Slashdot Mirror
Arthur C. Clarke Reports From Sri Lanka
Jeff Patterson writes "Sir Arthur C. Clarke has filed a damage report from his home in Sri Lanka on the Clarke Foundation page. He is fine, however 'among those affected are my staff based at our diving station in Hikkaduwa and holiday bungalow in Kahawa -- both beachfront properties located in areas worst hit. We still don't know the full extent of damage as both roads and phones have been damaged. Early reports indicate that we have lost most of our diving equipment and boats. Not all our staff members are accounted for -- yet.'"
Who cares about 2130! The world ends on 2029.
Oh, wait.
Cancel that.
-gjr
"Arthur C. Clarke Reports From Sri Lanka, Says It's Pretty Wet"
Diving stuff and boats were the major disaster area.. I think Sri Lanka is a bit more exposed than Kerala was.
...
... East coast was not so lucky.
The wave in kerala went nearly 4 kms inland (though it's through the backwaters) and I'm still having painful memories of seeing a white mercedes floating around in the basement of a building
The Marine Drive is around 6-7 feet above sea level and is the major business/market area in Cochin - thankfully we're on the right side of India to be compared to the earthquake.
Thanks to a timely news on radio and TV , only a few hundreds were caught unawares
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Curses! Foiled again!!!
This sig intentionally left blank.
Curiously enough, in my first book on Sri Lanka, I had written about another tidal wave reaching the Galle harbour (see Chapter 8 in The Reefs of Taprobane, 1957). That happened in August 1883, following the eruption of Krakatoa in roughly the same part of the Indian Ocean.
..the tide was predictable, nothing or very little was done. Ok not everybody could have been saved , but even one life was worth it, in my humble opinion.
Maybe some people should have remembered Krakatoa cataclism or just simply should have seen Clarke book. Damn, some people should just read to help prevent disasters.
I know it's dark humor, but what can I say
if they stay, that's more people who need food, water and shelter. all of which are in short supply.
and more people to catch disease and use up scarce medical supplies.
rebuilding will take years. it is not feasible for them to stay.
if you really want to help then forget about token gestures designed to make you feel good about yourself and just give them your money (directly through appeals or indirectly via foreign aid).
No, it's not a foreign 9/11, it's WORSE. This tragedy, which cost thousands upon thousands more lives than 9/11, was not preventable.
Sure if warning systems were in placed it could have helped lower the death toll, but there is no way to prevent deaths altogether in this situation. At least 9/11 could have been prevented, but right now we have no way to stop earthquakes/tsunamis from happening.
But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead.
Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this? 8 Americans dead isn't enough to pre-empt programming.
It's events like this that can get one easily pissed off (yet again) over the bias in the American Media.
What's really sad is that the bias reflects most Americans: They don't care about it, since Americans weren't affected that much (except the 8 that died). Typical Americans, at most, only care enough to ask "Could this happen to us in America?"
Everytime I see FOX NEWS show little coverage of this trajedy and move on to the War in Iraq, I am reminded of the hilarious satire song from Team America: World Police:
"America...f*ck yeah!"
I think you missed the part where he said not all of his staff is accounted for. Or the part where he said he is contributing to the relief efforts. Instead, you picked out the most irrelevant part of what was said, and went with that. Good work.
Wikipedia has two articles churning out information about things as they happen besides info about the disaster that have already happened and they contain plenty of links to other news sources. See, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake in India
DG is fine, asshole.
fyi: bbc radio is reading angry messages from listeners directed at the noaa and the usgs
the criticisms are that all you had to do was pick up the phone and call cnn: 3 hours before it hit indian coastline, something could have been done to save lives
the indian ocean has no warning system like the pacific does in place, and no one knew the extent of the wave, and even if someone had acted like the world was ending, calling everyone in the world, the fact that nothing like this has ever happened before in the indian ocean in a few centuries would mean that the bureaucracy in india, sri lanka, etc., and the media, would have moved slowly... and even if the local authorities had somehow miraculously gotten megaphones on the beach in time, you can be certain people there would have just yawned them away...
