December 26, 2004

Fifth strongest earthquake since 1900, a magnitude 8.9, occurred off of Sumatra last night. Close to 5,000 are dead from tsunamis and collapsed buildings. It is the strongest earthquake on record since the 1964 Alaskan disaster.
posted by rolypolyman 20 years ago
  • The BBC now reports 7,000+ deaths so far, and extensive damage to property along coastlines. Several hours ago, I listened to one reporter's account of his being swept out to sea, swimming, then being swept close enough to grab something floating nearby. The early accounts of wave damage were appalling in both their scope and extent.
  • Thus ends the year of the monkey — in war and death and devastation.
  • Afraid not, fuyugare, for the Year of the Monkey ends on the 8th of February, 2005, or thereabouts. It's a lunar not a solar calendar. Next we have to suffer the Year of the Cock/Rooster, these being characterized by overconfidence, arrogance, and nonsensical notions. Essentially the Yin face of the Yang monkey. *sigh*
  • Iris seismic monitor (stolen from the blue)
  • Now the Beeb says 10,000+ lost. /sadness
  • I've always wondered, can you feel anything if you're on a ship above that earthquake? It seems that the answer would be "yes" since water is incompressible, but then again it has viscosity. There is a lot of shipping traffic through that area and I can't imagine what mag 8.9 would feel like on a ship.
  • Report and slideshow from the Amritapuri Ashram in southern India.
  • Sucks. Meantimes Wikipedia has a good rolling summary.
  • My God this is horrible. /weeps
  • I feel so fucking lucky to live in Canada. I don't know what to say to those living where this disaster has struck, except for; may those missing be found safe, and may those alive somehow rebuild their lives without those who were lost.
  • Oh, I know...but when our Big One comes, we won't have been shitkicked already by any number of floods, hurricanes, train wrecks or insurgencies in the meantime.
  • It intrigues me that this quake happened a year to the day after the Bam, Iran earthquake. There's a niggling memory that I can't quite place, that perhaps there was another pair of earthquakes that occurred in similar precise timing. Then again, quakes are fairly regular events, sooner or later a pair will synch up.
  • The Indian subcontinent is being subucted underneath the Himalayas, a process bound to destabilize Asia for a long time to come. Wonder if there might not be some other, currently unknown mass of land hiding underneath, say, Africa or North America.
  • An uncle and aunt of mine are due to fly out to Bangkok in a few minutes, for a trip they've planned for months, that includes beach areas south of Phuket. Their travel agent was at pains to call and report that things are just fine for incoming tourists. That's fine; incoming currency is needed just now; but can you imagine going to vacation where refugees are?
  • There was a post about a relief-trekking, adventure-travel, company recently, I recall. Personally, "disaster-travel-experiences" strike me as being overly-constructed.
  • I feel awful because I only heard about this a few hours ago, when I returned to the world of people-who-read-the-news. What a horrible thing to happen. I'm sure travel is fine (and as I said to someone, probably cheap right now too) but the debris floating up on the beaches would be...less than desirable for the next few weeks, I'd imagine. Poor buggers. The Beach is on TV right now.
  • bees: the Pacific plate is pushing its way under the North American plate. That's given us left coasters a number of foot massages of varying strengths. But the biggest quake I know of in the US was in Missouri. I seen estimates that the largest was 10 on the Richter scale. New York
  • Oh well, hit post instead of preview. My bad. And make that "I've" after "Missouri." Meant to say that we're vulnerable in the US, but the tsunami damage in Asia is horrifying. And hard to get one's mind around. Eleven thousand plus, that's such a big number, and likely to grow. Many more people than I've known in my lifetime.
  • Metafilter's thread has a lot of information and a Red Cross link. I can't imagine locally donated canned goods would get there faster than the Red Cross; I'm sending money.
  • The BBC now is saying, "about 23,000".
  • jesus.
