but what about other conseqences? Are there any electronics or IT industries affected? Are we going to see the price of memory or electronic components go up due to damaged factories, warehouses, or communication disruption? Not that paying more for RAM is anywhere near as tragic as the loss of life there, of course.

Re:Hi.

[Shag]

I eagerly wait for the "more to come" part that explains how 2004-12-26 is the same as 2005-01-01. I'm sure that it's something simple, like the difference between calendars in use at different points in history. Or the 6-day difference between your time-space continuum/multiverse and the one the rest of us live in.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[rsidd]

Colombo wasn't unaffected.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[hughk]

If you drop a stone in the water, it makes a splash, I think most people would understand that. Such a big earthquake would not only have been recorded but it would normally set off alarms to get the seismologists attention. If promptly recognised, then those in India/Sri Lanka should have had an hour or so's warning.

I would have thought that news of a massive earthquake at sea backed by warnings of a tsunami would have worried enough people to get them to move (possible panic being another issue.

Cyclone's don't tend to create tsunami's as such, more the low pressure builds up water levels which can then be pushed further inland by the winds. This is a gradual process (like an extremely high tide), rather than the sudden impact of a tsunami.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Janitha]

Yeah he does, I have personally met him. I am orginally from Sri Lanka, hope my family and everyone is alright, seems like most of the telephone systems are down.

For all of the time I have lived there, there wernt any kind of earthquakes or such, not even news of any that were in the history either.

Tsunami warnings in the Indian Ocean

[baquiano]

Interestingly enough, the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation was working in a project to provide early warnings / relief support in the event of tsunamis. From the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation's website (see here):

PROJECT WARN in Partnership with the Japan US Science Technology and Space Applications Program (JUSTSAP). The purpose of Project Warn is combine enhanced communications and IT systems to provide warning of impending natural or man-made disasters and to provide on-going communications and remote sensing and GIS support during disaster relief operations. The Clarke Foundation is working with the Pacific Disaster Center, the Asian Disaster Mitigation Organization, the United Nations, and the US and Japanese Governments as coordinated through the JUSTSAP organization to carry out a suitable test and demonstration in this area. In particular a simulation and test is being planned in the Pacific Region in 2005 to determine to how to use the latest information and sensing technology more effectively in the advent of that a major Tsunami might impact an Asian country or island. Clarke Foundation personnel are providing technical advice and support on a volunteer basis to this project.[ emphasis mine]

Note that the test was scheduled for 2005... unfortunately a little too late. Also, they were focusing on the Pacific instead of the Indian Ocean. Given that Clarke himself lives in Sri Lanka, I wonder how the current events would affect the project. It is clear to me that the Indian Ocean has been somewhat neglected.

Tsunami Survival Question

[sh0rt r0und]

I know someone who was diving on a boat on a small island some distance from Phuket. Is there any chance he could have survived?

Hoping anyone with knowledge of how tsunami's work might have a good idea. Would he be carried with the wave or would it just pass him?

Thanks for any responses

Re:Tsunami Survival Question

[Multipleg]

I believe ships are advised to move out away from land in the event of an approaching Tsunami. Ships in the area are being asked not to come to shore for 24 hours.

Re:Tsunami Survival Question

[cdcarter]

Depending on how close to the shore he was, he could have made it, but he would have to be pretty far out.

Re:Tsunami Survival Question

[KayakFun]

Tsunamis in deep water have almost unnoticeable amplitude and speed around 900kph. The shallower the water, the higher and slower the wave.

The deeper the water (the further away from the shore), the more likely he survived.

Because Phuket is an island, he could be lucky to dive on the safe side of the island.

Re:Maybe 10,000+ dead (0800 PDT)

[rsidd]

I am concerned about the US military base on Diego Garcia

Interesting. For me, and most people in the world, a US military base would be absolute bottom on any list of worries. Especially the one at Diego Garcia, given its history. It's been cleansed already of its rightful inhabitants by the leaders of the free world; it would be fitting if the military base got wiped out too.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[John Courtland]

It's not like the punishment was meted out by man. They chose to live there, they die. Welcome to real life.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

Dr Clarke used to live in Barne's Place (quite far from the coast), and I don't think he has shifted. I traveled by a road closeby this evening, and there was zero damage to that neighbourbood.
However, as far as health is concerned, Dr Clarke is not fareing very well. I saw him on a wheelchair at a recent convention where he was a (the?) guest of honour.

point?

[geekoid]

what the hell does that have to do with the poster, or the story?

nothing.

Don't use those people deaths as an excuse to be prejudice.

Re:point?

[wk633]

My point had everything to do with the comment to which it replied. The poster said that 6000 dead is not an outstanding loss of life. Actually, considering what the death toll will rise to, I beg to differ.

However, it's not really the number of dead that make it newsworthy. The total number of dead on 9/11 was, relatively speaking, pretty insignificant, but it was an extremely newsworthy event.

It's not how many die, but the shoking way in which they die, that grabs our attention. As someone else noted, the same number will die of smoking, and probably in car accidents as well. We don't find those newsworthy because they happen all the time.

Planes flying into buildings and earthquakes like this don't happen every day. That they happen outside my backyard doesn't make them less newsworthy.

To say that today's news is only relevant if it affects the price of RAM is, or someone I know, is IMO prejudiced.

It is only going to get worse

[3arwax]

My heart goes out to those affected but it will only get worse. I looked at the list of major quakes since 1900 and it seemed that almost half were in the last 10 years. Do you think that maybe the Bible is right? What can we do to help those who are affected? What can we do to prepare for ourselves for such events? 72 hour kits are a great way to start.

Re:are we going to see insensitive douchebags

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

Insensitive he may be, but not long after lamenting the human cost, I wondered also what this would do to the cost of DRAM. Call me insensitive. I prefer pragmatic.

Earthquakes and Undersea Cables

[Vryl]

Various bits of the net are hard to get at right now (from Oz, that is ...).

Wondering if the quake has caused any probs ... anyone heard any reports?

Re:Earthquakes and Undersea Cables

[Vryl]

Too funny ...

Australia was, of course, a collection of penal colonies for the British for quite a while.

Re:Hi.

[atriusofbricia]

Surely you realize that link means nothing, yes?

Re:How long until we blame America

[SilentChris]

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.

Re:This is Geek news?

[Patik]

I don't mean to downplay the earthquake, but people died on 9/11 at the hands of terrorists while people died on 12/26/04 at the hands of nature. One was preventable, the other one wasn't. One was man-vs-man, the other was nature-vs-man. Apples and oranges.

CNN - I don't knwo about FOX

[cdn-programmer]

The last time I was in Malaysia I watched CNN and it was like being on another planet. The resemblence of what is broadcast in North America to what is broadcast in Malaysia was so weak that I could not believe it was the same organisation.

So I would not put too much weight on what CNN is broadcasting here as far as being america-centric is conserned.

Re:CNN - I don't knwo about FOX

[oneiron]

Stay in school.

Re:How's A.C. Clarke doing?

[AnuradhaRatnaweera]

And anway, Colombo is exactly on the wrong side of the island to be badly hit (assuming the quake was centered somewhere to the east of Sri Lanka (well the Maldives were hit).

Not exactly. Cities in the eastern coast, such as Trincomale, Batiacaloa, Muttur etc. have been hit badly, but it will take longer for get news from these areas. At noon today, just few hours after the first wave, 150 bodies had been brought to the Muttur general hospital.

Re:How long until we blame America

[grasshoppa]

What is ironic is the OP is suggesting that people unrelated to 9/11 are being punished for it by god. Whoops, don't mean to tweak you folks, "God".

Now that, my friends, is truly a work of art. Troll or unintentional, it's still a post worthy of reading.

burn holywood burn

[Anonymous Coward]

"2. 6000 dead is not an astounding loss of life."

and this is why whenever i see a picture of the former world trade centers i sit back and smile

americans are the cancer of the earth.

Re:burn holywood burn

[Cro Magnon]

and this is why whenever i see a picture of the former world trade centers i sit back and smile

americans are the cancer of the earth.