additionally, unlike in japan and the philippines, for example, the people in the indian ocean do not know to head for high ground if they feel an earthquake... this is simple education that would have saved thousands of lives
but there is no experience with tsunamis on the south side of sumatra, for example, so for the people there, where a warning system would have made no difference, simply feeling the ground shake would be all the warning that was needed to get the heck to high ground asap
so, given the anger and grief and role hindsight plays in how people judge how their reactions would have been different, and you can see a shit storm of blame and finger pointing coming: "americans don't care if we drown"
just like the tsunami, here comes a massive wave of political shitstorms
it is most important to remember that thousands died needlessly in this event had their been a system of warning buoys in place in the indian ocean like in the pacific, and the onus is on the governemnts in the indian ocean to have done that, but considering the fashionable anti-americanism in the world right now, you can easily see how this tragedy can be spun for political ends
political tsunami warning system activated
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's events like this that can get one easily pissed off (yet again) over the bias in the American Media.
This isn't bias in American Media, this is bias in human brains. The further away something is from us personally, the less we care. It's not at all unique to the US.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
Just heard on the radio: at least some of the finnish tourists who are not injured (and thus are not among the first to leave) are helping out the locals in Thailand.
Wouldn't be surprised if others did too.
Why isn't primetime TV pre-empted for round the clock coverage of this? 8 Americans dead isn't enough to pre-empt programming.
Because by and large:
1. It does not affect most Americans. That is not to say people do not care or are not interested; I have not yet found a person I've mentioned this to who hasn't already told me that they know about it. But the reality is, the number of Americans touched directly isn't high. This isn't media bias, it's audience. Saying the media is biased against this is like saying networks should pre-empt programming to talk about elections in other nations. In many ways that would even be MORE important to us locally than a tsunami that, while terrible, is done with. And that said,
2. It is pretty much done with. Yes, there is a TON of cleanup and humanitarian things going on, but how much is there to say about it? "The UN is helping." Okay, great. Do we need to break into programming or dedicate 24/7 coverage on CNN to say that? Do we need experts brought in to talk about what food is or something? Be reasonable. Things like 9/11 are covered in depth not only because of how directly and vastly it affects the average American, but because of how many questions remain unanswered. This was an earthquake, and a tsunami caused by it. It doesn't NEED vast coverage.
Human death is always unfortunate, and tens of thousands dying is a major tragedy indeed. But there are so many people now, living on just about every habitable patch of ground on earth, that any kind of a natural disaster happening anywhere in the world kills massive numbers.
The thing is, vast majority of humans today still live in impoverished, technologically backward societies. 6 billion is too many people for a primitve infrastructure to handle.
Actually Earth can easily handle hundreds of billions, but we would need advanced technology like the Puppeteers. And not just advanced technology, but also advanced cultural and societal organization far ahead of what we have today... plus a fundamental change in how people think and behave. Now we can't just suddenly become a herbivorous herd society like the Puppeteers, but we can be nicer to others and try not to be such assholes.
Solution to earthquakes, tsunamis and other natural disasters lie in advanced technolgy. Fleet of Worlds!
It's not only the death toll.
This tragedy affects the life of millions of people.
I was in Sri Lanka two weeks ago and I got to
know a few inhabitants there, who are living from
tourism.
They now have to go back to fishing again (I'm not joking) until the tourists are coming back
(hopefully next year).
Moreover this region is not linked to the pacific ocean tsunami network. There are no bouys here. Now the Indian Govt is planning to place deep sea sensors as well as tsunami detection system. This data will be linked with pacific ocean tsunami network.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I disagree. Here in the UK there has been rather a lot of coverage. Most of the newspapers here have several pages worth of articles covering how bad things are, and how the humanitarian efforts are proceeding in the various affected countries. I'm not sure how many British people died in this tragedy, but I think it's got to be a dozen at most. So this tragedy is no 'closer' to us personally in the UK than it is in the US, but if the media coverage really is as bad in the US as grandparent poster seems to imply, then I think that really is a clear indication of the different attitudes taken by the media in our two countries.
Santa's suicide mission go!
Some south asian bloggers have created a blog tsunamihelp.blogspot.com blogging about the latest news and information about the tsunami, agencies suppoting the victims and involved in relief, places where donations can be made, volunteering information and much more.
Sorry to disagree with you, but worst hit would be the natives that will stay there to face all the conseqences of the disaster, people that have lost everything they had, people that have lost their loved ones.
