Asian News Service now estimates more than 55,000 dead

[Old Dude]

Revised death toll:

Sri Lanka - 17,640;
India - 8,523;
Indonesia - 27,174;
Thailand - 1,439;
Malaysia - 65;
Myanmar - 90;
Maldives - 55;
Bangladesh - 2;
Somalia - 100;
Tanzania - 10;

Total: 55,098.

Reports are sketchy from Bangladesh and the numbers could go higher there. If these figures are accurate, I wouldn't be surprised to see the final tally exceed 60,000.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...124534/1/.html

(Edited to add link)

[PatsWin2002]

This is far from over as there is no food, shelter, gas, etc. and major disease problems are looming.

The toll from this will probably be 75K. I'm sure there are remote areas that haven't been tallied yet.

The lack of warning was a huge problem....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...wtsunamicoming

Minutes after a massive earthquake rocked the Indian Ocean on Sunday, international ocean monitors knew that a tsunami would likely follow. But they didn't know whom to tell.

"We put out a bulletin within 20 minutes, technically as fast as we could do it," says Jeff LaDouce of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. LaDouce says e-mails were dispatched to Indonesian officials, but he doesn't know what happened to the information.

The problem is that Sunday's earthquake struck the unmonitored Indian Ocean. An international system of buoys and monitoring stations - the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center based in Hawaii - spans the Pacific, alerting nations there to any oncoming disasters. But no such system guards the Indian Ocean.

[Garcia Bronco]

Population control

[Old Dude]

Bloomberg is also putting it at over 50,000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...cs&refer=japan

With contaminated drinking water, water-born diseases and millions of homeless people, the secondary effects are going to be even more horrifying.

[Old Dude]

Apparently, there has been no contact with most of the people on the Andaman and Nicobar islands, and some of the outlying islands in the Maldives.

We could be looking at a case of whole tribes of people being swept off their islands.

"Indian police said 3000 people were confirmed dead and 2000 believed dead in the Andaman and Nicobar island chain, bordering Indonesia and Myanmar. A series of moderate aftershocks have hit the islands.

No word has been heard from several of the islands which were home to thousands, including Great Nicobar."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,...a12795,00.html

[Arkie]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Population control

Yeah, 4 for every 1,000,000 people have died.

[Rock Chalk]

there will be more than this.

Indonesia is the most densely populated country on Earth and every other country on that list is among the most densely populated countries on Earth.

Also consider that most of these countries do not have accurate census' nor does everyone in these countries have an ID card. Many people live in villages with no determinate number of people their government's know about.

I would imagine that conservatively, the death toll will rise up above 250K when all is said and done, including the after effects.

[Pezman]

Originally Posted by AlecRaenos

there will be more than this.

Indonesia is the most densely populated country on Earth and every other country on that list is among the most densely populated countries on Earth.

Also consider that most of these countries do not have accurate census' nor does everyone in these countries have an ID card. Many people live in villages with no determinate number of people their government's know about.

I would imagine that conservatively, the death toll will rise up above 250K when all is said and done, including the after effects.

Wow... if that were the case, that number would be beyond stunning... we'd be talking about the worst natural disaster in modern history...

[Old Dude]

That would be pretty staggering, but I was kind of staggered to learn that in April of 1991, a cyclone killed nearly 140,000 people in Bangladesh.

That's about a dozen times the death toll of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

And if you think that's bad, a Bangladesh Cyclone in 1970 killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

http://www.wmo.ch/wmo50/e/world/weat...ronicle_e.html

Edited to add link and 1970 figures.

[Rock Chalk]

Cyclone = Pacific Hurricane

Very nasty, very dangerous in that region of the world.

140K I suspect is a conservative number there as well. These are third world countries that are basically just guessing at how many people died.

[Pezman]

Originally Posted by Old Dude

That would be pretty staggering, but I was kind of staggered to learn that in April of 1991, a cyclone killed nearly 140,000 people in Bangladesh.

That's about a dozen times the death toll of Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

And if you think that's bad, a Bangladesh Cyclone in 1970 killed between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

http://www.wmo.ch/wmo50/e/world/weat...ronicle_e.html

Edited to add link and 1970 figures.

Holy crap. That is shocking to read. I still think the numbers of this disaster will not be finalized for weeks but I cant imagine it being that bad...

[Garcia Bronco]

Most if these third world countries produce past their means anyway. That's why they'll have huge death tolls after the intial disaster.

[Sideburn]

I thought Typhoon = Pacific Hurricane. And a cyclone is a Southern Hemisphere Tornado.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Sideburn

I thought Typhoon = Pacific Hurricane. And a cyclone is a Southern Hemisphere Tornado.

Monsoon I thought was a pacific h-cane

[bronco militia]

Originally Posted by Garcia Bronco

Monsoon I thought was a pacific h-cane

MONSOON=mon·soon ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mn-sn)
n.
A wind system that influences large climatic regions and reverses direction seasonally.