And that attitude is why nobody will care when you get blown away by terrorists/earthquakes/tidal waves.

People like you are the cancer of the earth, regardless of which country you live in!

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[igny]

Last I heard is that he lives at Barnes Place(a street) in Colombo. This is quite far from the coast, and Colombo itself hasn't been affected. So he probably should be safe.
Why can't you, slashdotters, imagine Clarke going to beach in a sunny day?

'Inamura no hi'

[suikyo]

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.

Q. Wow Honey! Where do we go for Xmas?

[geomon]

A. Hundreds of miles from the mainland where you don't have the luxury of being able to run 100 miles more inland and a few hundred feet UP.

This was probably not exactly great for those folks who are the permanent residents either.

The Pacific always carries these threats, and others more severe. The regions that are plagued by earthquakes are also often in close proximity to volcanoes.

The Pacific Coast of Washington State is ringed with small two-lane highways where you can drive right on to the beach. If you step out of your vehicle and wander around long enough you will see traffic-type signs indicating tsunami evacuation routes. These are the black-bordered yellow signs with the little AOL creature running in the direction of the arrow.

Within 100 miles of those tsunami signs sit the Cascade Mountains, which comprise the northeastern range of the Ring of Fire.

This is the reward for living next to the "Pacific" Ocean. The City of Grunge and its outlying area has the great fortune to live near ~9.0 magnitude capable faults, and a volcano ring that can distribute all manner of pyroclastic and other major debris flows.

Re:Q. Wow Honey! Where do we go for Xmas?

[sleeeper]

Here are some images of the signs in Washington State: Sign images

Re:Q. Wow Honey! Where do we go for Xmas?

[sleeeper]

Earthquakes can be fun (i.e, interesting natural events like snow) if we engineer our lives properly.

Of course, I was dumb/ill informed and was almost crushed by my filing cabinet a few years ago in an earthquake (note the crushed chair that I was sitting in just before diving under my desk).

Thankfully they do drill us from an early age in the northwest to hide under our desks (where I immediately went) at the first shake. Drills work, even though they seem dorky at the time. They just need to tell us more about not having tall heavy unsecured object nearby....

Video?

[Jack Greenbaum]

Anyone found any free video of the tsunami coming ashore?

-- Jack

Los Gigantos

[Altima(BoB)]

The island is called Los Gigantos, the one that Mt Teide is located on. The volcano itself isn't the real threat, it's the cliffs that rise almost a mile above the shore, with a fault line less than a mile offshore.

Re:Los Gigantos

[ToKsUri]

I don't want to sound rude, but I live here and there is no island called los Gigantos. There is however an area of tenerife (the island where Mt Teide is) which is called Los Gigantes, and are high cliffs indeed. This is not an important mistake, but I am interested in what you are talking about. Where have you read/heard about it?

Re:Los Gigantos

[Eccles]

Here's one story:
http://www.rense.com/general56/tsu.htm

Otherwise google tsunami canary islands eastern seaboard.

Re:Los Gigantos

[Aardpig]

he island is called Los Gigantos, the one that Mt Teide is located on.

Mt Teide is on Tenerife. However, the faultline actually runs through La Palma, a totally-different island.

Re:Los Gigantos

[Optali]

I was wrong to, the case of el Hierro is not related to this one, it took place 50.000 years ago, but the new tread comes from the Cumbre Vieja mountain: Link in Spanish
This volcano is actually not active, but it's not considered to be death.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[skahshah]

Did they really have the choice?

Re:This is Geek news?

[tbjw]

But the theory of the propogation of Tsunamis is, and the problem of warning people is, and GEOLOGISTS ARE NERDS TOO.

And to think...

[Rie Beam]

CNN interrupted the breaking story this morning to talk about delayed holiday flights and how unfortunate those who were late for Christmas were. Kinda puts things in perspective, doesn't it?

Earlier earthquake of 8.1. Next what?

[igny]

Japan, Kamchatka, Alaska, Washington, California, Mexico, Chile?

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[John Courtland]

Well, according to Suchetha, in post 11185178 - it seems like some agency or group was attempting to move them. I quote: "... refused all attempts to base them elsewhere." Maybe I misinterpreted, but I don't believe I did.

Nuclear Power Station shutdown because of flooding

[clevelandguru]

A nuclear power station in Kalpakkam, India, was shutdown because of the flooding.

So terrorism is ok...

[b1scuit]

...if it comes from god?

Re:Maybe 10,000+ dead (0800 PDT)

[Dave Walker]

Asshole. Diego Garcia was one of the first things I thought of as well. I did TWO tours there in the '80's, and was there for the quake of '83. It literally threw me out of my rack in my third floor barracks room. I kissed my ass goodbye that night, for there is NO high ground to move to, and shore patrol was driving around announcing that everyone should move to higher ground and brace for a tidal wave. The only thing that saved us that night was that the earthquake occurred so close to the atoll that the tidal wave didn't have enough distance to form.

Re:How long until we blame America

[CreationLtd]

Well, that would explain Cyclone Tracy, 1974 Christmas Day that devastated Darwin. Hotbed of heathens, them Aussies.

Oh boy...

[cyranoVR]

Finally a human tragedy I'm allowed to get upset about.

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:

Where were you on Jan 26, 2001? Do you remember any news that happened that day at all?

On that date, an earthquake hit India, leaving 13,000 people dead.

thirteen thousand. More than four times the amount killed in the World Trade Center. Think about that for a minute. How much coverage of it did you see on CNN? Maybe a day?

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.

Re:Oh boy...

[krenskeoz]

Actually, what you have here is ethical considerations, effecting what is litterally a ranking exercise. Human minds ( without personal emotional impacts ) tend to rank things. How do you rank tragedy, easy, death count. In some western nations the death tolls are normally so low we fall back on monetary costs.

So why did 9/11 have more impact than an earthquake in India? that is simple. 1000 times greater airplay caused it to have a major human emotional impact to a lot of people. Now why did that happen, again simple, no one even had to move much to film and broadcast the disaster. The attacks on 9/11 were delivered to one of the most electronically and media dense places on the planet. While an earthquake in India may well have not even been appearing in papers on the far side of the nation after a week.

I have similar thoughts regarding ranking Genocide etc. When people attempt to rank genocides I simply state that each was an attempt to destroy a culture. The size of the culture is irrelevant, the thing that makes it bad is that the attempt was made at all.

Re:Oh boy...

[upsidedown_duck]

People die so often and in such great numbers in so many varied disasters that ranking them is all we can do to set the scope of one disaster over another. Get over it.

Re:Oh boy...

[EmagGeek]

It's also one thing to look at a catastrophe that is a natural event and quite another to look at one that is the result of sheer, unbridled hatred and desire to kill. The latter tends to be ranked as a worse catastrophe because it makes us dislike ourselves as a race. After all, humans made a conscious decision to murder as many people as possible, whereas the Earth didn't get up this morning and decide to kill 11,000 people. The fact that the catastrophe was a result of a conscious decision makes it 100x worse than a natural disaster.

Re:Oh boy...

[Anonymous Coward]

tragedy = bodycount/distance

Re:Oh boy...

[jonhaug]

This is sad. The most important aspect of the 11/9-attack is that it was purposefully. It is said that one can bear a tragedy when it is a result of an accident or a natural catastrophy. However, when you are a victim of some action carried out by purpose, you live with your grief the rest of your life. This makes, in some sense, the Twin tower attack much worse.

However, I find emotionless sarcasm in your message. Why is that?

Re:Oh boy...

[IthnkImParanoid]

You're right, human lives cannot be summed to show that one tragedy is greater than another. To classify 9/11 as a "greater" or "lesser" tragedy based solely on the death toll is both ignorant and disrespectful of the victims of that tragedy.

However, without regard to death tolls, I think it is important to realize that a tragedy at home inspired months (years?) of news coverage, speculation, op ed pieces, commemerative works, etc, while a tragedy that would be on the same scale if such a scale could exist received comparitively little.

