Tsunami Satellite Images 732
JakeisBland writes "Here is a collection of before/after satellite pictures of the devastation in Asia due to the tsunami/earthquake."
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Tsunami Satellite Images
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wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
If you thought 9/11 was big think again, we are talking about FOUR HUNDRED 9/11s here.
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a natural disaster. A large one, to be sure, but the Colombia volcano in 1985 killed around 25,000, Mont Pelee in 1902 killed 25,000, and let's not forget the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which killed between 250,000 and 650,000 people. There's a qualitative difference between something that happened because Mother Nature got titchy, and something that humans planned and carried out.
Different. You can't compare them on the same scale.
I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
WWII: 40 million.
On a single day in the American Civil War, approximately 30,000 men were killed.
Feel free to dispute those figures, they vary from source to source. You'll not escape the orders of magnitude.
That's what war is like in the age of modern machinery. 9/11 was murder, not war.
Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have any problem with the US battling terrorism. Battling terrorism is a good thing, even if it isn't a winnable thing. Overthrowing the Taliban was a good thing. They were nothing more than an arm of a much larger international terrorism ring and were only recognized by three countries as the lawful government of Afghanistan anyways.
Attacking Iraq was a) stupid, b) illegal and c) has mired the US in a mess that no one else wants and it will be pumping money and manpower into for years to come.
Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, when the Japanese destroyed most of the Russian Navy in a surprise Sunday Morning attack, the British praised it as a brilliant tactical move. When they did the *exact* same thing to the US, the British called it cowardly, and nowadays would call it illegal. But that doesn't mean a thing to anybody but the citizenry that is
Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:3, Insightful)
> is justifying the West's desires to go to war with smaller countries.
I agree that the US has flouted international law, but I think the answer is to strengthen international law, and not to promote a gang of international criminals into some sort of pseudo-state by claiming that the attack on a military target like the Pentagon was legitimate.
> For example, when the Japanese destroyed most of
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
As a Christian Libertarian... (Score:5, Insightful)
My faith says that yes, we should help our brother in time of need, however my political philosophy says the government shouldn't be the ones to do it.
Legally, internationally, politically we are under NO obligation or responsibility to do such - nor should we be. However since we do have an abundence of wealth, I don't see a problem with the government having am emergency aid fund, or even low interest loans for foreign countries in times of crisis. But this should be used rarely and saved for large scale disasters such as this.
I don't think that the US Gov should dispense money to anyone out there who has a papercut however. The country shouldn't be overly philantropic.
As a Christian, yes I feel obligated to help anyone who needs help when they do - it is just the right thing to do. I would rather give my money to a private fund that I know, respect, and trust to properly distribute my donations. The government is usually the LAST place to trust in terms of spreading goodwill.
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Not. Even. Fucking. Comparable.
Re:wow (Score:3)
Although I agree, it's an awful loss.
The worst is that a lot of these deaths could have been prevented. But then, no one can predict mother nature.
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Iraq: USA
This one: Nature
Re:wow (Score:3, Interesting)
Or one Iraq War, so far.
Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
And Saddam took 15-20 years, where we've only had 2 so far. Give it time.
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Shhh, hush now. You're spoiling it.
When asked "how many died in Vietnam war", nine out of ten Americans give the ballpark of "60,000". The two, perhaps three million Vietnamese deaths don't simply register.
Of course the USA still refuses to accept responsibility for the continuing tragedy caused by the massive Agent Orange contamination that is still killing and causing birth defects among the Vietnamese population.
More recently the US and UK war machines have scattered hundreds of tons of toxic and carcinogenic depleted uranium (used in hardening projectile shells) across Iraq. Does anyone think these two countries will ever take responsibility of the devastating consequenses affecting the current and future generations of Iraqi civilians?
While I can reason the deaths and injuries caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami to be part of the cost of our existance on a living planet (I say this knowing that close friends of mine lost many friends and relatives, and my own relatives holidaying in Thailand only barely escaped death thanks to help by quick thinking locals), I find no good excuses for sending massive war machines to foreign countries to kill massive numbers of locals and to poison their lands for generations to come.
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
The video was taken from the upper level of a 2 storey house (from the balcony to be exact). The view outside shows turbulent water rushing and submerging many houses. Its horrible and looks as if the house is right in the m
Re:wow (Score:4, Interesting)
busses with people still in it were swept away as if they were paper boats. people who were trying to hold on to a building were swept away one by one. and while all this was happenning the people who were taping the scene along with a few others who were on a bridge could do nothing to help. it makes you feel completly helpless.
so many people have died that even identifying them is simply impossible. most of the dead are being buried in mass graves. and most of them havent even been identified.
its simply unbreable.