Sorry, but I got really pissed today watching the news and seeing a tourist comming back from Phuket complaining that they (he and his wife) lost everything they took on their holidays. What have you lost, little men? Two suitcases of clothes and a digital camera??? Look around you, little men, and see all those people that had little and now have nothing, look at the corpses floating and mothers mourning for their children. Then go on complaining about your digital camera little men. I won't cry for you.
No, the disruption isn't big enough. The rotation sped up by a 10,000th of a second. It's hardly worth mentioning in the news. Earth's orbit changed, too, according to this article.
while true;do echo -e -n "\033[s\n\033[u\134_\033[B";done
I haven't seen anything else on CNN in 2 days...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I find that statement a little left of center. The worst hit will be the tourists? Hell no. The worst hit will be the hundreds of thousands of poor people whose livelihoods have been destroyed/changed forever. Not mention the fact that 1/3 of the dead are children.
Yes many tourists have lost their lives, but many of those who have not will be able to get back on the plane and go home to their easy lives back in suburbia. The citizens in the likes of Sri Lanka, Thailand etc have no way of escaping this nightmare.
*shrug* Maybe Im just being overly sensitive.
Medraut
I am no geologist, but I wonder too about the relationship here between Earth's magnetic field changes and the two recent high magnitude quakes. Yes I know that these quakes are linked to subduction zones of the major plates, but at the same time I am thinking about the rotation of earth's magnetic core. If there is a major flip of the field, can we assume it is purely associated with field changes, or might there be some physical turbulence at lower levels, which manifest as quakes.
How can we test this hypothesis? Simple. Do some comparitive measurements of magnetic field strength and direction at the two locations which experienced major quakes. I suspect there may be a correlation, and further predict major tremblors in the near future, linked to an acceleration of magentic field changes, especially ELF magnetic signals.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Video here high bandwidth server, no worries. 4 different videos. Amazing footage.
I doubt England, Iraq, or Brazil are pre-empting their programing either.
Actually in the UK the 3 main news channels (BBC News 24, Sky news, ITV News) haven't left the earthquake / tsunami / asia story at all in the last 48 hours apart from the occasional 2 minute headlines roundup. CNN europe and CNBC are barely touching on it, but that's all I would expect from US owned channels. Our main channels also show news occasionally, and when they do it's 90% about the disaster.
I would say that's enough coverage of the disaster for everyone to know about it, and for anyone who wants it to get round-the-clock coverage. What more is needed?
Steve.
A latent existence
Story here. Since that didn't work, they called the State Department, who ALSO tried to find out who to contact, but again, due to lack of adequate warning systems/organizations, they failed as well.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Any of you planning to donate some money? Dollar may be losing ground but it still has 44 times more value than Indian Rupees. So if you donate 100 dollars that means 4400 Indian Rupees (INR). And to give you an idea what this could mean.. a normal meal in India is around 40 INR while cheap clothing is around 100-200 INR. And medicines per day per person won't be more than 100-200 INR. Taking some conservative estimates, your 100 dollars can save an Indian for 10 days till things get under control and one can start living on one's own. Kindly consider donating... Visit my blog http://ritesh.blogspot.com/ and this blog http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/ for some info on how/where to donate. Redcross and UNICEF are also accepting donations now.
Regards, Ritesh
So this tragedy is no 'closer' to us personally in the UK than it is in the US...
Many of the countries hit by this earthquake/tsunami are former British colonies (India, Sri Lanka/Ceylon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar/Burma) and others were formerly under the colonial power of European nations (Indonesia was once Dutch ruled, Madagascar was French ruled, etc).
It seems that the UK (and Europe) has much closer personal ties to these countries than the US, so that could explain the increased coverage in the UK.
I agree though, the short attention span of American media definitely has something to do with it. It's interesting that some people are saying "that could never happen to the US, so that's why people don't care."
There's a volcano on the Canary Islands that could erupt and trigger a tsunami that would deluge the Eastern coast of the United States. The west coast of the US is vulnerable to tsunamis created by the "Ring of Fire". Maybe this disaster will not only get counties around the Indian Ocean to take tsunamis more seriously, but also people on the coasts of the US as well.
----- rL
> I still hope that it will soon be gone. Not through some horrible disaster, because that's not a very nice thing to wish on anybody, but through continued political pressure.