So, I guess what I mean is that it's prefectly okay, indeed right, to mourn the events of 9/11. But it's also okay to critisize the news media in our country for disproportionally covering events that affect Americans, playing on our fear and sorrow for ratings.

If this doesn't make sense, it's cause I'm drunk. But hey, at least I'm not using my mod points while drunk.

Re:Oh boy...

[cyranoVR]

But it's also okay to critisize the news media in our country for disproportionally covering events that affect Americans, playing on our fear and sorrow for ratings.

Great point with which I agree 100%

It's definitely ok to criticize the media for glamourizing the grief of September 11th, the tsunami, or any other human tragedy.

The problem I have is with people that tell other human beings they have no right to their own emotions.

Re:Oh boy...

[GlassHeart]

I don't know who you talk to, and I don't think that catastrophes should be ranked so that we can grieve only about the "worst" ones.

However, consider that some of those you've spoken to might have been comparing the amount of grief shown for the 9/11 attack in contrast to the perceived apathy for other (worse or otherwise) catastrophes. It's not that you're not allowed to grieve for 9/11, but that (in their perception) you've ignored all others. There's some truth to that, if you measure concern by media coverage or charitable donations.

If victimhood and sense of loss cannot bring out our common humanity, what would?

Re:Oh boy...

[cyranoVR]

However, consider that some of those you've spoken to might have been comparing the amount of grief shown for the 9/11 attack in contrast to the perceived apathy for other (worse or otherwise) catastrophes.

Good point...too bad that's not what they have been saying (follow the link in my original post).

They haven't been saying: "United States, your tragedy sucks...so does ours...let's all mourn for each others's tragedies."

Rather, it's been: "United States, stop being such fucking babies, other peoples have it much worse than you."

The equivalent is somebody deriding a weeping mourner at a funeral: "How dare you cry?! Others have it much worse!" (this happens too, btw).

The point is: somepeople are just insensitive assholes :-\

Re:Oh boy...

[cyranoVR]

However, I find emotionless sarcasm in your message. Why is that?

You tell me.

Re:Oh boy...

[cyranoVR]

People die so often and in such great numbers in so many varied disasters that ranking them is all we can do to set the scope of one disaster over another. Get over it.

I suppose if you were producing VH1's 100 Greatest Disasters EVAR!, this might be a true statement.

bbc news video at 20:30

[smoker2]

divx (9.5 MB) here

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

So how many does it need to be to stop being a big deal? Would you care to quantify that for us?

Would you? How many does it need to become a big deal? Any specific number is clearly arbitrary, but overall I'd say that ordinary people should not care until it's at least ten times that. Of course, relatives, friends, emergency services, humanitarian agencies, media outlets, geologists and the like have their reasons to be concerned, but the majority of people clearly have no reason at all to worry. I am not calling those who died or those who lost a friend idiots, I am calling idiots the 99.99% of people, who will not be affected in any way, but pretend that they give a shit.

I am just asking for some rationality. Yes, if it's your city, you need to be worried. Yes, if your sister was on vacation in that region, you need to be worried. But most of us shouldn't. And if someone wants to worry about global issues, about people suffering in remote regions of the world, then he is an idiot, because a child still dies from hunger every five seconds, which means about 17 thousand children in the world die from hunger every day. This is more than died in that stupid earthquake, this only includes children and this happens every fucking day of the year, not just once in 40 decades. So I am saying that if someone obviously cares about this stupid earthquake, but does not care about much greater number of people dying otherwise, that person is an idiot.

welcome to slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The stereotypical Slashdot computer geek is an amoral dork who rarely wanders away from his computer, which is probably located in his parents' basement. There are exceptions, but that's the stereotype. Enjoy.

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

Do you cry every time 10000 people die? Do you at least make a sad face and observe a minute of silence each time 10000 people die? May you you should start now? After all, you would need to sob only for half an hour each day, because, no matter how big of a surprise it is for you, 300000 people die each day.

May be you would explain how you react to all those deaths, or the "live inside" one? Please take a moment of your busy schedule mourning the untold deaths and explain us how you care about an even greater tragedy happening each day? And if (as I suspect) you don't give a crap about those other deaths, then please explain the reason for such a difference in attitudes.

Re:How long until we blame America

[Zog The Undeniable]

Is that you, Dubya?

Re:Maybe 10,000+ dead (0800 PDT)

[Dave Walker]

Found this on the foxnews site at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142566,00.html / :
"Pentagon Duty Officer Cheryl Irwin told FOX News that the National Military Command Center has received no reports of any damage to the Diego Garcia Naval Support Facility, off the southern coast of India. The Navy is considering whether and what kind of aid to offer to local governments in the region, said Navy Press Duty Officer Lt. Pauline Pimetel."

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Watcher]

Clarke has been wheelchair bound for some time. Between post-polio syndrome and another disease whose name I'm not even going to bother to pronounce (info here. He is getting up there in years, though.

Re:This is Geek news?

[343 Guilty Spark]

Well my brother who works for Weta Workshop is in Thailand where some of the damage has been done, we haven't heard from him yet. But there is a geek connection.

there were some warning signs

[frooddood]

There was a huge earthquake (8.1 on Richter) south of Tasmania 3 days before. It made headlines http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000081&si d=aUIanL7wC_m8&refer=australia/ but fortunately no victims. However if you look at a map of tectonic plates http://geology.about.com/library/bl/maps/blplatesw topoehem.htm/ and compare it with the location of the earthquake http://www.iris.edu/seismon/ you can see it happened at the southern tip of the Indian plate. Now 3 days later on the middle of the eastern edge of the same plate another huge earthquake...looks like plate movement to me.

How about Sollog ?

[Laz10]

Did Sollog predict this one ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sollog

http://www.sollog.com/

The stuff they have online is all "predictions" of stuff that happened in the past. If you want about the future you have to subscribe.

Re:want to blame someone ?

[bluewhale]

Maybe you should read the news first, before jumping to blame the US . This was caused by tectonic plate movements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami/ and has nothing to do global warming.

Re:want to blame someone ?

[Ch_Omega]

"blame USA for not signing the kyoto treaty."

As far as I know, global warming doesn't increase or decrease the likehood of earthquakes one bit, so how you can blame this on the USA is beyond me. Maybe I'm missing something. Like to explain your logic?

The problem of evil

[DeadScreenSky]

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.

If you believe in the God of Christianity (who is omnipotent and omniscient), this tsunami almost has to be punishment. This is a big problem area in religious philosophy, normally referred to as the problem of evil. A common argument is that suffering can actually be good, so that is why a absolutely good diety would allow disasters like this (on a smaller scale, it is like the idea of a parent spanking a child to make them a better person).

Anyway, I would imagine quite a few Christians believe this was punishment. They don't have a lot of other choices considering the basics of their religion.

Re:A drop in the sea

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you just don't give up, do you? I will give you an example, I have no friends or relatives who lived in Indonesia or Sri Lanka or anywhere close. Yet I had friends who died in an earthquake in the 80s. Naturally, the recent news has affected me emotionally.

I can easily imagine a lot of other people who lost their loved ones in a fire, quake, terrorist attack etc. The news of a big earthquake, which is repeated in mass media stirs their emotions, consciously or subconsciously.

I am sure one can think of numerous other reasons why people get so emotionally involved.

You can see why your estimates of how many people are allowed (by you) to feel sorry for the people who died are not very useful.

By simpy calling everyone who cares idiots and presuming not only that you know but also that you have the right to give orders on how people should or should not react, you are making an idiot of yourself.

Re:want to blame someone ?

[jonhuang]

Hello, troll (and troll-mod).

This disaster has nothing to do with greehouse warming and the increase in water 'mater,' and everything to do with earthquakes. In fact, I cannot comprehend what sort of though processes could lead to such a conclusion.

PS. Please do not spin tragedy into personal political agenda. Bush did that too.

