Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia

pfb writes "From reuters, 'The world's fifth-largest quake in a century has hit southern Asia, triggering a speeding tsunami that crashed into Sri Lanka and India, drowning hundreds, and swamping tourist islands in Thailand and the Maldives.'"

Geez....

[bugbeak (711163)]

...set off by the 8.9 magnitude earthquake...

Windows in JAKARTA, Indonesia, were rattling, and some even broke. And that is a 2-3 hour flight away from the epicenter!

Difficult to detect / prevent

[mOoZik (698544)]

Tsunamis are notoriously difficult to detect, as they remain underwater until approaching the shore; also, the wavelength is in the order of kilometers, so it's very hard to track. However, I'm surprised earthquake detectors could were not used to evacuate people along the coast. A devastating loss of life is the result of such incompetence/inability.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[danamania (540950)]

They also have the ability to travel terrifically long distances. Sumatra to India isn't a small stretch, even if they're relative neighbours.

What I'd like to know is - did the wave reach the east coast of Africa? Madagascar? did the Seychelles feel any of the effect? It was only this year a BBC documentary about tsunamis indicated they could easily travel across the largest oceans, but there hasn't been any news of African flooding.

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Teun (17872)]

Tsunamis travel at about 950 km/h, that's about the speed of a high altitude jetliner!

As these events are rare around this part of the world there has so far not been a need to set up a warning system.

Is there even enough time to react?

[Moskie (620227)]

What kind of time delay are we talking about between when the earthquake strikes and when the tsunami forms/hits the coast? I always imagined it was something very short, somewhere near a few minutes.

What could be done in that short amount of time, exactly?

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr (780861)]

What kind of time delay are we talking about between when the earthquake strikes and when the tsunami forms/hits the coast? In deep water, a tsunami goes about 500 mph. Not much time for folks in Sumatra, but the people of Sri Lanka might have been warned.

As near as I can figure out, all the tsunami warning efforts are focused on the Pacific rim. There simply aren't enough tsunamis elsewhere to make it worth the effort. Or at least so the theory went.

Why someone with a seismograph didn't look at the 8.9, look at a map, see the Indian ocean and go "Ya know, maybe we should warn someone" is beyond me. I guess 2 hours isn't that long when you don't have set procedures in place. Still....

It got reported in a somewhat timely manner

[zogger (617870)]

I heard about it late last night on a net radio feed (my time EST 0 dark thirty am sometime, I was half asleep) right after it happened, but a tsunami wave travelling roughly the speed of a commercial jetliner doesn't give a lot of leeway even if the people in the soon to be affected areas hear about it.

And this one follows that 8. something quake that hit between tasmania and antarctica just the other day.

I think this story should be taken into consideration along with the asteroid stories, as this wave was only roughly 40-50 feet high, yet by some reports it traveled up to half a mile inland in some places. Just imagine one ten times higher (something like that) from a large asteroid oceanic strike.

But ya, you would think that their would be some sort of emergency alert tied to seismographs, that would automatically get posted to various radio and television and internet sources if it was of sufficient strength, ie, danger. I know we have this alleged emergency alert system in the US that will over ride the TV and radio stations OTA broadcasts, but no idea in other nations what they have for that. Civil defense is always lesser funded than military offense in most nations it appears. What would it really cost to develop a radio based alert system for these various nations? Cost of one jet fighter or tank? And it could be tied to cellphones for that matter through the various national carriers, say, in a true natural disaster (impending or otherwise) scenario, your phone might ring with a pre recorded short message.

I realise in the poorer areas it might be problematic, but surely someone in most areas has a phone or a radio or whatever, you don't have to get the message to every single human directly, just to enough of them in any given area for word of mouth to help out a lot. Wake up and alert one dude per poor village, he can go running outside yelling his head off for that matter, like "dang evac! Tsunami coming! Move it people!" something like that anyway. The old church bells ringing hard and fast deal.