Perspective, yes, but not as personal as this: (Score:5, Informative)
http://img145.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img145&image=ruum
Yes very graphic. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perspective, yes, but not as personal as this: (Score:5, Insightful)
Every one of those people could well be someone's brother or sister, or parent....or child....
Dignity in Death. (Score:3, Informative)
Then, of course, there are those who vehemently believe you need shock and gore to get aid pouring in.
Re:Dignity in Death. (Score:3, Insightful)
They're afraid of press-corps blacklisting by the Whitehouse, for circumventing 'unofficial' policy.
I am of the believe that the truth can only make you stronger. As horrific as it is for me to sit looking at this picture, I still cannot imagine how painful and terrible it would be to experience this in person.
Donate (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perspective, yes, but not as personal as this: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Perspective, yes, but not as personal as this: (Score:3)
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wow (Score:2, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/26/14372
There are others, slash isn't exactly known for doing things once only.
Cisco (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cisco (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously though, I think donating a little bit of money is the least one of us can do. It really puts things in perspective when something like this happens.
Re:Cisco (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cisco (Score:2)
Which I think says a lot - there is a big difference between Americans as individuals, and America as a nation state.
Re:Cisco (Score:2)
Re:Cisco (Score:2)
Tsunami (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tsunami (Score:3, Informative)
Rhetorical (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can't we get these images from Fallujah?
This just in... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ill conceived humour (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ill conceived humour (Score:3, Interesting)
You're probably used to car insurance, which indeed are run by going-to-hell jerks. That's mainly because there's so much fraud in car insurance.
Home insurance is a whole different animal. When I had to file a home insurance claim, dude was offering to give me more money than I actually wanted. I actually turned down a full replacement of wallpaper in our kitchen -- he offered to replace it because one little corner had been damaged.
It m
one point about the Sri Lankan pictures... (Score:5, Informative)
it's worth noting that the pictures show Kalutara, a town about 25 miles south of Colombo, and situated on the west coast of Sri Lanka, which pretty much escaped major damage and loss of life compared to the the south and eastern coastlines.
Flooding caused at least 40 deaths in Kalutara, though...
Re:one point about the Sri Lankan pictures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you stingy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:3, Informative)
Lea
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:2)
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:2)
That really isn't funny.
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Reminds me of the scene in - was it Animal House? - where the witless, self-important sorority girl participating in the dance planning committee says something to the effect of, "I don't see how anyone can have a party when there are hungry people in the world!"
But of course, dramatically not having a party doesn't magically create self-sufficient economies, rule of law, rational discourse, and all of the other things that make countries more able to weather trouble. If our Atlantic coast cities were built the way the tsunami-impacted areas are, our recent hurricane season would have been catastrophic. But we have the infrastructure and financial resiliance that comes from our industrious culture. South Asia is working on that too, but they have a lot of catching up to do... and now even more.
If the plight of a million people living and dying in misery should be a reason to cease the celebration of our nation's recurring elections and the success of our constitutional structure, then we should stop every party, all the time. Many, many more millions live in what we would call deathly misery, tsunamis or not. How, oh how can we enjoy, strengthen, and insure our prosperity under those circumstances? Or, is the cancel-the-party political camp so breathlessly partisan, and so desparate to score a fleeting shot on Bush (only appreciated by the same crowd anyway) that it takes a more immediate calamity like this to leverage that bit of theatre?
People who say "Bush should have done X" (even as all sorts of critical things were already under way the same day as the earthquake, and will be for years now) are being sleazy opportunists. To imagine that Bush won't take the opportunity of the upcoming inaugural to comment on the Asian disaster is ridiculous. Now: please comment on why Clinton and his show-biz supporters threw such big parties, even as people were dying - in numbers just as big, but in slow motion - throughout Africa, and Burma, and North Korea. Oh, that's right: he "felt their pain," and that took care of it, right?
Re:Are you stingy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nicely said. But I still contend that our priorities are seriously out of whack when we spend $40 million for a elitist party and pledge (initially) $15 million in aid for what can only be one of the worst disasters ever.
I voted for the W both times. He's been pulling some big boners of late though.
Receding Waters? (Score:2)
Or is Kalutara not in the direct path and this is after-effect on non-direct impact sites?
A couple more images (Score:5, Informative)
http://eobglossary.gsfc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImag
If you donated to lokitorrent but not this, I don't know what to say to you...