A wind from the southwest or south that brings heavy rainfall to southern Asia in the summer.
The rain that accompanies this wind.

..................Colorado has a Mansoon season in late summer

[Garcia Bronco]

Cyclone is a cooler name than Tornado

And Typhoon is slightly cooler than Hurricane...

West Coast Weather bias!

[PatsWin2002]

Just checked CNN for an update......this is unreal.


Tsunami death toll tops 80,000
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapc...ake/index.html

Deaths by country:

Sri Lanka: 23,015 -- For information about local residents in Sri Lanka, call + 94 11 536 1938; for tourists the number is + 94 11 243 7061.

India: At least 10,000 -- To contact representatives from India, call + 91 11 2309 3054.(Full story)

Indonesia: 45,268 (Full story)

Thailand: 1,830 -- Thai emergency hotline + 66 2643 5262 and 2643 5000 (Full story)

Myanmar: 90

Malaysia: 65

Maldives: 46 -- Government hotline + 44 20 7224 2149 (Full story)

Tanzania: 10

Bangladesh: 2

Somalia: Kenyan media reports hundreds dead

Kenya: Kenyan media reports one death

Seychelles: Unconfirmed reports of deaths

[PatsWin2002]

http://www.boston.com/news/science/a...ves_explained/

Deadly waves explained
December 29, 2004

Q. What is a tsunami?

A. A tsunami is a series of ocean waves that are generated by a large-scale disturbance of seawater. Most tsunamis are generated from earthquakes, but they can also occur after volcanic eruptions, landslides, and meteor impacts. The most destructive tsunamis are created by large earthquakes with an epicenter or fault line near or on the ocean floor. Usually, it takes an earthquake with a strength above 7.5 on the Richter scale to generate a destructive tsunami.

Q. Where do they occur most frequently?

A. The Pacific Ocean. The ocean covers more than one-third of the earth's surface and is surrounded by a region with many earthquakes and volcanoes known as the ''ring of fire." Tsunamis in the Indian Ocean are much rarer -- the last big one was in the 19th century. While tsunamis occur in the Atlantic Ocean, they are infrequent.

Q. What caused this week's earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean?

A. The earth's crust consists of slowly-moving tectonic plates, and two of these plates collided deep under the Indian Ocean about 155 miles southeast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, with the Indian plate diving under the Eurasian plate. The collision suddenly lifted a strip of seafloor hundreds of miles long, by an estimated 20 to 50 feet, which displaced a massive amount of water and started the tsunami. The earthquake registered 9.0 on the Richter scale, making it the most powerful in 40 years and fourth strongest in the last 100 years.

Q. How does a tsunami travel so fast and far across an ocean?

A. After an underwater earthquake, waves spread in all directions, much like the ripples a rock creates when it is thrown into a lake. The widely spaced tsunami waves, carrying an enormous amount of energy, travel unobstructed and often unnoticeable in the deep ocean at speeds of approximately 500 miles per hour. When these waves approach coastal areas, the sloping seafloor redirects the wave's energy upward. Some waves can reach 50 feet or higher and travel inland a mile or more. Some eyewitnesses reported this week's tsunami reached heights of 22 to 25 feet.

Q. Is a tsunami the same as a tidal wave?

A. Yes, although technically the term ''tidal wave" is a misnomer because tsunamis are not caused by the tidal cycle. The word tsunami is Japanese, a combination of ''tsu," meaning harbor, and ''nami," meaning wave.

Q. Can underwater earthquakes and tsunamis be predicted?

A. Not very well. While scientists have invested an enormous amount of effort in attempting to predict underwater earthquakes, many still occur with little or no warning. Tsunamis are also difficult to predict because not every large earthquake produces a strong tsunami. The false alarm rate for tsunamis is more than 50 percent.

Q. How far can the waves travel and still cause harm?

A. The waves are so powerful they can cause devastation thousands of miles from the earthquake's epicenter. This week's tsunami caused deaths in Somalia, 3,000 miles from the quake's epicenter.

Q. Why did the water recede right before the tsunami hit shore in Asia?

A. Because a tsunami is a series of waves, sometimes the trough -- the lowest point in a wave -- reaches shore first and the sea looks as if it is emptying, an effect often called a drawdown. Minutes later, the crest of the wave hits. This cycle can be repeated for several waves.

Q. Why wasn't anyone warned about the Indian Ocean tsunami?

A. Because of the rarity of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, a warning system had not been set up in that region.