Re:Is there even enough time to react?

[Rob Carr (780861)]

I am sure quiet a few people who could have done something stayed quiet.

Realize that, like yourself, many did not associate the earthquake with a tsunami. CSI Miami (a US TV show) had a tsunami hit Florida in the program. So right now, when I hear "earthquake" and "water" my brain's primed to think "tsunami."

I imagine that a lot of earthquake people have the knowledge and training that they, too would think "earthquake." But they still may have been caught by surprise. The places that were close by could not be warned, and how many would have thought "hmmm - Sri Lanka's gonna get it?" It's a thousand miles away. Again, it may not have occurred to everyone.

For those it did occur to, there's the question "What do you do?" There may have been an assumption - "someone's got the job to issue the warning." If there is an appropriate "responder," often you can make things worse by trying to get involved and tying up resources as a result. So some may not have bothered because they thought that it would be handled. Others may simply not have known who to call.

I'm sitting here wondering. Let's say I'd been online looking at an Earthquake page when the 8.9 quit. Who would I have called to warn about a tsunami hitting Sri Lanka? I don't think I'd have thought my calling would do any good, first off. But let's say I put it all together and decided to start making calls. Who would I call? The Sri Lankan embassy? 911?

I have no freakin' idea.

This is why public safety organizations have emergency drills. Stuff like this happens and you do what you do every day. Who's job is it every day to warn the people of the Indian ocean if there's a tsunami? No one. So everyone did in the emergency what they do every day, which turns out to be just that - nothing.

The more I think of it, the more this looks like one of those events you learn from. At this point the question is, how much do you learn?

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[d_strand (674412)]

You're beeing a bit harsh. These waves travel hundreds of kph/mph so any warning will only give you a few minutes, at most maybe an hour. All countries in the region are poor and not very well developed so they cant afford the types of systems you're talking about. Mostly they rely on western countries for warnings and the timings are very tight.

A warning system should really be installed along the american southeast coast. The mountains/ocean shelves on several islands of the european/north african coast are extremely close to colapsing into the atlantic which would send enormous tsunamis towards USA. USA, as opposed to the countries struck today, can afford the systems...

going back to hoping my neighbours made it... they're on vacation in Phuket

Re:Difficult to detect / prevent

[Malc (1751)]

Incompetency? How the hell are you going to evacuate these low-lying places in time? Do you think they have enough plans sitting fueled and ready to go on the runway in the Maldives? Do you think thousands of people on the coast of Bangladesh can move in land quickly enough?

I think you need to educate yourself some more before passing such harsh judgement.

More earthquake links

[zxSpectrum (129457)]

I keep a list of earthquake related resources [virtuelvis.com].

Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX (315582)]

Yeah my brother and wife (John and Brigette) are currently in Thailand and were planning to dive today... unfortunatly I have no idea where in Thailand they are....

He hasn't cotacted me yet, but even if he wanted to I doubt he could.

Fingers crossed!

p.s. The British Foreign office have set up an emergency help line: 0207 008 0000, I havn't been able to get through yet, its really busy.

Re:Brother vacationing Thailand...

[RefuX (315582)]

Well just got off the phone with Bridget's folks.
It was a very close call, Bridget got up in the morning, looked out of the window and saw it coming.
John and Briget started running
On the way they overtook one person, he was unable to keep up.
Some others who they were running with showed them the way to safety, the one guy they overtook, heh didn't make it...
John's feet got badly cut up and they lost alot of their items.

6300 dead at 15:13 GMT

[fbjon (692006)]

And it was around 3200 just a few hours ago. Here's the Reuters [reuters.co.uk] article. Watching BBC world, it appears that some northern areas of Sumatra still can't be reached, and the situation there is unknown. Here's a map of the affected area. [bbc.co.uk]

It seems that a displacement in the sea bottom ocurred, moving 10-30 metres up along a rupture of 1000 km, causing a wave of hundreds of cubic kilometres of ocean water [bbc.co.uk].

