Quake and Tsunami Devastate South Asia 744
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.'"
Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:5, Insightful)
What about Indonesia? (Score:1, Insightful)
What's more, I hope that we in the first world waste no time getting aid over there. A lot of those countries lack the resources to deal with a tragedy on this scale.
Re:This is Geek news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there even enough time to react? (Score:3, Insightful)
What could be done in that short amount of time, exactly?
Re:Is there even enough time to react? (Score:5, Insightful)
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....
Re:Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe some of the countries didn't have any sort of tsunami warning system. The west coast of USA and Canada has the NOAA West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center [wcatwc.gov].
From the shores of Chennai India (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too, I hope he is all right, along with the several hundred millions of other people who live in that region.
Newsfeed from Bangkok (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is Geek news? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How long until we blame America (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Low Early, Tasteless Later (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Tech that would help? (Score:4, Insightful)
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! (Score:4, Insightful)
You, matey, are an arsehole.
I can't believe the prejudice here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Low Early, Tasteless Later (Score:1, Insightful)
They are American news channels, they focus on the angle that has the most impact to their viewership. Why does Slashdot focus on Arthur C. Clarke, an author who hasn't written anything on his own in over 30 years? Same reason really, a personal connection of a sort.
Running total?? (Score:1, Insightful)
And no, I don't buy that "every life counts" BS. Of course every life counts, whether it's the first one affected by this or the last. But IMO, this running total has quite the opposite effect, it dehumanizes the event into a mere sensationalized news item.
Re:Full Moon (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:3, Insightful)
Earthquakes and Undersea Cables (Score:3, Insightful)
Wondering if the quake has caused any probs
Re:How long until we blame America (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to detect / prevent (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you need to educate yourself some more before passing such harsh judgement.
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can't believe the prejudice here (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Oh boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
Before you click "Troll," please hear me out:
On each anniversary of September 11th, I've consistently encountered people who asserted that our grief was selfish and unjustified because "worse disasters had happened elsewhere" - that is, had a higher bodycount.
Here's just one example: [slashdot.org] This seems to be the prevailing attitude among many: the scale of a human tragedy is directly proportional to it's bodycount. It's an attitude I've encountered multiple times in Real Life as well as on
Well, I'd like to write now what I wrote then, over two years ago...someting to keep in mind while you're reading this coverage:
The very notion that the relative significance of human tragedies can be "ranked" by their respective bodycounts is itself sickening.
Re:Oh boy... (Score:2, Insightful)
So why did 9/11 have more impact than an earthquake in India? that is simple. 1000 times greater airplay caused it to have a major human emotional impact to a lot of people. Now why did that happen, again simple, no one even had to move much to film and broadcast the disaster. The attacks on 9/11 were delivered to one of the most electronically and media dense places on the planet. While an earthquake in India may well have not even been appearing in papers on the far side of the nation after a week.
I have similar thoughts regarding ranking Genocide etc. When people attempt to rank genocides I simply state that each was an attempt to destroy a culture. The size of the culture is irrelevant, the thing that makes it bad is that the attempt was made at all.
Death Toll up to 11k (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Oh boy... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Creepy... (Score:3, Insightful)
These types of events are always very tragic, and with a closer perspective, all too real.
Re:Arthur C. Clarke? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh boy... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, consider that some of those you've spoken to might have been comparing the amount of grief shown for the 9/11 attack in contrast to the perceived apathy for other (worse or otherwise) catastrophes. It's not that you're not allowed to grieve for 9/11, but that (in their perception) you've ignored all others. There's some truth to that, if you measure concern by media coverage or charitable donations.
If victimhood and sense of loss cannot bring out our common humanity, what would?
Re:GOD PUNISHING ISLAM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is Geek news? (Score:2, Insightful)
My main point though is wether or not the incident is natural or man made the story matters. The geek side comes in all over. This will probably see major tech spending on new facilities and warning systems. New research into quake prediction (if the Indian scientist was correctly predicting to within a short distance and less than a half hour then someone is about to throw money at him). There was likely a number of readers of slashdot killed by this ( with a million+ readers, someone was almst certainly in the area ). Geeks also dig, big natural disasters like volcanoes earthquakes etc, so that makes it geeky as well. Good grief the ultimate geek bit is the fact a worker from the special effects team of the LOTR's was in the area and unheard from so far.
Now as to the apple and oranges excuse as to why 911 was news for geeks (with numerous articles spread over weeks) and this isn't. I personally think it is pretty close to nationalist relativism or possibly even racism. Complaining about one story on a big disaster (which is at least 8 times worse in lives lost and 500 times worse in people directly effected and probably 5 times worse in monetary damage) while trying to justify the stories about a smaller disaster ( with just as little geekiness) appears simply wrong, and suggests ulterior motives.