So much for clean water.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So much for clean water.... (Score:5, Informative)
If I were there, smell would be the least of my worries. I'd be more concerned about things such as cholera, and other miscellaneous tropical diseases and the general environment that means even a simple scratch can become life threatening.
Videos (Score:5, Informative)
Here [blogspot.com] you can find torrents of said videos in case the original site dies under the load.
Re:Videos (Score:3, Informative)
FLV format (Score:3)
I've converted the videos to Flash Video (FLV) [revise.org] (my blog).
Re:Videos (Score:2)
Helping (Score:5, Informative)
The Canadian one, at least, is a fast online credit-card donation. You can print out your tax receipt right away. (hey, before midnight gets it in for this tax year, right?)
Or, there are plenty of other organizations [usaid.gov] that would be happy to receive a donation.
Re:Helping (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Helping (Score:2)
Re:Helping (Score:3, Informative)
Rescue efforts update... and some thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
Thankfully, in spite of Indian bureacracy being well Indian bureaucracy, rescue and rehabilitation efforts are going on VERY effectively. An enormous number of people in India, be it the government, armed forces, or even the common woman/man is pitching in. Most companies here have setup collection boxes and at the very least, we're donating medicines, soaps, toothbrushes, disinfectants, clothes, utensils, non-perishable food items etc. There's also an army of volunteers who's landed in the disaster struck areas with truckloads of donated stuff and are distributing it to the needy.
Strangely enough, it seems that too many clothes are being donated! A friend of mine is physically helping out with the rescue efforts and he tells me that there's piles and piles of clothes lying around but of little use to anybody. Well, i guess too much help is always better than too little help.
Another thing that amazes me is the resilience of the common man or woman. Here are people living on the edge of poverty, getting hammered everyday with issues like eking out an existence. Perhaps they've scrounged and saved enough to get their daughters married, hidden a few hundred rupees in a hole in the wall. Perhaps they've just bought a shiny new radio or a bicycle. What do they wake up to? A tsunami that takes away their children, their friends, and everything they own. What do they do? Shrug it off eventually and mark it off as karma, god's will, or god's punishment depending on their religion (no, most poor Indians cannot afford the luxuries of athesim or agnosticism). Then, they take it one day at a time and slowly start rebuilding their lives.
You want to see miracles, mental strength, and the answer to life, the universe, and everything? You don't have to look far in times like these.
Tsunami Warning System (Score:3, Informative)
NPR [npr.org] has a few [npr.org] good [npr.org] reports [npr.org] on the problem.
Cringely [pbs.org] has a rather interesting solution that does not rely on governmental action, though with a serious flaw. It only relies on earthquake data, which isn't necessarily conclusive, nor the only cause of Tsunami's.
Re:Tsunami Warning System (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Tsunami Warning System (Score:3, Interesting)
Over here in Finland (and Scandinavia I bet) (Score:4, Insightful)
At the moment there are more than 200 Finns and over 2000 Swedes missing and most likely all of them are dead. To see things in perspective: Finland has a population of 5.2 million, Sweden around 9 million. Everyone with basic math skills can calculate what that would mean if it had happened for tourists from US.
Re:Over here in Finland (and Scandinavia I bet) (Score:4, Informative)
Moving at the speed of government (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a huge fan of Bush by any stretch of the imagination (I voted against him in November), but I can't fault the US government's behavior so far. They authorized a small amount of money to begin with, to help with the most urgent needs (sending food, clearing bodies, and so forth), and over the next few weeks and months will continue to increase the commitment as the specific needs of the countries who have been hurt are ascertained.
The world rallied around the US after 9/11, irrespective of past tensions and difficulties, and I don't think anyone here has forgotten that. We'll do everything within our power to help rebuild those countries devastated by the tsunami, just give us time to get through the bureaucracy, and to make sure our money is going to the right place (someone earlier posted about how in India, so many donations of clothing have been recieved that there are piles of stuff no one wants to wear just lying around. Imagine if the US sent over $100 MILLION of unnecessary clothing).
Re:Over here in Finland (and Scandinavia I bet) (Score:3, Interesting)
It was so much easier to be blase about it (Score:3, Insightful)
Seeing the BBC report that showed the young coupld silently carrying their two dead children and seeing the picture of the beach covered with debris -- and then realizing the "debris" consisted of human bodies -- brings the point home that real humans suffered a real tragedy halfway across the world.
Damn, I'm getting tears in my eyes just remembering those pictures.
images and video links (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not warn people ourselves? (Score:4, Informative)
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:04:31 -0200
From: Futurepower [futurepower_usa (-AT-) yahoo.com.br]
To: "U.S. Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center" [sedas (-AT-) neis.cr.usgs.gov]
Subject: NEIC: Why didn't you warn about the Tsunamis?