Re:How long until we blame America

[cheekyboy]

why would god care? life is an infinite resource, not rare. and also if he is real, he can recreate a trillion new planets any where, so why would he need to bother with micromanagement.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Travoltus]

Hell, I hope everyone else there (i.e., the poor people) were also evacuated!

Re:A drop in the sea

[DualDescription]

Our emotional reaction to an event is not a simple monotonic function of the overall number of casualties involved. All your posts seem to originate from failure to realize this simple fact. On the other hand, I may be wrong, and you do understand it, but you are saying that most people have an "idiotic" emotional reaction, but then again, this would be ridiculous. Emotions cannot be "idiotic" or "smart". Our reaction to our emotions can be "idiotic", but as you realize , no one of our fellow ./ posters jumps out of the window. So, what are you really saying?

PubSub search for latest Earthquake info in blogs

[bobwyman]

To get the latest info on the Earthquake, try monitoring this feed from PubSub.com:

http://rss.pubsub.com/ef/c3/b9173332d3d1011651b6f2 bd5f.xml

Content will be updated every 15 minutes and will contain the most recent 32 blog entries that mention the event.

bob wyman

bbc news video at 21:00

[smoker2]

A longer section from the 9pm bbc news

approx. 14 minutes divx (~105MB ) here

Death Toll up to 11k

[EmagGeek]

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.

Re:Death Toll up to 11k

[anishm]

One such organisation which will indeed appreciate your help is Association for India's Development http://survivors.aidindia.org/. They are carrying out relief work in the Indian States of Tamil Nadu (Madras) and Andhra Prades in (Hyderabad) and keep the website up to date with the latest news and their own efforts. Donations can be made online and are tax deductible in US and India. https://www.aidindia.org/aidadmin/DonateToRRF.jsp Disclaimer: I volunteer for AID princeton.aidindia.org

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[The Cydonian]

If promptly recognised, then those in India/Sri Lanka should have had an hour or so's warning.

Been pouring over news reports now. The figure was two hours; we had two hours to prepare.

I would have thought that news of a massive earthquake at sea backed by warnings of a tsunami would have worried enough people to get them to move

While we certainly are lacking in an early warning system of the sort you have in the Pacific, like I said, I doubt anyone in a position of power put two and two together and imagined this would happen. See, like I said, this never ever happened before out here; as with bureaucratic failings of this magnitude, we were guilty of not just inaction, but also a clear lack of imagination.

Old Biblical tsunami example?

[rduke15]

I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?

In the attempts to link the stories of the Old Testament to historic events, a tsunami in the Mediterrenean sea is used to explain how the sea "opened". Indeed, right before a tsunami, the level would first drop, letting Moses and his people cross the "sea" there, and the wave would then have drowned the Egyptian army or whoever was after them.

In this hypothesis, Moses would have crossed from Egypt to Israel through a sort of swamp land near the mediterranean cost, where the tsunami effect wouldn't have been very brutal but rather slow. The level drop would have been enough to let people cross that swamp.

Unfortunately, I don't have any reference. I saw that in a documentary once. And I'm certainly no expert in Biblical stuff.

Maybe someone has some links? The part of the documentary which I saw was very interesting. It also explained the 7 plagues of Egypt, mainly with a strong volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean, which is believed to have taken place around 3000 BC if I remember correctly.

Re:Old Biblical tsunami example?

[rduke15]

Update of my previous post:

The plagues of Egypt were not 7 but 10. (Sunday school didn't leave much in my brain, it seems)

The volcanic eruption was that of Santorini, one of the strongest since the beginning of civilisation. It was not around 3000 BC, but around 1620-50 BC. The collapse of the mountain certainly provoked a big tsunami, but of course, nobody knows if this was related to the Moses "parting the sea" during the Exodus. Some say it may explain it, and others dispute it.

A Google search for 'Santorini plagues Egypt' seems effective for more information.

House pets behaving strangely

[cuteface]

My housemate's flower horn fish started behaving strangely since yesterday. Horn fish by nature is very aggressive. That fish would stalk me whenever I go near the tank but it had been hiding in one corner eversince. Could this be a sign of another potential quake?

Anyone here finding their house pets behaving similarly weird?

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

I am saying that the idiocy of our reactions IS a simple monotonic function, not a boolean one with the possible results of idiotic (jump out of the window) and not idiotic ("Indonesia? Never knew anyone from Indonesia?" Half kidding).

The emotional reaction to the news is normal. You are shown professionally made footage of a serious disaster, it's normal too think "poor people", "I am so happy to be alive with my family here", "I once met a guy from China, I wonder how's he" (many people don't know geography well), etc. The images are supposed to evoke an emotional reaction. But, as you correctly point out, the real question is what do you do after that.

And my view is that if you choose to
a) watch more news about essentially the same story, which is totally irrelevant to you
b) talk to people about how horrible it is
c) act as if you care (even if you really believe it)
d) act as if this is important
then you are being more and more idiotic. Of course, it's still not idiotic enough to meet the clinical definition of idiocy, but more than enough to be called an idiot in the common sense by me.

Easy to evacuate on a proper island

[Jeppe Salvesen]

The Maldives is a special case. However, all you'd have to do there, would be to get out onto the deep ocean.

Anyhow - a normal relatively healthy human being can move somthing like 6 kilometers/hour on a sustained level for hours, and more like 10 if they really have to. Thus - even if you don't have enough vehicles for everyone, then half an hour or even 15 minutes of early warning would allow a substantial number of people to escape physical harm.

No Tsunami Warning from the NOAA warning Center

[rduke15]

This report (reproduced below) from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center sounds weird when you know how terrible the Tsunami was on the other side.

Basically, it says "THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT.".

Yes, of course, there was no tsunami in the region this warning center is responsible for. But who writes these reports? Is it sensible to just write "no tsunami warning", without specifying that it's a different story on the other side, in the Indian ocean? Wouldn't people writing these reports be supposed to be aware of it?

Anyway, that report, while it may be technically correct for it's region, sounds really weird to me.

Since the link is for the "latest report", and will change over time, here is the complete text of that page:

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0204Z 26 DEC 2004

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT
ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

.................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ..................

ATTENTION: NOTE REVISED MAGNITUDE.

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING
OR WATCH IN EFFECT.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004
COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 8.5

EVALUATION
REVISED MAGNITUDE BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MANTLE WAVES.
THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE
TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR THE PACIFIC BASIN BASED ON HISTORICAL
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.

THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER.

THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.

THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS
FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

Re:No Tsunami Warning from the NOAA warning Center

[darthlurker]

They are just reporting the conditions on thier area of observation; the Pacific Basin. Its sort of like hearing the NASA mission control guys mumble out that all conditions are "nominal"

But I've noticed a hearing/seeing a number of news reports bemoaning that only the Pacific ocean merits any tsunami monitoring.

I think its likely that India will invest in monitoring/warning systems in the near future. I'll be curious to see if the US invests in any similar disaster prevention for the East Coast.

P.S. Any news from Diego Garcia?

Re:A drop in the sea

[DualDescription]

I am saying that the idiocy of our reactions IS a simple monotonic function, A function of what? simple monotonic function, not a boolean one You meant continuous function? c) act as if you care (even if you really believe it) What is exactly the difference between caring and believing that you care ?

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

A function of what?
You meant continuous function?
A function of our emotional reactions. :) There is a large set of possible reactions, from completely ignoring that story to jumping out of the window (it's not 1-dimensional, to be honest, so it can't be easily monotonic, but I conviniently ignore that). For each possible reaction there is a value of idiocy. My point is that there are more than two possible values. And, generally, the more intensive the reaction to a story, which is not particularly important in a grand scheme of things and which has no relevance to your personal life is, the more idiotic it is.

What is exactly the difference between caring and believing that you care ?
Acting. Caring implies certain real actions. If you care about the victims, you do something, the most obvious actions being to send them blankets, food, money, etc. If you don't do anything, you don't actually care.