The US's lease runs out in 2016, though I can't imagine that the UK would fail to renew it.
BTW, an interesting/informative article about the history and current military/pollitical arrangements at Diego Garcia can be found at globalsecurity.org.
Given its location and elevation (4' average, 22' maximum, according to the article), it's somewhat surprising that they didn't get washed away.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Short of a major loss or gain of mass, or impulse from a massive impact, the Earth just keeps trucking along in it's rut. While the energy is tremendous in an Earthquake, the energy just moves mass around within the same system.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
> If this happened to America, I wonder who they would bomb?
Until a couple of years ago, Iraq. Even now, they might go for Fallujah.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
you fail to concede that responsibility and accountability is not the sole province of the usa, and that if something happens in the indian ocean, the usa should help, and it is helping...
but the failure to act in a timely manner and not having a system in place to save lives is something the governments local to the indian ocean have proved shameful about, not the usa
because your pov seems to demand of the usa to respect other people (warn them appropriately to save lives)... by disrespecting other people (set up a system that disregards their own abilities to take care of themselves)
the usa is a member of the global community, not an owner of the global community
you cannot condemn the usa for not doing something that your own pov insists they cannot do
follow the logic of your position to its conclusion, and you will see the logical inconsistencies in what you are saying
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This Sunday times article starts with the latter part of the story. Complete, but brief, story can be found here and here.
This article gives a list of kings, but nothing about the disaster.
The tsunami is detected by buoys that measure the tide. If the tide goes way up at the wrong time, it must be a tsunami. If the buoy is close to the epicenter, we can then warn people that are farther away. The buoys only work when they are in shallow water. It has been reported on the news that the buoys are very expensive and this is why the nations that were hit by this disaster did not invest in tsunami prediction. It seems to me that a shore based tide detector would be very cheap if it was connected by land line.
A massive displacement of the seafloor or an undersea landslide is required to create a tsunami. There doesn't seem to be any theory for predicting this other than going with the intensity measurement of the earthquake. There doesn't seem to be any large effort to place instruments on the ocean floor to detect this movement. (It would probably cost too much)
What about the high energy wave that travels vast distances through the ocean? Shouldn't there be some way to detect this wave?
All the recriminations now begin, even before the bodies are buried (or even counted). Bottom Line: This is an unprecedented natural disaster, and the same warning/response systems that existed in the pacific didn't really exist in that area of the world.
This is something so far out of the realm of most peoples experience, that it's quite natural to assume some incredulity on their part. Do you pay attention to the wide-eyed guy on the street corner with the sign that says "The end is near?" I thought not... most people ignore him, just as you probably do.
Just to add to the political fray, some reports have UN officials already complaining that the US and other western nations are being "stingy" with their aid packages... and even suggesting that those countries raise taxes on their citizens to pay for more aid (if you believe the Wash. Times).
Maybe some of these folks should focus more on helping, rather than wasting their breath trying to find a scapegoat.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Hehe - I'm a spaniard living in America and I too was in Madrid over the weekend (still am, actually). I agree with you that Europe is covering this quite a bit, but not outside the normal shows. TV is still going on, regular shows are being programmed. During the news this gets absolutely top billing and the same footage is repeated over and over again. Still, it's nowhere near 9/11 news reporting. During that tragedy EVERY SHOW on EVERY CHANNEL was preempted, in many cases there wasn't even any advertising. Channels that had no good news reporting simply switched over to the CNN feed.
Nonetheless, I have to point out a flaw in your reasoning and the grandparent post's - the reason this is different than 9/11 is not because of the distance, or evil americans not caring about foreign citizens. That influences only how much time you spend on the specific story in the news shows.
The difference is, 9/11 was a man-made disaster. Back in 2001, someone decided to take down those two towers, and do it in a particularly gruesome way that set back american civil liberties pretty seriously. Some asshole in a hat figured that he didn't like us for a some reasons that I'm sure feel perfectly logical to him and attacked us. Had it been a nation doing the attacking and not a group of terrorists hiding all over the world they would have gotten nuked off the surface of the earth.
This disaster however was natural. The mole people didn't get up last week and figure out they had to kill Arthur C. Clarke before his satellites discover the extent of their underground lair - no, it simply happened. It is tragic, it is terrible, but Mother Nature did not declare war on the Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India - it was just a very unfortunate event. One that could have been ameliorated with the proper warning systems, but that's besides the point now - hopefully they'll be better prepared for the next one.
