Disaster

Esav Benyamin

Esav Benyamin

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The Asian and Australian Knife Community has been hit by a devastating Tsunami.

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2/3 of the maldives capital is under wwater, and so far 11.300 people are dead, I think probably more will end up being dead.

Lots of tourists too, including from Europe, Oz, Israel, New Zealand, and more, since so many people were on Christmas vacation.

My condolences/prayers for those effected.
 
Awful news. I don't know if anyone is aware of the destructive power contained here. Unreal. Prayers for those affected.
 
It's really terrible. The scale of the disaster is amazing-difficult to imagine.
Saying condolences and prayers go out to the affected sounds miniscule by comparision--but it is all I have, for the time being. I am sure that a number of countires will be preparing emergencey rescue and aid teams, and the Red Cross will be soliciting donations. Let's all keep an eye out.
 
They talked about how a 8.0 earthquake had the power of 30 million tons of dynamite.
A 9.0 has the power of 30 BILLION tons.
 
Astonishingly horrific, and truly one of the worst disasters in recorded history. If you've seen the video of the tsunami coming ashore in Phuket, that only begins to capture the fury.
 
I'm pleased to hear from Samo and some of our other Asian Knife Nuts. I keep praying that the toll will not climb much higher and I will keep those who have lost friends and families in my thoughts and prayers as I go about my safe and insulated day. The Nicobar Islands are extremely remote and officials feel that another 3,000 people have perished there. Sri Lanka has asked the US directly for help. Australia is using their CAF transports to fly supplies in as fast as possible. There are a reported 600 Swedish citizens missing. The King of Thailand lost a grandson to this disaster.

I Just sent a cash contribution to the American Red Cross earmarked for International Relief. It won't help the folks in SEA but I'll be going down to our local Carter Blood Center to donate my rare red stuff.

I would urge any of you who can to donate whatever you are able to help.

The American Red Cross has a secure link for Credit Card contributions. Link up here American Red Cross You can also link to stories there that our media is not covering.

I couldn't link to the International Red Cross/Red Crescent to find out where to donate but their main page is International Red Cross/Red Crescent

My company has matching contributions for charitable organizations and I intend to hit them up when the plant fires up again after the New Year. If your church or any other social organization seeks help here don't turn a deaf ear. Stay involved and do what you can. It all comes back in time.

I've rambled enough here. Count your blessings and please do what y'all can to help.

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On the modified Richter Scale, an increase of 1 integer reflects an increase of power by a factor of 30 times. Thus a 9.0 is 900 times as strong as a 7.0 which we are familiar with from the strong earthquakes from the San Andreas FZ and 27,000 times the moderate 6.0 range quakes that hit every few years. The Good Friday quake that hit Prince William Sound in 1964 was ~9.4 magnitude, maybe 2-3 times as strong as this one.

If a 8.0 had the power of 30 million tons of TNT, the 9.0 wouild have the equivalent of 900 million tons.

These forces and secondary features like tsunamis are modified by the depth of focus and the direction of movement.
 
Glad to hear our members for the region are OK for the most part. My heart goes out to those effected.
 
Called my dad and he said that some parts of Malaysia actually felt tremors. Even as close as 10 minutes away from my house in Kuala Lumpur.

I don't know how this thing came in without warning. It is very scary.
 
Did you see where one guy actually swam the thing out? They had the first-person article in our local paper today.
Poor sod was out swimming with his buddy, who said "hey, we should get back to shore; something's wrong with the ocean."
Said it was like the sea began to go dead flat, then just began to rise violently. He began swimming at top speed towards shore, and just sort of rode the thing inland till it dumped him in a field.
Devastation was massive.
 
Point44 said:
I don't know how this thing came in without warning. It is very scary.
Click to expand...
Considering how damaging even smaller tsunami can be to coastal areas, maybe your governments should set up something like our tornado warning systems. Anyone seeing this happen can send alarms to neighboring meteorological stations to pass it on and set off sirens to warn people off the beaches. Evidently, there was some time between the close in damage and the areas further out, who coud have fled the coast.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Considering how damaging even smaller tsunami can be to coastal areas, maybe your governments should set up something like our tornado warning systems. Anyone seeing this happen can send alarms to neighboring meteorological stations to pass it on and set off sirens to warn people off the beaches. Evidently, there was some time between the close in damage and the areas further out, who coud have fled the coast.
Click to expand...
That might help but just getting people off the beaches wouldn't have been much help in this case. I've heard reports of water 5 metres high going 2 kilometres inland. A lot of the places affected are relatively low lying and a HUGE number of people live on, or near, the coast, which goes part way to explaining the immense death toll.

As an aside, the immediate deaths from the initial quake are likely to be far out weighed by the deaths from disease. Most of these places have no clean water, no sanitation, no electricity and are covered in mud and debris. Hundreds of thousands have nowhere to live and mosquito bourne diseases like malaria and dysentry are likely to become endemic.

I was listening on the radio this morning to some Oz survivors, one couple who had lost their son and another guy who had lost his wife. They don't know what happened to them. The devestation was complete. I think this will go down as one of the worlds biggest modern disasters.
 
my prayers for our asian brothers and sisters..in the knife community and beyond. I heard that these waves hit the various coasts at speeds of 500mph?!! it that true...the pictures are horriffic! :(
 
Besides hitting some extremely impoverished areas, it also hit some areas that have been in political turmoil or open civil war. Maybe this will be a chance for people to pull together and start over, salvaging some good out of a lot of tragedy.

Hopefully my donation will help a bit, but it seems like nothing compared to the enormity of the disaster. And as gajinoz said, this is just the beginning of the problems. It's hard to see the suffering and not be able to do much.

:(
 
One of the news stories brought out the idea that this is primarily a human tragedy, not an economic problem. The monetary value of most of the property damaged will be relatively easy to replace, and the real question there is speed. The sooner these losses are replaced, the better they can avoid disease, starvation, disorientation of the social network, and go back to normal economic functioning. But the incredible scale of death and personal loss is worse, and irreplaceable.
 
Sounds like the world is getting it's act together to help rather than playing politics this time. Oz has sent 5 C130s loaded with medical and other supplies plus medical and other specialist teams. They've handed over 10 million bucks to get things kick started and it sounds like other places are doing similar.

The sad truth thought is that all these people will rebuild in exactly the same places and the same event is inevitable!
 
a pilot friend of mine at 2am last night was called off holidays to the RAAF base...I'm assuming to assist in getting aide there.

Official estimate is 55,000 dead and I saw that 1000 dead washed up in a matter of hours in Indonesia. A very good friend living in malaysia (indian by birth though) wasnt affected but her dad has gone back to india to assist in things there. Hopefully more countries pull into line and help out, they're going to need ALOT of help for one of the worst events in modern history.
 
gajinoz said:
They've handed over 10 million bucks to get things kick started and it sounds like other places are doing similar.
Click to expand...

Howard said himself that it isnt enough and more will be given...
 
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