How fragile and temporary we are.
 

There are no Pixies in the affected area that I know of.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that slammed into villages and seaside resorts across southern and southeast Asia on Sunday, killing more than 7,000 people in six countries.
Tourists, fishermen, homes and cars were swept away by walls of water up to 20 feet high that swept across the Bay of Bengal, unleashed by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake centered off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
In Sri Lanka, 1,000 miles west of the epicenter, more than 3,000 people were killed, the country's top police official said. At least 1,870 died in Indonesia, and 1,900 along the southern coasts of India. At least 198 were confirmed dead in Thailand, 42 in Malaysia and 2 in Bangladesh.
But officials expected the death toll to rise dramatically, with hundreds reported missing and all communications cut off to Sumatran towns closest to the epicenter. Hundreds of bodies were found on various beaches along India's southern state of Tamil Nadu, and more were expected to be washed in by the sea, officials said.
The rush of waves brought to sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean's edge: Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away; a group of 32 Indians - including 15 children - were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day; fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and tossed away.
``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.
The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.…
Tidal waves leveled towns in the province of Aceh on Sumatra's northern tip, the region closest to the epicenter. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches.
Health ministry official Els Mangundap said 1,876 people had died across the region, including some 1,400 in the Aceh provincial capital, Banda Aceh. Communications to the town had been cut.…..
An AP photographer saw two dozen bodies along a four-mile stretch of beach, some of children entangled in the wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. Other bodies were brought up from the beach, wrapped in sarongs and laid on the road, while rows of men and women lined the roads asking if anyone had seen their relatives.……
In India, beaches were turned into virtual open-air mortuaries, with bodies of people caught in the tidal wave being washed ashore.
In Tamil Nadu state, just across the straits from Sri Lanka, 1,567 people were killed, said the state's top elected official, Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa.…..
The huge waves struck around breakfast time on the beaches of Thailand's beach resorts - probably Asia's most popular holiday destination at this time of year, particularly for Europeans fleeing the winter cold - wiping out bungalows, boats and cars, sweeping away sunbathers and snorkelers, witnesses said……
``People that were snorkeling were dragged along the coral and washed up on the beach, and people that were sunbathing got washed into the sea,'' said Simon Clark, 29, a photographer from London vacationing on Ngai island.…..
Dec 26 2004 10:12AM

OMG! I hadn't heard about this. Haven't watched the news in days. My prayers go out to all those poor families and for the strength they will need to get through such a horror. :(

Been listening to the news on this all morning. What a horrible disaster. Thoughts and prayers for all the victims and survivors.

It's just sooo awful.

8,000 counted now and climbing :(

Location, location, location.

This took place in one of the most crowded area of the world, and worse, at sea. The only way it could have been worse is if the epicenter had been located directly under a major coastal metropolitan area, like Singapore or Jakarta or something like that.

What a freakin' disaster.

OMG! It makes you think about where you live doesn't it?

Death count is still rising 9,500 was last I heard

You never know how blessed you are, until something so tragic makes you think.

My youngest child is a sweet boy of 10, who is in a special day class. His teacher is vacationing in Thailand for the Christmas holidays, with her family. I'm sick with worry about them. My heart and prayers go out to all the people in that area.

Wow...I couldn't imagine what the people experienced.

I read on nbcnews.com that this quake effected the whole planet so much so that earth's rotation changed...3 days prior to this quake another one located between Australia and Antartica registered 8.1. Makes you wonder what is going on inside our planet and what could happen next... :(

............. and counting.

I hope she is alright flutelady. *hugs*

The tsunami hit the province of Bengal, although thankfully not Calcutta. Mt husband's family is in Calcutta and is fine.

However, this one hit close enough to home that everyone here is thinking very much about their mortality and also sending thoughts and prayers to those who weren't so lucky.

13,000 just announced on TV news. :(



It was like 9/11 happening for four days in a row, but it only took a couple minutes.
















Give somebody a hug. :cool:

That's enough for today.

A hug to everyone. What a terribly sad story.

Quote:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - Rescuers piled up bodies along coastlines devastated by a tsunami that obliterated seaside towns in Asia and Africa, killing 21,000 people in nine countries. …. On the remote Car Nicobar island northwest of Sumatra, Police Chief S.B. Deol told New Delhi Television he had reports that another 3,000 people may have died. If confirmed, that would raise India's death toll to 6,000 and the overall number to 23,900…. The Indian state of Tamil Nadu reported thousands of deaths. Chief Minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa called the scene ``an extraordinary calamity of such colossal proportions that the damage has been unprecedented.''… The tsunamis came without warning. Witnesses said sea waters at first retreated far out into the ocean, only to return at a vicious pace. Some regions reported a crashing wall of water 20 feet high…. One man, Rajali, said his wife and two children were killed and he could not find dry ground to bury them. Islamic tradition demands that the deceased be buried as soon as possible.``What shall I do?'' said the 55-year-old man, who, like many Indonesians, goes by a single name. ``I don't know where to bury my wife and children.''…. About 200 inmates took advantage of the chaos, escaping from a prison in coastal Matara.The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's magnitude was 9.0 - the strongest since a 9.2-magnitude temblor in Alaska in 1964 and the fourth-largest in a century.The quake occurred more than 6 miles deep and was followed by a half-dozen powerful aftershocks. A 620-mile section of a geological plate shifted, triggering the sudden displacement of water…. Tsunamis as large as Sunday's happen only a few times a century. A tsunami is a series of traveling ocean waves generated by geological disturbances near the ocean floor. With nothing to stop them, the waves can race across the ocean like the crack of a bullwhip, gaining momentum over thousands of miles.Dec 27 2004 8:41AM

The totality will never be known.