Question:
I haven't seen this discussed anywhere.
Why didn't the NEIC call the U.S. State Department, so that they could warn people about the Tsunamis?
The earthquake position and magnitude was known 6 hours before the waves arrived in Thailand, I understand. Wouldn't almost every person's life have been saved if Thailand, for example, had had warning?
Michael
_____________
Reply:
Michael,
Phone calls were placed to the State Department operations center, the White House situation room, the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, as well as several other organizations within 90 minutes of the occurrance of this earthquake.
The problem is the absence of local warning systems in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. There were no systems or response plans in place to warn the local populace.
Stuart Sipkin
USGS/NEIC
_____________
Stuart,
I have a suggestion for a local tsunami warning system. There continues to be an enormous amount of earthquake activity in the area around Indonesia. It seems likely that there will be another big earthquake. Next time there is an earthquake that is likely to cause a tsunami, call me, any time of night or day. I will promise to call at least 30 hotels within 2 hours. I will promise to get 10 friends involved. They will promise to call 30 hotels each, also. We would each take a different country.
My suggestion is that we would use Google to find hotels, for example in Sri Lanka [google.com.br]. This is one of the hotels I found there, a 5-star hotel with more than 400 rooms:
Galadari Hotel
The Businessman's Home in Sri Lanka
64, Lotus Road,
Colombo 1.
Sri Lanka.
Tel: 94-1-544544
Fax: 94-1-449875
E-Mail: galadari (-AT-) sri.lanka.net
"The Galadari Hotel is in the heart of the city in Colombo, over looking the beautiful Indian ocean."
Big hotels answer their phones 24 hours a day. Presumably there is a staff of at least 200 at that hotel, for three shifts. I think if one person were told, everyone else would know soon. They don't want their family and friends and neighbors near the water to die, and they know how to reach them, even if they have to ride a motorbike to those who don't have phones.
There are two easy ways to prove that a call about an earthquake is not a hoax. I would tell the person who answered the phone that it is an emergency and I need to talk to a manager. I would tell the manager to check the USGS web site at http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ [usgs.gov]. Any 5-Star hotel, and most others of any size, have internet access. I would also tell the manager that, if the water at the beach receded, people had only a few minutes to get to safety. I would ask the manager to get staff members to call radio and TV stations in their area.
You said in your message, "The problem is the absence of local warning systems in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. There were no systems or response plans in place to warn the local populace."
It seems to me that this is a workable plan for a local tsunami warning system. It wouldn't cost much. Using Skype [skype.com], a two minute call to any land line phone in Sri Lanka is about 40 U.S. cents, for example. Using iConnectHere [iconnecthere.com]'s most expensive service, a two minute call is 80 cents.
Re:Why not warn people ourselves? (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Had you called a hotel with such a warning they would have called you a kook (or whatever the word for kook is in the various languages) and hung up.
3) Even had it worked, way to go you just saved all the tourists lives but the natives would have still suffered horribly as most of the areas hit were not tourist attractions. I life saced is a life saved
Worldwide Earthquake Activity (Score:3, Informative)
In related news [telegraphindia.com], the tsunami split one of the islands in Andaman & Nicobar into two. Here is what one of the officials say
Another island, Trinkat, appears to have been split in two, said S.B. Deol, inspector-general of Andaman and Nicobar. "Part of the island has been submerged, while one half is visible," he said.
A photo of dead bodies scattered all over... (Score:4, Interesting)
Warning: Very gross and disturbing!
Composite images (Score:5, Interesting)
Corrected allignment (Score:4, Interesting)
AstroDab, nice concept. I've corrected the allignment and posted results here [iwethey.org].
You're welcome to post these to your own site, crediting DigitalGlobe (as you should your own work) and myself.
Re:Corrected allignment (Score:3, Insightful)
Please donate (Score:4, Informative)
Re:don't hear too many (Score:5, Informative)
Buddhist 70%, Hindu 15%, Christian 8%, Muslim 7% (1999)
I can see why you wouldn't, but continue to play your banjo...
Re:Don't get me wrong, but.. (Score:2)
or send a warning early enough. With 15-minute warning (easy for science/engineering, harder for bureaucracy/business) the casualities could have been halved
Re:Don't get me wrong, but.. (Score:2)
Re:Philosophy 101 (Score:2)
I believe you're full of shit and looking for an argument. Now, argue my point on the merits of the point, not on free will, or fuck off and troll elsewhere.