Simple emotional reaction is natural. But just because I gross out seeing a dog hit by a truck doesn't mean that I care. If I took it home or buried it near the road (assuming it's dead, of course), that would be a sign that I cared. If I just stand there, stare, say "poor doggie" and then go away, I don't care, I just pretend I do or believe I do.

Many people pretend they care, but they don't do anything. And as they apparently seem to care about every major story pushed by TV (they care about Yushchenko as much as about quake victims), I suspect that don't care about any story, but are just conditioned to express certain reactions when seeing something on TV.

Call me paranoid

[chord.wav]

I'm very sad for the loss of all those souls. We are living interesting times.

Events like this one reminds me of the HAARP project and other electromagnetic weapons to alter the weather and generate eathquakes on demand.

Who?
Anyone opposed to the rise of Asia. I would have to guess USA, UK-USA, etc. Remember you have a mad man in the white house.

Why would a nation of peace loving citizens want to make such thing?
There's a war with China planned to occur in this decade 2006-2010. By that time, China would be the 2nd superpower, and USA won't simply seat to watch it become nro 1. Odds tell that the main part of Asia will follow China.

We are now in the early stages of this war, the preparation. One just don't get munition built from morning to evening, one has to plan for war.
So, by generating and earthquake in the pacific, USA would acchieve 2 things. Make the future enemy spend time and money in reconstruction instead of preparation. And, possibly, take out some objetives in the way.

Conspiracy theory? Sure. Power changes hands not because of elections and forseenable methods but succesfully executed, secret plans.

May you live interesting times - Old Chinesse Curse

Blizzards in southern Arizona

[ccmay]

blizzards are also widely known, but i doubt you would think of setting up a blizzard warning system in southern arizona or southern florida

Well, probably not in Florida, but keep in mind that there are mountains in southern Arizona exceeding 10,000 feet elevation. I assure you they do get blizzards. Even the lower elevations can get a surprising amount of snow. I've seen 6 inches of snow in Tucson.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[bulliver]

Tell that to all the millionaires who's homes burnt during the California wildfires a few years back.

"only" 40-50 feet high?

[triclipse]

If you are claiming "only" 40 feet high, it is apparent you have never been caught inside by an ocean wave even half that size. The power of a normal, storm-created wave 40 feet high is simply awesome. Given the fact that storm waves travel at a fraction of the speed of tsunami, these waves must have been powerful indeed.

Re:"only" 40-50 feet high?

[zogger]

I sincerely hope you aren't assuming I am minimizing the serious nature of this devastation. I don't see where you get this impression from what I wrote. It's a bad scene, no ways about it, and my best wishes go out to the victims and their families. I was merely trying to allude to one of the recently talked about on slashdot speculated huge asteroid impacts with a projected tsunami 10 times larger, that it would be practically unimaginable in destructive force, from a recorded human history POV short of something like the Biblical "great flood" stories.

As to waves of that size, no, my own personal experience with big water along those lines was three days in a 55 foot boat with "only" 25 foot swells and 70 knot winds, which was *dang spooky enough*, it came close to sinking the boat, and as it was, we had to beat feet to drydock once the storm subsided enough for us to make way safely for emergency repairs,and we took on enough seawater from a completely sprung plank below waterline to almost completely flood over the top of the detroit diesel v-12 in the engine room,despite the pumping efforts of the separate diesel powered bilge pump,and luckily it kept chugging along "liquid cooled" as it were. When we got to drydock (much slower than normal good speed) we were sitting in the water almost to the gunwales, and they were originally around 8 feet from waterline. In other words, a few hours from swamping, max. We lucked out bigtime. Had to stay firmly lashed to something the entire three days of the storm to keep from getting beat senseless, there was no walking around, etc, happening. You had to crawl and move a safety line from point to point.

Of course I was a young fool then and thought "hey, adventure!" HAHAHAHAHA!

Most of us know someone who knows someone...

[antispam_ben]

who is directly and horribly affected by this.

I heard about the quake on the news, but it felt different when I read the following on one of the mailing lists I'm on. Maybe someone has a good God that can loan Undine an Iridium phone or something similar for long enough to call home.

Undine left Bangkok to travel to the south of Thailand just on Thursday. She
called her mum yesterday, she was staying in a beach bungalow on the southern
coast. I have spent the last 12 hours trying to get any word of her, to no
avail.

We don't know where she is, we are afraid and worried. If any of you have any
prayers to send to her, please do. We don't know where she is, if she is well
or injured or dead, and if nobody hears from me for a while, I might have to go
find her.

m

Re:Largest seismic event in 40 years (12,000+ dead

[claudia]

It's been revised upwards to a magnitute of 9.0 now. But, that's not my main point. I wish you hadn't made the above post as an AC. Yours has been one of the best made on this topic and you should let your fellow /.'s get to know you are.

Interesting News Coverage Pattern...

[azmeith]

I first heard about it close to 12:00M PST while surfing.

What was interesting was the news coverage the next morning (disclaimer: I woke up at @ 9:00). Wolf Blitzer was going off about the 10 top news-worthy things in 04 (of course 9 of them had to do with the US), Paula Zahn went off about some reverend making boatloads of money off of G and there wasnt even an obligatory mention (screen-bottom tickers don't count) of an event that resulted in (unofficial) a deathtoll close to 11,500 (last BBC estimate). The only place I got to see anything about it on TV was an obscure (to me at least) channel called News World Intl. (366 on DirectTV) where CBC and then something called the German Journal talked about this most of the time. Of course the BBC was kind enough to provide a lo-rez video feed, but I still dont understand the complete glossing over of such an incident. Is it that unless americans die, the american media wont cover it? Seems foolhardy... but then it is the US. Nothing's unexpected. And of course I still dont know why the BBC World service is not available in the US.

--
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? -- Calvin (Bill Watterson)

Re:Interesting News Coverage Pattern...

[AnimeFreak]

Newsworld is a Canadian news network funded by the tax payers. It is a wholey better source than most available in North America.

Heh. Talk about exaggeration...

[Behrooz]

I'd say that's by far the most sensational article I could find on the subject, and the exaggeration in that article is exceeded only by the 'devastation reeked' by the author's command of grammar.

Even a non-technical journalist should be expected to do better than reporting outcomes involving waves several times higher than the worst-case scenario considered in the relevant research.

Admittedly, the prospect of the worst-case 20m tsunami hitting most of the East Coast is rather fearsome, but it also relies on a currently-inactive volcano triggering a ~500 cubic kilometer landslide.

The estimate of the potential size of the landslide is based on very limited information. I'd say they're trolling for grant money, and it's certainly not something that most people should be worried about at this point.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Guppy06]

"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

Who cares if the above posts are redundant or not

[BottleCup]

I was surprised that the article did not mention anything about Malaysia. The Tsunami also affected 3 states in the north of Malaysia (Penang, Kedah and Perlis bordering Thailand) which are roughly 300 to 400 kilometers away from the epicenter.

The death toll is estimated in the hundreds although at the time of writing there doesnt seem to be any official count. The aftershocks were felt as far down as Kuala Lumpur (600+ kilometers away from the epicenter and about 50 kilometers away from the coast).

There were tremors felt as far away as Kuantan (700+ km from epicenter) which is on the east coast of the Malaysian peninsula facing the south china sea! Many hotels and apartment buildings were evacuated as a result of this.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[jasonmicron]

Thank you Joseph Stalin.

More than death

[mec]

It's more than 14,000 deaths.

It's millions of people homeless.

Have you ever slept rough? I haven't, but I've come close enough to appreciate how bad it is.

It's untold damage to water systems. That story hasn't come out yet.

As to why it matters: these is a humans vs nature story. We humans use engineering to defend ourselves against the depredations of nature like this. When I read these stories, I think: if the people in Indonesia and Thailand and Myanmar and Bangladesh and India had better engineering, fewer lives would be lost and ruined.

Re:More than death

[danila]

I was not objecting to those, who consider this an important event, I was objecting to those (posters in this thread), who claim that the loss of life is somehow horrible and to those, who moderated such posts to 4-5, despite these posts having no useful content.