-Jack Ash
> "What have you lost, little men? Two suitcases of clothes and a digital camera???"
- Four childs lost their parents.
- One man lost his wife and his four year old doughter
- One newly married man lost his pregnant wife.
Here in Sweden theese kind of reports goes on and on. Still 1600 swedes are missing, and if you live here there is a good chance that you know someone on vacation in Thailand. They say about 20.000 swedes were on vacation there, thats about 0.2% of our population. On every office and workplace now we are counting in: Are those we know there safe or are they still missing.
In Sweden everybody has been chocked by this, it could well be one of the largets disasters that has hit us.
This will not dimish the sufferings of those who live in the disater areas, they have har times now and hard times to come, but even turists will mourn the loss of loved ones.
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
The sea retreats just before the tsunami hits because the wave is symmetrical. When the wave is out at sea, it is very deep. When the bottom of the wave hits the shallows, there is nowhere for the water to go but up. This pulls the water away from the shore as the wave builds up.
A lot of people got swept away (or dragged over the coral) because they were naturally curious when they saw the sea suddenly retreat and walked out to see what was going on, only to get hammered when the wave arrived.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Oddly enough, the Arthur C Clarke Foundation is actually working on just that. Setting up an alert system for Tsunamis:
http://www.clarkefoundation.org/projects
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.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2001/08/29/nwave29.xml
s la nds+mountain+landslide+tsunami&spell=1
BRITAIN faces a natural disaster that will flatten the Atlantic coastline for several miles inland, a scientist predicted yesterday.
A massive landslide caused by a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands would create a giant wave that would hit the coast at up to 500mph.
The largest mega-tsunami ever seen would be generated when an eruption of Cumbre Vieja on the island of La Palma caused a part of a mountain twice the size of the Isle of Man to plunge into the Atlantic.
"The first impact will be when 330ft waves crash into the west Saharan coast of Morocco," said Simon Day, of the Benfield Greig hazard research centre at University College London.
"It is not a question of if it will happen, only when it will happen. It could be in the next few decades; it could be hundreds of years hence."
Devastation from the tsunami was also highly likely in Florida, Brazil and the Caribbean. There the wave would reach heights of 130ft to 164ft - higher than Nelson's column - and could sweep four and a half miles inland.
Dr Day said: "It is a geologically definite process, a bit like a pressure cooker, with the volcano heating up the ground water and pressure building up inside the mountain."
In 1949 the mountain moved 12ft in two days, but the disaster waiting to happen would be much greater, according to Dr Day's report, published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The collapse of the mountain on the west of Cumbre Vieja would release enough energy, equivalent to the electricity consumption of America in six months, to generate a wave more than half a mile high and tens of miles long.
This would collapse and rebound on the Canaries. As the landslide continued to move underwater, a series of waves would develop, creating enormous surges all over the Atlantic.
"After only 10 minutes, the tsunami will have moved more than 150 miles," Dr Day said. It would reach America in little more than six hours.
There have been at least 11 tsunamis in the past 200,000 years, one of which wiped out Minoan civilisation on Crete.
The largest recorded wave to hit Britain was the Lisbo tsunami of 1755, when 12ft seas pounded Cornwall.
About 7,000 years ago, the Storegga tsunami, caused by a landslide off Norway, deposited silt several miles inland in northern Scotland.
"When the wave from the Canaries reaches Britain, it could be as high as the Storegga, which may have been up to 60ft," Dr Day said.
"It is difficult to know how far the ramifications will go. We should be looking at the doomed civilisation of Crete when assessing the effects."
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=canary+i
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
It's called the proper chain of command. If there's no contact point for this kind of information, then there's no quick way to get people to realize the severity. CNN probably saw it on the AP wire and said *yawn
8,"Another earthquake. Jim see if you can run down a 20 second bit for the 10 o'clock news."