Re:Philosophy 101 (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree; I was idly pointing out the implications of two common beliefs: 1: that there is no such thing as free will, which implies that human actions are no different from "natural" actions or disasters, and 2: that there is a god, in which case there again is no difference becase in both the human and natural cases god is equally culpable for letting it happen.
Personally I believe in free will and not in gods, so it
Re:Philosophy 101 (Score:2)
2: If there is a God, and he gave us free will, he isn't culpable for our actions: the act of giving us free will made us responsible for our own actions. If you assume he maintained any right to overrule our actions if he sufficiently dislikes them, you actually don't believe in free will - you believe in determinism with the ability for God "no
Re:Philosophy 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
Trying to make a valid philosophical argument by comparing police to God is bunk, man. The police aren't omnipotent, omniscient, and they aren't the ones who have the ability to decide whether or not we get free will. Of course, anyone who stands by is partly culpable. However, if God intervenes, he destroys the idea of free will. The only way to maintain free will is to stay out of it; as such, by rigorously asserting free will, God becomes non-culpable - he has, in essence, said "I will not interfere, because the consequence of interfering once is to mean that I must take responsibility for all of your actions that I allow to occur." It is, in an odd sort of way, similar to the search engine DMCA exemption - software that indexes material is legal and non-culpable, even if it indexes illegal material, except if it ever filters out some undesirable material on basis of copyright or legality, at which point it immediately becomes culpable for all such infringing material found on the service.
This is just one more reason why God is a bunch of crap. Study the origin of ethics and look into hard vs. soft command, and you'll begin to come towards my point of view, which is that ethics in and of themselves point to the non-existence of God via contradiction.
Re:Don't get me wrong, but.. (Score:2)
So a hypothetical photorealistic painting of an item isn't any different than the (indistinguishable) photograph of that item, despite it having required far more technique, time, and intent? Is it any different than your memory of the original item? Intent matters in art as well.
Even better, let's take two blank white canvases, side by side. One is blank because the artist hasn't gotten around to painting it. The other is blank because its Kasimir Malevich's "White Square on White", on loan fr
You're missing the difference. (Score:4, Insightful)
Death, and to a lesser extent, death from natural disasters, is pretty common. A lot of death from a natural disaster is less newsworthy than a little death from a terrorist attack.
There's also an information problem - it was a lot easier to get information out of new york on 9/11 than it is to get information out of a devastated remote area in Thailand.
per capita counts are unusable (Score:5, Informative)
USA: USD$45M at a population of 293M
both theese sets of numbers are what the Government provides, not what is collected privately. (no taxreductions are given for donations in Denmark)
I guess that every country will give what it can.
Re:A thing I don't understand (Score:2)
We have no control over our government these days. If you haven't figured that out in the past 20 years, welcome to the next 200.
Re:A thing I don't understand (Score:2)
Re:A thing I don't understand (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Engineering speculation... (Score:2)
Re:do we know what actually caused this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:do we know what actually caused this? (Score:4, Funny)
0. Bush (he's gotta have something to do with this, right?)
1. Global warming (since its clearly happening much more often now compared to last year; 1 tsunami compared to 0 during last year).
Re:Deaths could be in the millions (Score:3, Informative)
Not likely.
On November 12, 1970, a cyclone struck Bangladesh and killed 300,000 people. In the year 1991, 139,000 died on April 30 (another cyclone). And just over a month later another cyclone struck killing another 126,000. See here [msn.com]
There are mostly unverifiable records that 830,000 people died in the earthquake which struck Shaanzi (in China) in 1556. And again in China, the Tangshan earthquake of 1976 killed (officially) 2
Reality Check (Score:3, Informative)
The amount of money donanted after 9/11 was large [christianitytoday.com] in relation to the need. That seems to be less likely with this disaster.
Re:Over 120 000 people lost their lives (Score:3, Informative)
This report [fas.org], backs up the factual statement that Israel has been the biggest recipiant of US $ than any nation since 1976, and has recived, by far, the largest total amount of any nation.
Oh, and also that Jews are planning to take over the world via Hollywood.
Re:Make that *$350M*, fuckwad. (Score:3, Insightful)
Slamming the Red Cross? (Score:3, Informative)
In response the Red Cross changed their donation policies and guidelines to better reflect what actually happens with the money.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/redcross_06-0 5 -02.html [pbs.org]
http://www.redcross.org/press/disaster/ds_pr/02060 5dsfunds.html [redcross.org]
Basically now, if you give to the "Disaster Relief Fund" they us