  • well, earthquakes don't really kill people. What kills people is all the resorts, and hotels and buildings and water being moved around. There's no hiding from these things, and honestly I don't need a scientist to tell me that something horrifying is gonna happen. Particularly when they're as ambiguous as I when it comes to dates (the next 50 years?) Like the the amma said, I pray for those who lived. I'm not psyching myself out.
  • Catastrophe on this scale is wide-spread and on-going: the hundreds of thousands of homeless people (Sri Lanka alone eatimates a million) and those whose water/power/transportation/health care has been compromised -- the dimension of such losses is far greater than just reckoning the dead.
  • Crawling up to 45K confirmed, could be as high as 62K by the end.
  • 50,000+ dead, two million homeless. Tens of thousands of people are missing, communications are poor in amny of the stricken areas, rescue/relief workers have yet to arrive ont the scene in many places, and bodies have to be buried hastily, many in mass graves. The full scope of tragedy has not been grasped yet. Many of the countries hardest hit are among the world's poorest, and the economic losses are going to be a great setback.
  • 60,000+ dead.
  • My co-worker just told me that the earthquakes caused the Earth to wobble on its axis for about 2 seconds. That really freaks me out!
  • Over 75,000 confirmed dead. According to the BBC, the Red Cross is estimating as many as 100,000+ may have died. Relief still haven't reached many of the affected areas -- four days in tropical heat without clean water or food is too long. Some survivors who inhaled sea water are already dying of pneumonia, so now the after-effects are just starting to take a toll. I add my voice to those of other monkeys in asking anyone who can to please donate to whichever aid agency they choose -- for all agencies prepared to deliver swift assistance are going to need funding now, with this immense misfortune still in the making and by no means over yet.
  • Sooooz: The effect on the earth's rotation is small, but permanent.
  • 112,000 confirmed dead, nearly 80,000 confirmed in Indonesia alone.
  • 123,000 confirmed dead. The situation in Indonesia -- indescribable.
  • I wonder how the NPG-ers are taking this news...
  • The Indonesian authorities have now given up counting the dead, with the total in that country now having passed 100,000. In many areas, the dead outnumber the living by such a margin that the task is simply impossible. (This picture [highly NSFW, extremely disturbing] was posted in one of the MeFi threads. I cannot recommend that you look at it; it's one of the most horrific images I've ever seen. But it drives home the human scale of the tragedy like a sledgehammer. For days now, I've been hearing BBC correspondents talking about having filmed scenes far too upsetting to broadcast. This is what they're talking about.)
  • Simply too much to take in. I cannot imagine the toll it will take on those still living there, on those who are involved with the rescue operation, such as it is, nor can I imagine the sheer desperation to get any help you can as you watch those who are barely hanging on slowly, painfully lose the battle for lack of the basics, ie; water, medicine or food. Such agony. Bless all those who are there.
  • There are reports that the number of dead in Indonesia will top four hundred thousand people. We will surely witness nearly a million deaths by the end of the process. And that's sickening.
  • I fully agree. The figures in today's paper here say 80-100,000 in India alone, expecting that to double with the onslaught of diseases like cholera. I admit I cried like a big wuss reading the paper this morning. Damn, it's sad - the front-page photo was taken from a beach in Thailand, showing the beach with the first of the tsunami waves coming into shore and a cluster of people who had obviously just figured out what was going on and running desperately toward the camera. The caption underneath says that the people in the photo have yet to be found.
  • flashboy - holy crap
  • Flasher -- that is some fucked-up shit. Whew.
  • Flash, The death toll in that pic is incomprehensible. I couldn't finish letting it load to look. All the beloved dead. Such sadness.
  • Dear god, a moment of reflection for all of these people and their family and friends. . It's been a sadly twinged New Year. I had forgotten about it all, until I got home tonight. And then it all came back. Champaign = Crying. I gotta donate more. It's the least I can do without a passport.
  • 272 000
  • And they are still pulling bodies out of the wreckage in Indonesia, a full month after the event.