Latest News ...

[sunsrin (842762)]

You can find the latest news at http://news.google.co.in [google.co.in] (The Indian Version of Google News )

Tsunami

[sunsrin (842762)]

More on Tsunami at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

Full Moon

[Shag (3737)]

Of course, this all happening at full moon will probably fuel the people who study [indiana.edu] whether the gravitational pull of the sun and moon impacts the occurrence of earthquakes like it does tides.

Energy release

[SteveAstro (209000)]

Can anyone put some kind of comparision between the energy release here and the energy release of the prospective planet impactor 2004MN4 ? It would help to put things into scale, if not perspective.

If MN4 were to hit, estimated release is 450-2000 MT of TNT, so how does a Richter 8.9 compare.

Steve

Re:Energy release

[Snarfangel (203258)]

A 9.0 earthquake would release the equivalent of 1,800 Megatons, so it would be in the same ballpark.

Re:Energy release

[erikdalen (99500)]

my encyclopedia (a swedish one) says the energy released from a 9.0 earthquake is a bit more than the annual energy consumption of sweden (9 million inhabitants).

I live in Penang, Malaysia

[Xpilot (117961)]

I'm on an island right next to Sumatra (relatively), and there were huge tsunami's hitting us too. The last I heard 15 people died in the floods. It's not as bad as what people in Sri Lanka and India experienced, but still...

My mom felt the quake at around 9, I didn't notice anything though. I'm very thankful Malaysia is relatively safe from quakes, but I feel so sorry for all who were affected.

From the shores of Chennai India

[ashwinds (743227)]

I live quiet close to the shore in Besant Nagar- we got off easy - but it was awesome (not as in exciting but leave your mouth open gaping awesome) to see the sea swell up and eat up the shoreline. I was just driving past and saw a boat go up and down about 20-30 feet from the road!! I parked the car, grabbed the camera - but by then the sea had receded - but that was enough to cause serious damage to the hutments close to the sea. We had mild tremor to start the day - barely noticeable at around 6.30 AM - i looked up the internet and found Tibet post of USGS registering a 8.9 quake at Sumatra -looking at the map I thought to myself - all thats in the line between Sumatra and Chennai is the sea (and of course teeny weeny Andaman). Went out for Breakfast and on my return - this. Its unforgettable and cannot be described. Most of India's coast is devastated - I hear Sri Lanka, Maldives etc are pretty bad too. The Quake here was nothing - a mild shake at best - but the Tsunami that followed was something else Apologies for the verbose post - but I am struggling for words to tell what happened.

Creepy...

[Kjella (173770)]

..I saw Phi Phi was hit hard. I've been there, and I understand why. It is shaped like a concave lens with the settlement in the bays on either side. The "ends" of the island are pretty tall with jungle and all, but inbetween, where all the people are it is maybe 2m above sea level. The floodwave sounded big enough that it'd pass straight *across* the island. I expect the cabins we used to rent are leveled to the ground.

.__
<..> <-- high ground
.\/
.|| <-- people, low ground
./\
<__> <-- high ground

Dots to avoid anti-ascii art crap :p

It always feels so much more personal when you've been there. I don't think the odds are any different if you've been in one place or traveling the world, but it is always creepy to know "I've been there. That could have been me there."

Kjella

I live in Coastal South India

[EqualSlash (690076)]

I live in Chennai(Madras) [wikipedia.org],(Capital City of the State Tamil Nadu [wikipedia.org] - the region worst affected by the Tsunami in India ). For us, this is the first time ever something like a Tsunami hits our coast. The earthquake itself was not deadly but the tides alone were responsible for the death of more than 1000 people according to some reports. Since this happened early in the morning and the day being a sunday, not many people were awake at that time. In my city alone almost 100 poor fishermen who live in the huts along the seashore were washed away. Coastal regions in the Southern parts of my state where even more affected - a lot many were drowned in the flash floods. The fact that I was sleeping unaware of the whole thing at that time, less than a kilometre away from the sea, sends a shiver down my spine.
You can find some pictures here [sify.com].