You are of course, completely correct about several important implications of the cataclysm. Congratulations for being rational in the face of disaster. Are you an engineer yourself? That would explain a lot.

Re:More than death

[mec]

Since you ask, yes, I'm a software engineer.

And I live in New York City, which gives me a little appreciation for death and disaster.

With respect, I think you've been making some of your points badly. You've been saying "10,000 people died, but that's not important, because lots more people die from other things." Try this instead: "20,000 people died, and millions more are homeless, and millions more are at increased risk from disease. And that's an epic tragedy. But look at this: another 15,000 people are dying every day from protein-energy malnutrition. Reputable Link. That's a big problem, too."

That is, if you want to offer a radical critique, it helps to start by acknowledging the validity of the conventional wisdom, and then going beyond it.

Errr, I'm preaching at you. Anyways, that's my two cents and my soapbox.

Undersea Cables

[Ranger]

I know it's morbid curiosity, but I wonder if this disaster has affected the communication systems used for call centers in India. Do they use satellite? undersea cables? Do they come from the east or the west? (I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment) Even if the lines are not physically affected I suspect the traffic on them has skyrocketed.

As time goes by the destructive force of earthquakes, volcanoes and storms are unlikely to change, but what has changed and changing is the increasing number of people that can be affected by such events.

It'll be days before we know the true cost in human lives not to mention economically. The estimates of dead keep going up, but I wouldn't be surprised if it goes down. One can only hope. With so many people living on the edge in Southeast Asia, literally, it'll be a long time before many of the areas recover.

Re:want to blame someone ?

[thisgooroo]

more likely the moronic exhaust from your head is reponsible (unless, of courde, you can demonstrate that global warming has anything to do with earthquaake caused tsunamis)

Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM?

[thisgooroo]

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

Enough about A.C.C.

[roseblood]

.... what I want to know about..are these Quake and Tsunami games that were so much more devestaing than DOOM?

Well, at least I've heard of Quake before...

Hope they had their scuba gear on.. when

[Gopal.V]

Hope they had their scuba gear on when the Big one came ...

Don't worry - they'll be back .. especially if they were on an economy package which puts you around 2-3 kms away from the beach.

Only the Really Rich and the Really Poor can live on the beach :)

tragedy and disaster - mind the difference

[Gopal.V]

Just because it happened to the cream of America's corporate structure doesn't make 9/11 horrifying... It's not the body count ... It was not a tragedy - it was an act of malicious intent by a group of people - who had to kill thousands of people to be taken seriously !!. That's what's HORRIFYING about it.

The relative significance of human tragedies are indeed ranked by the percentage of human population wiped out. A life is a life , no matter who they are (primitive savages or corporate executives). If you want to compare the Tungska meteorite with the flash tide flood in Chennai - I'd think the latter deserves more of our concern ...

As a species , we should grieve the loss of valuable genetic diversity - It's something that comes naturally to any creature of sufficent intelligence (look at some elephants in Periyar , they literally cry over year old bones).

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[John Sokol]

I have sent an E-mail to Arthur C. Clark , included a URL to this thread. He's usualy quick at replying.(assuming the phone lines are working) His home is about 1/2 Mile inland, but there are several of these British style clubs he likes to visit that have walls on three side and ocean on the fourth. I'd really not want to be at one when the tsunami hit.

From the news it looks like waves were large enough to capsize boats in Columbo and the Galle Face Green (my favorate spot) people were washed across a field into a fence that ran along the road side, but they didnt' think anyone was washed out...

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/ em ail.replies/

Re:want to blame someone ?

[Ch_Omega]

"As far as i know wasnt the earthquake that killed hundreds, thousands of ppl in south asia last morning."

No, it was a tsunami, caused by the earthquake. So, your point is what exactly?

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

I know these are emotional blocks, because I can clearly see that the reaction to my arguments is irrational and coincides with an excited emotional state. People don't take what I say clamly, but instead offer completely irrational rebuttals such as "Hitler would surely agree" and stuff. :) I'm not saying your metion of the Nazis means you are incapable of rational thought, just that it's (a) typical (b) badly thought argument.

I wanted you to agree first that it's possible to judge the worthiness (value) of people, who only differ in one particular respect. That's the necessary step. For example, that I would be less valuable/less worthy if I didn't have a Ph.D. and you did, all else being equal.

Assuming you agreed with that, we could proceed to the next step - arguing that it's often possible to confidently judge who is more valuable out of two people, who are different in several respects. Here is the gist of the argument:
a) we can't always make a perfectly correct decision, but we can often be reasonably sure, although there are cases where we can't decide
b) we can't take into account every minute of their lives, but this doesn't make our judgements completely worthless
c) the list of relevant qualities and their weights are determined using expert estimates, where any intelligent, rational and ethical person is an expert
d) even though seveal "experts" would likely provide two different lists and different weights for qualities, there are many cases (see (a)) where all of them will make the same decision
e) it's not necessary in practice to provide quantitative metrics of people's qualities in order to judge them. You can say that Claudia Schiffer is more beautiful than some dirty crackwhore from the gutter without using a "beautymeter". Even though you can't easily compare her with, say, Halle Berry

A good illustration is valuing the material objects. Can you say "Painting A is better than painting B" (or "computer A is better than computer B")? Yes, there are painting that you can't compare, but there are some that you can.

With humans we can start with Hitler (why not?) and Ghandi. Can you say one is more valuable (worthy) than another? Of course, you can be stubborn and insist that you can't say that, but I think you, just like any reasonable person, would agree that we can compare those two. Then we should move to more interesting real-life pairs and conclude that there actually is a possibility of comparing two people's values. We probably can't judge controversial people (Feynman's involvement in the Manhattan project was, IMO, sufficiently small to make him "not evil enough" to be controversial), but most of people aren't really very controversial.

The third step is to understand that even when we can't compare individual people because we lack the necessary information, we can still make probabilistical estimates of who would be more valuable. That is the same as comparing a number of people from one sample with a number of people from another sample.

After that we are all set. The lemmas "proven" (or at least agreed upon) above are sufficient to make the final statement - that those who died in this disaster are probably less valuable on average than (for example) the same number of people who live in Holland.

It's worth noting that while there may be many human classification schemes that are wrong, that does not preclude the possibility of there being some good schemes. Of course, if you develop a good scheme, for obvious reasons it won't be applicable to every pair of humans. But it should still probably work well enough for many pairs.

I am also not suggesting in any way that humans can all be plotted on one axis. What I am saying is that for every combination of a pair humans and a valid classification scheme there exists a value between 0 and 1, which is a probability of a given scheme saying that person A is more valuable than person B. And for certain pairs of people a sufficiently large number of valid classification schemes have corresponding values close enough to 1 (or a sufficiently large number have values close to 0). Hope this isn't too complicated for you. Assuming you have a Ph.D. in physics it shouldn't be.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[apanap]

Yeah, along with a few thousand european and american tourists. There are over 600 SWEDES missing, and there are only 9 million of us, so I can only imagine how many other europeans must be...

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[hughk]

The real issue is with a warning net, those closest will be able to warn those further away. Even if an Indian based seismologist observes something, the difference between the earthquake and the tsunami wouldn't be so big. It would be better to have a waring net like the Pacific, but the Pacific rim is much more active.

A scientist will be able to recognise that a dangerous event has ocurred. I guess the real problem is who does the scientist call to ensure that word is spread. You are quite right about bureacracy, as there need to be a system that ensures reports are taken seriously and acted upon.

Unlike the Pacific, the Bay of Bengal/Anderman sea is much less active, and this was practically the only major fault. India is still prone to some earthquakes (major plate boundary in the North), but these are not undersea.

Some knew well in advance that it was coming

[rnet]

What is so mysterious about the earthquake and the subsequent tidal wave? Cannot it be predicted earlier and the people be warned of it? Could necessary precautions be taken to minimise the loss to life and property? In fact, the quake was actually predicted by a team of research scholars of the Department of Applied Geology, University of Madras, with a permissible error, a week ago.