Q. What are the diseases most feared after this kind of disaster?

A. Typhoid is a major concern because the bacterium that causes it can spread easily in fetid water. Such water can also harbor cholera and hepatitis A. Authorities are also watching for outbreaks of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease. Conditions could be disastrously ripe for an outbreak of that viral illness: Refugees often will have neither the shelter of home nor netting that can prevent mosquitoes from reaching their human targets, and brackish standing water can be an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

[clarkster]

it is tragic and terrible and words that dont even exist, however, one has to think of it as Ma Nature making it known that the human race has become a little arrogant. it all happens for a reason.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by clarkster

it is tragic and terrible and words that dont even exist, however, one has to think of it as Ma Nature making it known that the human race has become a little arrogant. it all happens for a reason.

Well, earthquakes and tsunamis aren't anything new but increased human populations on coastlines all over the world are.

[orangeatheist]

Originally Posted by clarkster

...one has to think of it as Ma Nature making it known that the human race has become a little arrogant. it all happens for a reason.

"Mother Nature" doesn't do things to make a point. Human arrogance had nothing to do with the earthquake or subsequent tsunami. When the forces that move the continental plates converge at such a point that one of the plates "slips" below the other one an earthquake ensues. If that slippage occurs underwater the forces displace water and these "ripples" cause tsunamis. There is no point in them. They are no more "meaningful" than the ripples caused by a child throwing a rock into a pond. Cause and effect is all they are.

In this instance, however, the earthquake was large enough to cause a series of waves that crashed into populated areas around the surrounding sea. Unfortunate victims who happened to be in the area suffered the effects of normal earth forces.

If these are the "reasons" you refer to in your quip, "it all happens for a reason," then I concur. If, however, you have different "reasons" for why this tragedy occurred, please elaborate.

[kappys]

Over 70k+ now and rising....

Hurricane = Atlantic storm cell, Typhoon = Pacific storm cell, Cyclone = Indian Ocean storm cell. Remember the Indian Ocean is huge, though not quite Pacific or Atlantic size.

Monsoon = predictable weather pattern of lots of rain. Most prominent in hot, equatorial climates where extremely hot weather and strong sun(in May/June), causes lots of evaporation of ocean water, seeding giant storm clouds which typically roll over the land in July/August releasing huge quantities of rain. These are not generally violent storms that lead to a lot of destruction, though some predictable flooding is very typical.

[orangeatheist]

Originally Posted by kappys

Over 70k+ now and rising.....

When I've had a chance, I've glanced at the news services online to keep up with what is going on. I've been seeing picture after picture of grief striken parents lamenting over the loss of their children. In some cases, entire families but one grandmother, or daughter, or uncle have vanished.

My heart aches. My stomach churns.

Last night, when I was tucking my little girl into bed I gave her a few extra kisses and a longer hug than is usual.

I cannot imagine --don't want to imagine-- what these poor people are going through. Words cannot express.....

[Rock Chalk]

Originally Posted by kappys

Over 70k+ now and rising....

Hurricane = Atlantic storm cell, Typhoon = Pacific storm cell, Cyclone = Indian Ocean storm cell. Remember the Indian Ocean is huge, though not quite Pacific or Atlantic size.

Monsoon = predictable weather pattern of lots of rain. Most prominent in hot, equatorial climates where extremely hot weather and strong sun(in May/June), causes lots of evaporation of ocean water, seeding giant storm clouds which typically roll over the land in July/August releasing huge quantities of rain. These are not generally violent storms that lead to a lot of destruction, though some predictable flooding is very typical.

Monsoon=3 months of rain

My best friend said when the Monsoon comes in Vietnam, that while it is there you will see every type of rain that nature has to offer.

[Rock Chalk]

Originally Posted by orangeatheist

"Mother Nature" doesn't do things to make a point. Human arrogance had nothing to do with the earthquake or subsequent tsunami. When the forces that move the continental plates converge at such a point that one of the plates "slips" below the other one an earthquake ensues. If that slippage occurs underwater the forces displace water and these "ripples" cause tsunamis. There is no point in them. They are no more "meaningful" than the ripples caused by a child throwing a rock into a pond. Cause and effect is all they are.

In this instance, however, the earthquake was large enough to cause a series of waves that crashed into populated areas around the surrounding sea. Unfortunate victims who happened to be in the area suffered the effects of normal earth forces.

If these are the "reasons" you refer to in your quip, "it all happens for a reason," then I concur. If, however, you have different "reasons" for why this tragedy occurred, please elaborate.

Prove mother nature isn't lashing back. Not by stating what happens, anyone who was in high school and took geography/geology can explain what makes an earthquake happen. But no one, and I mean no one, can prove why. Scientific explainations can only explain what, not why.

To prove it, give me your best subject, the one you know more about than any other. Explain it to me and I bet you I can make you say "Im not sure" and I bet you that eventually, even with all the knowledge on that subject at your fingertips I can still make you say "I don't know".

Because you cannot prove the why. Not for those of faith, not for the faithless. You cannot prove it either way, all you can do is believe. Your belief in whatever is no different than his.