Low Early, Tasteless Later

[DumbSwede (521261)]

I saw this in the news last night and the death estimates where ludicrously low. This always seems to be the case for these types of events, while death estimates in Western countries always seem to start on the high side and trend down. I'm not sure why this should be. I understand that some less powerful countries (or more centrally controlled) always want to put the best spin on things, but during disasters it always ends up sounding like a Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition routine. Since this type of news is certain to get out, why delay it? Perhaps it is not purposely delayed in this case, but one certainly sees this happening often in other parts of the world. Granted downed communication networks make getting precise news hard (impossible), but perhaps I have already answered my own question. Maybe it's not so much about owning up to a terrible human tragedy, but an unwillingness of admitting not having the technology and infrastructure to make better estimates.

I've heard no word in the news about Arthur C. Clark. While thousands are dead, he likely has a sturdy structure to live in, and it would be unlikely statistically he perished. Has as been posted though, he lives on the coast so really stating any odds would be hard. I hope he is alive, but only to the extent I wish anyone life and happiness. He has lived a full life, and should he be gone our concern should be with the living. Ironically should he have perished, it would probably inspire more aid for those left alive.

Hopefully the now approximately 6000 estimate wont climb much higher, but if the past is any guide expect this to grow at least past 20,000.

BTW is it just me, or does it seem in poor taste for News outlets like FOX and CNN to focus on possible American casualties when these kind of natural disasters happen? I can understand this in the case of Attacks and Bombings, since Americans could be the targets. But with thousands dead, the news agencies are scrambling to find out if one or two Americans snuffed it.

Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later

[Rob Carr (780861)]

BTW is it just me, or does it seem in poor taste for News outlets like FOX and CNN to focus on possible American casualties when these kind of natural disasters happen?

For some reason, the human mind categorizes things according to how the object is related to the individual. If something is near, it's far more impactful than if something is far away. If you can see it, it has more impact than if you can't. If you are somehow related to the individual, the event makes a greater impression.

News organizations know this. By focusing on some aspect that relates to their viewers, they're more likely to draw in the viewer's interest.

Look at the readers of Slashdot. They immediately related to Arthur C. Clarke living in the area. It's how our brains work.

As far as numbers, on a cognitive level, we all know that 7000 is larger than 3000 is larger than 10. But our brains don't really grasp numbers over 7 too well. We might have a general feel for 100, and there's some indication that the largest natural human groups wind up around 160 or so. Beyond that, we don't connect to the numbers on a primative level. It's just big numbers.

As a human, it helps if you understand how your brain works, so that you can compensate.

Me? I like to snorkel. Reading about the scuba divers that probably got wiped out caught my attention. Through those scuba divers, my brain can now emotionally link to the tragedy. Stupid, but it works.

You think MS Windows is buggy? Look at the home-grown software your brain's running.

Earlier earthquake of 8.1

[Devar (312672)]

What is interesting is that there was another quake on the 24th of 8.1 off the coast of Tasmania, the other side of the continential plate that caused this one ( AFAIK). That end of the plate gave way and that affected this one? A warning? I don't know, but it might have been related.


Massive earthquake felt in Tasmania [theage.com.au]
December 24, 2004 - 7:55AM

The world's biggest earthquake in almost four years has struck 800 km
off the coast of Tasmania, Australian seismological officials said.

Geoscience Australia said the quake, measuring 8.1 on the Richter Scale
hit the Macquarie Rise, in the Pacific Ocean, at 1.59am. [...]

I can't believe the prejudice here

[postbigbang (761081)]

This is an astounding loss of life, and a healthy fraction of the posts are just evil. If this is what slashdot has come to, prejudice, intolerance and ill-will for those that have suffered, I'm outta here. These are your brethren. Mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts that have been hit by an unannounced, unpreventable, and unknowable tragedy. I'm appalled.