N Venkatanathan, research scholar, who is currently undergoing a Ph.D programme in Predicting Earthquake and Aseismic Construction Designing and the man behind the team working on predictions, said he had already presented a report about the Indonesian earthquake on 22 December to members of the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi.

The 15-member team headed by S K Tandan were in Chennai at that time for a meeting.

Venkatanathan, said, 'we predicted that the disaster will occur on 26 December 2004 at 00:30 (GMT) with 3.54 N latitude and 97.17E longitude, which is located near the coast of Banyak Island, Sumatra, Indonesia, with a magnitude at around 6 to 7. The actual calamity occurred on 26 December 2004 at 00:58 (GMT), with 3.298 N latitude and 95.779 E longitude, located off the west coast of northern Sumatra'.

Read the story here
http://newstodaynet.com/27DEC/SS6.HTM/

Re:This is Geek news?

[krenskeoz]

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.

Re:A drop in the sea

[danila]

This assumption is just the first step. People hold wrong beliefs about the world. One such common belief is that you can't say that one person is better (more valuable, more worthy) than another. This is wrong, but to demonstrate that it is necessary to use this simplier model.

Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM?

[vision33r]

Well, Islam is an older religion so perhaps.. the Gods have tallied up enough crimes for this disaster to happen.. Wait until the God is done counting the crimes committed by Christianity.. I just hope I am not punished accidentally for being an atheist.

Re:Obvious response:

[Optali]

Yes, a very clever post, and of great interest for those of us /. users which comes from the UE, Asia or anywhere else.

I seriously expect that you already made a donation. http://www.oxfam.co.uk or at the red cross. Thanks, now you can continue writing nonsense.

Home video of the wave crashing in

[concreationist]

Here is a home video of the wave crashing into the beach of Patong.

Re:Home video of the wave crashing in

[Macfox]

Please mod the parent up. Excellent video showing scale of the waves force.

Why an earthquake and not a celestial body ?

[thrill12]

I wonder this, because I read in a different thread that the 2004MN4 would be in the same range of Mt destruction-power.

Who can explain to me why the evidence that is available does not without any doubt leave open the option of this being a meteorite impact ? Wouldn't it present with the exact same things:

Tsunami

Earthquake like effects

Sudden onset ???

Re:Why an earthquake and not a celestial body ?

[KnightStalker]

Meteorites don't have aftershocks. Also consider that it occurred on the boundary of the Indian-Australian continental plate days after an 8.1 earthquake occurred on an opposite edge of the same plate. (That one caused no damage.) No meteors capable of causing this were, to my knowledge, reported.

According to the USGS, the pattern of aftershocks indicated 1000 km of the plate boundary had slipped. It would be extremely unlikely for the results of a meteorite to look that coherently like an earthquake.

Re:Why an earthquake and not a celestial body ?

[dzarn]

First, there have been NO reports of anything in the sky, such as a fireball, which would be seen, especially in a populous area such as India.

Second, the seismic signature is very different between an earthquake & an asteroid. If you know how to read them, a seismometer can show the difference between a diesel pickup and an 18 wheeler driving nearby. An earthquake would show slippage of the faults (several seconds long) while an asteroid would be a sudden impact. Sort of the difference between sliding a stone across a hard floor, and dropping it straight down. See the difference?

It's past 22,000 dead now. :-(

[MtViewGuy]

And they still haven't reached the hardest hit areas on the other islands of the Maldives and a couple of islands belonging to India just west of Myanmar (Burma).

Re:In....

[hesiod]

> Not only that, but it should have been modded down anyway for being in bad taste.

No, it should not. "Taste" is purely subjective. Your initial analysis was correct, though.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[hesiod]

At least 14!

shift, <, A, [space], H, R, E, F, =, ... >

Then the closing tag: <, /, A, >

16 characters, if you use quotes around the URL.

6 characters is one thing, but those extra 8 really take away any incentive to look like I care about my post. I mean, c'mon, that's like 4 seconds taken out of my life that could have been spent cleaning wax out of my ear!

Re:Software support?

[hesiod]

> > Like there's a single sole that hasn't already seen the story elsewhre?
> Look, "sole" is at the bottom of your feet, "SOUL" is what you're looking for...

It may not be on the soles, but shoes still have eyes! Haha... Eyes... "Seen the..." eh, never mind.

Re:Its ok, do what you want.

[hesiod]

> Should I stop telling you what a publicity monger you are just because I call you on your shamelessness?

Oh, so helping others when they don't need it is charity. When they DO need it, it's shameless. Fucking trolls... at least TRY to make a little bit of sense from time to time.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[the_mad_poster]

URLs <URL:http://example.com/> will auto-link a URL

Okay, 8 if you count SHIFT+, and SHIFT+. as two strokes.

Nyah nyah.

I mean, c'mon, that's like 4 seconds taken out of my life that could have been spent cleaning wax out of my ear!

Heh. You'd think with that stupid 20 second post rule people would be happy to have things eat up time while they're trying to build their repsonses (spell checking comes to mind... yes, I'm aware I didn't fix it).

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[KnightStalker]

Or the ones whose homes slid down the mud cliffs they were built on the edge of. I think California millionaires are largely exempt from the common sense you might expect from older money.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[hesiod]

> URLs http://example.com/ will auto-link a URL

Is that a Slashdot feature or something? I've never seen that before.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[the_mad_poster]

Yea, it's on the reply screen right under the list of allowed HTML tags. IIRC, it was added with the update that broke Slashdot so badly this past summer.

Nonsense.

[jotaeleemeese]

The likelihood of this happening in that part of the world was tremendously small, add to that the magnitude (I truly think you don;t understand what a 8.9 in the Richter scale truly means) and we have one in a millions chances of such horrendous thing happening.

To invest too much preventing an unlikely event is foolish.

In spite of that, the goverments in the region were looking into an alert system, having said that it would have saved nobody in Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia given the closeness of the epicenter.

Kemosabee.....

[jotaeleemeese]

If we don't measure somehow tragedies (body count is a hell of a good estimate, since at least is measuring the human impact) then we can't know the size of the necessary response.

You may find it sickening, but it is necessary to get organized.

Re:Kemosabee.....

[cyranoVR]

If we don't measure somehow tragedies (body count is a hell of a good estimate, since at least is measuring the human impact) then we can't know the size of the necessary response.

Good point, but I was addressing attacks on personal grief - not impersonal responses by Relief Organizations (which certainly do need such scales for *internal* purposes).

Some people are born brain dead.....

[jotaeleemeese]

If their work is to warn about tsunamis in the Pacific basin, with all due respect that frankly you don't deserve, why should they warn about tsunamis somewhere else?

Ditto with early warning systems for earthquakes, tornados, flooding, etc. They had a job to do, they did it well, and it is only uninformed nitpickers (rated as "informative") that find fault on this....

Re:Some people are born brain dead.....

[rduke15]

I agree with your subject line...

If their work is to warn about tsunamis in the Pacific basin, [...] why should they warn about tsunamis somewhere else?

Because they knew about it, and it could have saved lives?

In fact, the latest I read is that they actually did try to warn, so they are not total bureaucratic morons like you seem to be.

But they didn't know whom to call (!), they had no contact in their (Outlook?) address book. But they still tried, and apparently warned the US state department, which in turn didn't know whom to call. Not a surprise that the US state department has no clue on how to reach foreign officials, since it's the Pentagon which is now responsible for foreign relations...

Sad world...

I think the number is 6.

[jotaeleemeese]

I believe some mathematicians demonstrated that the longest chain necessary of people that know each other between you and any other person in the world would have 6 people at most.

In my case I have the following chains:

Me - dad - his boss - President of Mexico (1960) - John F. Kennedy.

Or a shorter one:

Me - University teacher (in Mexico City) - Noam Chomsky...

What about ...

[cobyrne]

"We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

What about ... the American Embassy in the affected countries?!?!