This just sucks more and more the more we fnd out about it.

*speechless*

:(

Such a tragedy. Makes you wanna gather everyone you love and give them all a big hug.

Fatalities have also been reported in Somalia and Kenya, 4,000 miles away from the epicenter.

I think that part floored me more than anything else in this tragedy, that the wave could inflict damage so far away...suddenly I don't feel like I'm nearly far enough inland anymore...

After reading that the death toll could reach 100,000 I truly wondered how in the world that could happen... and I found these sites...

http://jlgolson.blogspot.com/2004/12/tsunami-video.html

http://www.pbase.com/issels/phuket_tsunami&page=all

They are blogs, which in some cases give more first hand accounts of what actually happened - more so than the news that is reported which has a tendency to either inflate or deflate information...After downloading a video from the first site I listed from Thailand, I truly can't imagine being the person behind the camera and experiencing this...

I am not one to be at a loss for words but this has just floored me.

A stunned silence is about all I can muster with the magnitude of this horrific disaster.

Right Sharni,

Mother Earth is angry!

I said the same thing today when discussing how horrific this was... and feeling a lot ashamed that I know very little about many of the countries impacted... someone pissed off Mother Earth... and they better start apologizing and quick...unfortunately I think it's a lot of someones...

Also like Bibi, mostly I'm just awe-struck... to know that people 4,000 miles from the epicenter were killed is beyond my comprehension... to help grasp how far 4,000 miles was, I found that the driving distance from San Francisco to Washington DC is 2,840 miles... AMAZING the power of nature.

I am watching an ABC special on it all. Just horrifying. :(

Sharni,

I love you...you KNOW I do! But I can't abide by your entire reply...(though I have respect for what you are thinking and feeling).

I've been thinking about this a lot as the days pass...and it reminded me of many losses in my personal life that have never made sense. My first niece died at 5 months of age, and my mom at 54. Human nature is to blame ourselves for [our] past "evil" doings whenever something as a loved ones untimely death, or this particular horror or ones like it, happens.

WE (the fairly good-doers) ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE HORRORS/HORRIBLE THINGS THAT HAPPEN ON THIS PLANET! I just feel...not all of mankind is "being punished" for the minority assholes/dickheads/evildoers/natural disasters of the world! YES...it's beyond big at the time. But in retrospect/hindsight it's NOT due to anything [we] did or didn't do. I believe that the good outweighs the bad...but we only notice the bad because it touches our heart so much deeper!!!!

AND...The media is sucking this disaster up in ratings, with no respect for any human feeling that is hitting us all...as we watch...helplessly...............

Not to change the subject...just to put a different glimmer on it, is all I am doing!

So are we... :( So beyond words now - especially when they talked about the children....

^---- *meanders to the beat of a different drum also*:cool:

*finds himself at the othere end of Lixie’s pew.*:lust:


Because of an avocation with geology, I was actually following the southern quake, of Christmas even, between Tazland and Auntie Artic, when I became aware and started this thread. The 8.1 number, means something to me and 8.9 REALLY meant something. ……. (and 9.0 means even more) Only by a few hours, was I aware that a significant event could be happening and titled this thread with the words “fragile” and “temporary”.

In spite of the fact that our species has done more than any before, to effect and screw-up the environment that WE are dependent on, it truly is NOT much of a notation in the biography of this tiny satellite of a common, garden variety star, in a galaxy of billions of stars, among BILLIONS of galaxies. It doesn’t know or give a shit that we crawled out of the slime with a million other electro-chemical reaction during a twinkle of star light. The planet belched! We just happened to be at a point in our own time when we could make note and communicate it to others like ourselves. Occasionally it will fart, like at Mount St. Helens or Krakatoa or Tambora or Pompey. The resulting effect on us is only notable BY us. It is completely undetectable in our universe.

This prospective is not gloomy or sad in any way.:) Rather it causes me to look at my kids and grand kids and my garbage man and my banker and my friends and my Pixies family and know….. NOW is all there is :D and WE is all we got man! :D :grope:

^ can I get an "amen", brothers & sisters...

After shock is hitting...and they say more tidal waves could be coming. Least they have a warning this time. I hope it's enough!

Unfortuantely, there were warnings which turned out to be false alarms and panicked some people still in the coastal areas. Ug.

Terrible. I had a nightmare about a tidal wave when I was young, if close my eyes I can still see it, it was incredibly sharp and realistic, I can remember holding my breath, and hte butterflies in my stomach - luckily, I woke up, for these people, the survivors, the worst is just beginning.

The earth and its power are truly something to behold. My heart goes out to all those effected my this event. It will take years to recover from this, and the survivers will carry this horror with them for the rest of there lives. But the human spirit is an amazing thing, and they will move on and slow get back to living and loving.

I think the last I heard put the current death toll at over 100,000. I just can't hardly imagine that. And they expect disease to almost double whatever the final number is.

Lord have mercy!

That is the equivalent of 9/11 happening everyday, for over 5 weeks and 4 days. :(

They've not yet talked about Myanmar (Burma), Madagascar or the most vulnerable of all, Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, they lose a hundred thousand when 2 inches of rain falls on the wrong tide.

I suspect the toll will top a quarter of a million killed by water alone.