Re:I can't believe the prejudice here

[Fnkmaster (89084)]

Pretty insightful post for an AC. You are correct - I don't think it justifies flagrant insensitivity and meanness, but experiencing the full grief of the death and misery that afflicts the human race would of course destroy a person's psyche.

So we do our best - when a newsworthy event happens that is associated with mass death and destruction we should pause, give a moment of respect and sadness for the people affected and try to move on with our lives because we don't have much other choice. Yes, humans have evolved to be tribalist, to care first and foremost about those we are in some way connected to, those we live near, work with, talk to, and interact with and their loved ones. Let's not try to overly rationalize emotional experiences, they don't always fit into a neat logical framework.

But we could at least show a modicum of respect (and the vast majority of posts in this story do, it's just a few trolls and dickheads who are being actively nasty).

Death Toll up to 11k

[EmagGeek (574360)]

This is truly a sad day for all of humanity. 11,000 people is a huge incredible loss of life. We can talk about the science behind tsunamis all day long, but let's all take a moment to pray for the victims of this catastrophe. Keep in mind that it's not just 11,000 dead, but it's millions homeless, without clean water or food, or a place to live.

If you can, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give some money to one of the many relief organizations that is working to help feed and shelter people in the affected zones. I am sure the International Red Cross would be a good place to start.

No Tsunami Warning from the NOAA warning Center

[rduke15 (721841)]

This report [noaa.gov] (reproduced below) from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center [noaa.gov] sounds weird when you know how terrible the Tsunami was on the other side.

Basically, it says "THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING OR WATCH IN EFFECT.".

Yes, of course, there was no tsunami in the region this warning center is responsible for. But who writes these reports? Is it sensible to just write "no tsunami warning", without specifying that it's a different story on the other side, in the Indian ocean? Wouldn't people writing these reports be supposed to be aware of it?

Anyway, that report, while it may be technically correct for it's region, sounds really weird to me.

Since the link is for the "latest report", and will change over time, here is the complete text of that page:

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 0204Z 26 DEC 2004

THIS BULLETIN IS FOR ALL AREAS OF THE PACIFIC BASIN EXCEPT
ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

.................. TSUNAMI INFORMATION BULLETIN ..................

ATTENTION: NOTE REVISED MAGNITUDE.

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY. THERE IS NO TSUNAMI WARNING
OR WATCH IN EFFECT.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0059Z 26 DEC 2004
COORDINATES - 3.4 NORTH 95.7 EAST
LOCATION - OFF W COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATERA
MAGNITUDE - 8.5

EVALUATION
REVISED MAGNITUDE BASED ON ANALYSIS OF MANTLE WAVES.
THIS EARTHQUAKE IS LOCATED OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC. NO DESTRUCTIVE
TSUNAMI THREAT EXISTS FOR THE PACIFIC BASIN BASED ON HISTORICAL
EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI DATA.

THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF A TSUNAMI NEAR THE EPICENTER.

THIS WILL BE THE ONLY BULLETIN ISSUED FOR THIS EVENT UNLESS
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BECOMES AVAILABLE.

THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE BULLETINS
FOR ALASKA - BRITISH COLUMBIA - WASHINGTON - OREGON - CALIFORNIA.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[mOoZik (698544)]

Yes, he lives in Colombo [hazardous.com]. As you can see from the picture, he is on the coast. I hope he is all right. :(

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Phosphor3k (542747)]

From CNN's article on the subject:

Sri Lankan officials imposed a curfew as night fell, and tourists were being evacuated from the eastern coasts to the capital, Colombo, unaffected on the west coast.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/asia .quake/index.html

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[mangu (126918)]

I hope he is all right

Me too, I hope he is all right, along with the several hundred millions of other people who live in that region.