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[hesiod]

Wow, I must be selectively blind, I hadn't noticed that before.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[Julia Cameron]

• Because I read somewhere that only vertical movement in the ocean causes tsunamis, that not all quakes in the ocean cause tsunamis. But, not sure about this...

A large asteroid crashing into the ocean would cause a tsunami. (Think of the rings of water when you toss a pebble into a pond.) An underwater volcanic eruption could cause a tsunami. Tsunamis are caused by displacement.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[DataCannibal]

Cold hearted ?

No, you're an unfeeling, selfish, arrogant, name-dropping, cold hearted cunt. That's what you are?

Re:A drop in the sea

[B4RSK]

danila (69889): OK, so 10000 people died. Big fucking deal.

It's not just the death toll, which seems likely to rise beyond 100,000. It's the total destruction of infrastructure and housing, the injuries, the loss of livelihood, the diseases that will follow with so many dead. The deaths are a tragedy, but the survivors are the ones who must now go through hell.

To be succinct: You're a fucked in the head sociopathic asshole. Seek help.

Maldives and Seychelles OK?

[KayakFun]

The Seychelles have three islands with mountains, for the rest the Maldives and Seychelles islands are 1-2m high, which could be totally overrun by waves higher than the island.

They are not mentioned anywhere, because communication equipment is swept into the sea, or because nothing happened? I'm interested because I went on holiday in the Seychelles a few years ago. It's a beautiful place with friendly people.

Does anybody have any news on these island nations?

Re:A drop in the sea

[B4RSK]

danila (69889): But there is no reason to care about 10000 dead, because this is not news at all. Especially since most of the people killed are probably uneducated simple-minded folks, who lived in shitty houses.

It has been said by many that the character of a man can be most easily understood by how he treats those who he considers beneath himself.

It's true.

I hope you can overcome your apparent sociopathic illness and learn compassion.

Agreed!

[B4RSK]

AC: What I hate most about the evangelist moron wing of the christian faith is that they cant be bothered to even understand their own faith

Couldn't agree more. The only thing I'd like to add is that extremists from other religions are the same -- Islam is not a violent religion like the extremist nutcases make out to be either.

Re:Software support?

[sethstorm]

Now we just need a disaster such as the restarting of the Pakistan-India nuclear arms race (and the resultant detonations) and we have ourselves a finished recipe for US job market revival by a disaster trifecta.

Indian Blogger Unite for Tsunami Help

[sanspeak]

Some Indians and other south asian bloggers have formed a blog tsunamihelp.blogspot.com which provides the latest information on the mishap, agencies involved in support of victims, helpline numbers and places where donations can me made.

A solution to the problem of evil

[evbergen]

Well, if only one could exist...

About the philosophical problem of evil though; I think it's possible to postulate a God who is omniscient, omnipotent and compassionate at the same time, by introducing the concept of voluntary non-interference with the freedom to choose of humans and the customs (some call them laws) of nature.

The question is really, if God knows all and can do all, why didn't He intervene? I think the answer is, he can, but often the order of nature and our freedom is worth more to him than the disasters that happen.

If as a species we only could be saved by God taking away our freedom of choice and reducing us to mere angels, who have no choice but to obey God, then that would be pretty sad, and I for one am rather human, despite all the suffering that occurs due to human actions, than a creature that lacks the unique responsibility that comes with this life.

Cheers,

Emile.

tsunami video

[nodnarb1978]

Video here; high bandwidth server, no worries. 4 different videos. Amazing footage.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[drinker]

do you know who said that? Stalin, if it means something to you. so i think this quote is completely out :( BTW, Im very interested in Clarke, so I hope hes all right...

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[northcat]

Yeah, those are all vertical movements. Do all earthquakes (in the ocean) cause tsunamis?

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Breakfast Pants]

Wheelchairs don't roll in sand.

Re:want to blame someone ?

[Ch_Omega]

"are the bombs that kill people or are the mans that make wars?" No, it's the Anonymous Coward that is stupid and offtopic.

Re:How long until we blame America

[loraksus]

I seriously doubt other Christians would share your view.

Sigh. . . You're quite wrong. Kind of sad really.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[jamielnmj]

I am curious if you still hold the same beliefs that you presented in your posts of two or three days ago? You stated that those who died of the tsunami were deserving of their fate/ karma due to their reckless disregard of their government's warnings and their ignorance of your supposed correct actions on their part. There have been thirty-seven (37) nationalities that have been, (at a minimum), identified as having being killed, missing, or DEAD! By their nations and families statements they were not there to squat! Where is it that you stand based on your argument of "victims chose to be there?" Oh, as of my clock, the death toll is 100,000 and still climbing and the date is 12.29.04.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Suchetha]

and the flames grew higher and higher.

so lets address them one by one shall we?

1. i would say that i am cold hearted. but i believe that people who deliberately put themselves in harms way shouldn't be spared the pity.

2. the government has been trying to get rid of the squatters who live along the coastline for almost three decades. these attempts have been unsuccessful for many reasons. primarily the squats are a haven for the goons and thugs the parliamentarians use. the squatters have resisted every attempt to move them. the government has provided them with land in the central areas, many of them sold teh land and came back. the government then provided them with an apartment complex in the city. they sold THOSE and came back. there was a time when the squatters have taken over a road reservation. the government gave them land AND money. for every squatter that left, two took their place. hey .. free money.. encroachers have also taken over private and government lands by force (a'la mugabe's kenya). they have also taken over forest preserves, destroying what little forest cover we have. they are egged on by various "human rights" NGO's who claim that they have a right to live where they please.

3. these squats have become a haven for crime. muggers, thieves, thugs for hire etc etc. there was a time when you couldn't walk along the beach without a significant probablity of getting mugged and/or raped

4. the coastline has been attacked by storms, and all kinds of other natural disasters. yet these people come back, take wahtever aid they get and move in. if you travel down the coast, except where someone has built a house or a hotel (and sometimes even there) its almost one continuous shanty town. houses made of plywood and tree branches.

5. people in the area have been building houses with low quality materials. if you look at the houses you'll see quite a few standing while the next one to them is powder. this is not a tornado that hits on a point level. this was a frikken WAVE. some houses stand because they were built well. not with flimsy materials that coould be knocked down with a good kick

6. a lot of deaths happened with rubberneckers. people were jamming the streets after the first wave to see what this tsunami was about. if you look at teh TV coverage, you'll see that. and they got caught to teh second, much larger, wave. darwinism is a bitch

do i feel sorry for the people who died through no fault of their own? yes and no. i didn't know them, and a natural disaster is.. natural.. you can't predict when it will hit or how. if you gotta die, you gotta die.

i gave my share of aid, its the human thing to do. but i really don't feel anything

atb

Suchetha

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Suchetha]

sorry for not replying sooner. but my work ISP has started running an open proxy and i can only post from home (16.8kbps ... strewth) i wrote a post, but when i found i couldn't post it i put it in my journal. i just placed it as a reply to the parent. so do i still feel that all those people deserved to die? no i don't. i never felt like that. i DID feel (and still DO feel) that people who put themselves in harms way deserve little sympathy. sri lanka's death toll is so high because the entire coastline is one long shantytown. but its too big to feel anything. i am glad that two of my friends survived unscathed (mostly) and sad that another (who was on a surfing holiday) caught the wave and didn't make it back. all i can hope is that it was quick. on the other side, i'm a fatalist. if you gotta go you gotta go. and there is no $deity who can save you. not all of them were squatters, not all of them were victims of anything other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. but what can you do. atb Suchetha

Update, Undine is okay!

[antispam_ben]

I thought I'd post an update.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Tokerat]

Death by Karma because a later story answered my question?

Just when you thought the internet couldn't suck much worse...

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[Julia Cameron]

No.

Any chance this was an Asteroid Impact?

[KJSwartz]

I've searched the various seismic databases and noticed the beachball plot of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake was inverted from large magnitude earthquakes.

Can anyone identify a seismograph plot of an actual asteroid impact? Both Torsional and Compressional plots would be quite useful (T-wave and P-Waves).