SE Asia Earthquake/Tsunami

[Filuwaúrdjan]

An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 has struck the coast of Indonesia, creating the inevitable Tsunamis ("tidal waves") which have struck the coasts of Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives... well most of SE Asia actually.

At least 500 people have been killed (and that number will probably rise pretty sharply) and huge numbers of people have been made homeless.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Over 700 now

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Latest figures: over 1,200 dead in Sri Lanka

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Over 1000 in India now. Mostly fishermen out early. 500 in Thailand.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Over 2500 dead in Sri Lanka.
Over 2000 dead in India, a figure that, knowing India, will be corrected upwards hugely.
That 2000 figure includes 1300 in Tamil Nadu, 300 in Andhra Pradesh, 300 in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands (where one official has already gone on record saying that the final tally will probably be over 1000), 100 in Kerala.
I've been to four different beach towns in Tamil Nadu - Mamallapuram, Pondicherry, Thiruchendur, Kannyakumari, plus Varkkela in Kerala - and obviously I have no way of knowing whether everybody I've seen and spoken to there is still alive.
ing hell.

It gets worse :-(

Sri Lanka now says 3,500 and thousands more missing. A million people have been made homeless. Burma (which looking at a map would have been badly hit) hasn't said how many people died. Some islands in the Maldives can't be contacted. And according to the BBC:

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

Guess what? Somalia's got hit as well

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Photo from Malaysia:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Somalia? Do you mean by the same earthquake or by a different one?

Same Tsunami ("tidal wave") caused by the same Earthquake. Those things are horrible.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Supposedly, the ocen water retracted half-a-mile before the wave hit.

That's normal for Tsunamis, and one reason why they're so scary.

The USGS are saying that if the Indian Ocean had a Tsunami warning system like the Pacific very few people would have died.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Possibly, but they are so rare there, nobody really thought about it.  It's like a hurricane hitting Cornwall.  Yes, it has happened, but exceptionally rarely.

Not the point: a destructive plate boundary borders the Indian Ocean. There have been several extremely destructive Tsunamis in that Ocean in the past, rare yes but they do happen every now and again, and the area is heavily populated and the seaboards tend to be fairly low lying.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Helmut Kohl is vacationing on Sri Lanka.

No comment

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Helmut Kohl is vacationing on Sri Lanka.

No comment

I meant, like, right now.

Ah, O.K

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If anyone wants to help, donations to the Red Cross can be made here.  Select "International Response Fund" to have it go to that location.  I already donated the $100 I got for Christmas; I figure they can make much better use of it than I can.

Other places you can donate to are Oxfam America and Save the Children.

I've donated £100 outta my Building Society account and £20 I found lying around.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Scientists in New Zealand say 4 earthquakes there on the 24th could be related to this tsunami.

NZ is on the same plate

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Indonesian Vice President says that between 21,000 and 25,000 people were killed in Indonesia

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also hundreds Swedes are missing.

Al, Lewis, Jens, Bono and Hugento?  Have you any numbers about your countrymen? And how about Americans and Canadians?

IIRC 12 confirmed dead, missing: possibly a couple of hundred. What's upset me the most is the fishermen coming back home and getting caught up in the Tsunami.
Unlike most of the other victims they never had a chance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've seen it said as many as 80,000 people may have been killed all in all.

Looks like it could wind up being the worst earthquake caused Tsunami on record (Krackatau and Tambora caused Tsunamis killed way more)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Krakatau Tsunami killed an estimated 36,000, I read somewhere. Obviously, that would be a higher share of the area's population, though. (And Krakatau killed more people, in other ways - by causing harvests to fail.)

I thought it was higher.
Tambora was at least 100,000. Probably much, much higher.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's over 80,000 now (over 50,000 of those in Aceh)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

114,000 and rising (80,000 in Aceh).

Oh and guess what? A volcano in the Andaman islands (est. 10,000 killed by Tsunami) has just started to erupt...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Here's the post that started this thread.  Who knew at the time that this was actually an optimistic way to put it.

I didn't :-(