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[Suchetha (609968)]

clarke is probably safe (unless he had a heart attack or something.) one of is houses is near mine, and the other is in the heart of the city. long story short .. he's gonna be ok.

the most affected are the squatters living in improvised huts near the beach. call me cold hearted, but they went there, they grabbed the land, refused all attempts to base them elsewhere.

atb

Suchetha

Re:Arthur C. Clarke?

[skahshah (603640)]

Did they really have the choice?

Re:This is Geek news?

[s3pHiRoTh (774161)]

I guess the news here are supposed to be stuff that matters. This matters.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[Ralconte (599174)]

Geeks who were online found out about it pretty quickly. I heard about it on Fark. :P People in fishing villages and vacation sites my have missed the info, to their peril.

If you need a tech discussion, here's one, "How can you get the info to the people who needed it?"

Once the earthquake hit with a sea floor epicenter, everyone with a web browser knew a tsunami was going to hit somewhere. Again, no way to tell the people who needed the information. Seemed like the only thing we could do was just wait for news of further death.

Re:This is Geek news? Well ...

[The Cydonian (603441)]

Mostly coz I doubt anyone was expecting a tsunami. Out there on the Coramandal Coast, we're more on the look-out for cyclones and such; this, apparently, came in within very quickly, within 30 min or so I believe. I'm told the quake was broadcast live on Indian news channels; there was at least one news channel which was filming its bulletin from its studio in Chennai - the cam shaked and there was some chaos while the bullein was being broadcast.

Indeed, the last tsunami we had was in 1977, which came with a cyclone; my grandpa was involved in some heroics [which he loves to narrate whenever we go to his place in rural India ;-) ]. I don't know if this is how it is in, say, Hawaii or someplace, but the morning that tsunami hit the coast, everyone apparently went to work normally. It was only by 10AM or so that word spread that the sea was coming in (to use a vernacular phrase for 'tidal wave') and by then, all they could do was to climb onto rooftops and wait for the waters to recede.

Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Altima(BoB) (602987)]

Actually only the preceeding earthquake is unpredictable. When you know where the epicenter of the earthquake is and the topography and makeup of the ocean floor, you can see where the resulting tsunamis (if any are created) will hit hardest.

Unfortunately, you don't have much time between the quake and the tsunami hitting. I hear if Canary Island (The one ready to fall into the sea and wipe out the east coast) would cause a tsunami that could travel across the Atlantic Ocean in 45 minutes, and I read on the BBC that this most recent tsunami was going 2,000km/h, which seems to be roughly the same speed. Mind boggling though.

Also hurting any warning effort is how do you get a mass warning out to places like Sri Lanka? There's no mass media infrastructure and only the minimum of transport infrastructure. I suppose part of this tragedy is how unavoidable it was in these nations' current states. Only Japan has invested any significant amount of money in Tsunami warning systems.

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Xenna (37238)]

Every country on earth has radio and TV, if you call them and let them broadcast a warning it will be heard. Hell, many people (tourists, expats) watch CNN via satellite so even that might work.

OTOH I don't think Tsunami's are a common event in this region so no one is prepared. If these things travel as fast as they say you're pretty much SOL.

I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?

Re:Not unpredictable, but probably unavoidable.

[Rob Carr (780861)]

I heard that in Krabi (Thailand) people notice the sea withdrawing uncharacteristically about 5 minutes before the first wave hit. Anyone can explain that?

As the wave approaches shore, the speed changes and the amplitude increases markedly. The water had to come from somewhere - as the wave approaches, the "tide" appears to pull back - but it will be replaced.

There's a Japanese story (don't know if it's true or a legend) about a man near his grainery on a hill who saw the water rushing out. The only way to warn the people below was to set fire to his grainery. Everyone came running to put the fire out....