Three hours isn't long enough for a warning when there's no efficient mechanism in place for dealing with the event in rapid fashion. Hell, it takes an hour here in my corner of the US for the local TV/radio stations to get school delays/closings up and running when we have an unexpected snow. If Sri Lanka monitored an earthquake off the Atlantic coast of the US, and suspected a possible tidal wave headed for a group of barrier islands in the mid atlantic region, which TV or radio station would you call? I live 400 miles away, and I have no idea. If you did call, and spoke with a heavy accent (you do know all the languages in the world, right?), do you think they'd believe you and put it on the nes immediately? Of course not, they'd try to verify it before they broadcast such a warning. For an area with so few tidal waves, this sounds like a prank call to me.
Unfortunately, it takes a tragedy before those with the means decide it is worth their while to prepare for such disasters. I'm sure that this will spur more countries to create the pathways of communication necessary to mitigate damage in the future.
This is a tragedy, and a terrible one. I agree that it is worse than the 9/11/01 attack - far worse in human loss.
[aside] I believe it is less shocking because natural disasters occur on a fairly regular basis, whereas terrorists flying passenger jets into buildings is crazy. More improtantly, the cameras were rolling when the real tragedy occured - the buildings collaped on/with many occupants. Drama, horror, immediacy. [/aside]
My thoughts and prayers go out to all who have lost loved ones, and I hope that the country can pull together and get the physical damage repaired as soon as possible.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There is a reference to this theory in a CNN article, talking about "a wall of water more than 164 feet high" hitting the U.S. east coast.
Don't panic.
But other researchers in Britain discounted the prediction as the product of a speculative computer model. They said that over the last 200,000 years there had been only two huge landslides on the flanks of the Canary Islands and that there was geologic evidence indicating the slides broke up and fell into the sea in bits instead of one big whoosh.
The difference is that writing a cheque can actually be done - the average citizen if dropped into that situation would only add to the problem because they have no experience. However, donating will help the aid organisation get what's needed, get it into the country, and use it.
On the other hand, humans have strange minds. Helping someone rebuild their house to make takes precedence over giving them money. Give me a shovel and fly me the hell in there.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
From http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3934945
... have been swept away or destroyed."
Land Mines Add to Sri Lanka's Misery
Tidal waves that hammered Sri Lanka have uprooted land mines that threaten to kill or maim survivors trying to return home while endangering relief workers, a Unicef official said today.
The tsunami have scattered mines and destroyed warning signs, said Ted Chaiban, the aid agency's Sri Lanka chief.
"Land mines are posing a new risk to Sri Lankans, and to relief efforts," he said. "Mines were floated by the floods and washed out of known mine fields, so now we don't know where they are and the warning signs
The greatest danger will come when survivors begin to return to their homes, not knowing where the mines are, Chaiban said.
More than 1.5 million mines have been planted across Sri Lanka by the army and Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland since 1983.
Yes, we all take the official doctrine hook line and sinker. That's why about 49% of us worked so hard to get Bush out of office, and why in almost every one of the states with a well-educated populace he was defeated soundly.
I know, I know, you're really just pumping your blog and trolling as you always do Troed. You could at least acknowledge an "ends justifies the means" debate when one exist.
Clearly Afghanistan is far more democratic now then it was under the Taliban, this isn't even worth discussing - you can't compare Afghanistan with the democracy of a modern first world country, which will take decades to achieve there. And Iraq, of course, I will reserve judgement for, but it's hard to get less democratic than Saddam Hussein's regime (doesn't mean I think the invasion of Iraq was justified however).
Everyone should check out http://www.usgs.gov and see alot of the data collected on this. I know this seems kind of cold to look at the data, but the thing that impressed me the most was the animation they have that shows just how large of an area that this has affected. It's staggering. BILLIONS of dollars will have to be spent over many years to get things back to the way they were on Christmas day. Lives of MILLIONS will be affected in one way or another. The most disturbing thing that I have heard has been the greens blaming this on global warming....um..ok....whatever dudes.
Gorkman
It is true that tsunamis travel really fast, but only when in deep water. When the tsunami enters more shallow water, the speed goes down to about 40-50mph, while the wave itself starts to grow in height because of the higher-speed water pushing from behind. This is also the reason that the tsunami is more or less invisible when traveling across deep water.
My God ... it's full of starfish...
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
There seems to be a connection between suicide in whales and earthquakes. Around two weeks ago, an Indian Doctor had predicted this earthquake on Princeton's mailing list based on whale behaviour in Australia. Interesting...