'Inamura no hi'

[suikyo (661610)]

I'm a Japanese, and I feel I heard of the legend, but uncertain.
So I googled.
see the full story [bo-sai.co.jp](Japanese page)

The story was known as one article of our very old language arts schoolbook of national elementary schools. It was published about from 1937 to 1947. I've never seen the text, of cource, but I think I heard this story from my teacher.
This is a story about a farmar and an earthquake which hitted Kishu (now, Wakayama Pref.), in 1854. Outline of the story is totally same as Rob Carr described above. In addition, he is not just a farmer, but a 7th meister of Yamasa soy sauce factory, a first chairman of council of Wakayama Pref., and a first minister of Post Office Dept. (It was a era of revolution...)
For foreign countries, Lafcadio Hearn (known as Yakumo Koizumi in Japan) introduced this story first, in his book 'Gleanings in Buddha-Fields (ISBN:1596050217 or other)'. One Japanese teacher rewrited this to a simple and dense text for children, and choosed as an article of textbook by the nation. This version is re-translated to English, and taken in textbook of Colorado state elementary school, titled 'The burning of the rice fields' (the page is saying so. I don't know it's true or not).

Actually, in Japan, everyone knows, I believe, that sea surface oftenly drawn off before a Tsunami. We live with earthquakes, typhoons, volcanos, and fires (because of densely build old wooden houses). We are so careful(even an exess sometimes) and preparing for such disasters, so we can imagine to some degree what is going on. It is terrible to have a great Tsunami without no warning and information. Systems and informations are required.

Re:How long until we blame America

[Dante Shamest (813622)]

I know it is an unpopular view and I will be immediately marked down for saying so, but I believe this is an act of a higher power.

Yeah. Mother Nature.

Punishment for non believers and 9/11 I think?

Please. If you really believe that God's responsible, then you believe in a sick God: He punishes people (including innocent children) via tsunamis just because he doesn't have enough fans? I seriously doubt other Christians would share your view.

Re:How long until we blame America

[by Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you are fucking nuts. Make a favor to mankind and just shut up, its because people like you that we are heading again to the Dark Ages. People like you spread hate and fear between humans disguised in the form of religion, people like you make war and kill in the name of some kind of god that you never saw or feeled. you represent the worst of mankind

Re:Oh, STFU

[by Anonymous Coward]

Until 3 years ago the nation that gave most was Japan. They've cut back in the last few years though, and the US has given a lot of money recently to Pakistan, even though it has been selling its nuclear secrets to terrorists.

The country giving the largest proportion of aid per unit income is Norway, which gives about 6 times as much as the US per unit income.

I found some stats here [globalissues.org] if you're interested

Re:Tech that would help?

[The Cydonian (603441)]

Two things:-

a) Disaster management techniques: We in India need better processes in managing relief work after disaster has struck; compared to first-world standards, we're woefully under-equipped in terms of emergency medicine and an infrastructure that can rescue people within, say, two hours of something striking. Perhaps a volunteer force or something; we really can't be falling back on the Army each time shit happens.

b) (My personal favourite) A redundant communication network: More ham radios/VSAT terminals/whatever throughout the nation. Cheap and requires more of a community participation than governmental intervention (which (a) would need).

Re:Mod parent down!

[Ed_Moyse (171820)]

Are you from the US? Probably more people have just died than died in 9/11 ... did you see *anyone* say anything as crass and insensitive then? Whether it affects you directly or not it affects a lot of slashdot readers.

You, matey, are an arsehole.

Re:Aussie earthquake: tsunami?

[Weird O'Puns (749505)]

It's explanied here: http://www.news24.com/News24/AnanziArticle/0,6935, 2-13-1443_1639881,00.html [news24.com].

Quote from the article:

Seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said it caused buildings to shake in the island state for up to 15 seconds, but did not cause a tsunami or unusual tidal activity because it was of horizontal rather than vertical displacement and struck far off the coast.

Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM?

[thisgooroo (685374)]

too bad you weren't right in the path of the tsunami. it would have considerably improved the IQ of both the world and your country. you might want to check out the predominant religions in the hardest hit countries