South Asia disaster.

While I dont usually like posting unfortuante stories I felt this needed to be given some space. I hope that all our south Asian members and their families managed to come throught this safely.

BBC news source

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Asia battles earthquake aftermath

Many do not know if missing relatives are dead or alive
Survivors and rescuers are battling the devastation left by sea surges that wiped out entire communities, killing about 23,000 people.
The death toll continues to spiral up and mass graves are being dug even as people hunt for the missing.

The extent of the damage is still not known in areas worst hit, including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India and Thailand.

International aid efforts have begun amid fears that disease could spread through the disaster zone.

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HI,

Yes this is a Very Unfortunate Disaster ................This is the Biggest Tsunami i have ever heard of . :(

And the EarthQuake that Caused this Tsunami is Measured at 9.0 on Ricter Scale that's got to be one of the biggest ever recorded.

Today the Tsunami Reached Africa and hit Parts of Eastern African Countries ........Somalia is the Worst hit of the African countries.........This was definately a Big one ........ it travellet till africa more than 5000 miles away form it's epicenter :eek:

The Casualities are Just increasing ..............Yetserday they reported around 5000 to 6000 ............and today they are Reporting around 25,000 and still counting .........i heard Indian Minister say they are estamiting around 30,000 to 45,000 people dead in total

And it was a Tourist Season there the Tourist resorts were Running House full in Sri-lanka and Andaman and Nicobar Island ................About 10,000 Britons were on holiday on the Thai island of Phuke alone and 3,000 In Shri Lanka and may More in the rest...............These South Asian countries are Favoutites among British Tourists .

peoplea are still Struck on that Andaman and Nicobar Island which is the Closet to the Epicenter of that Earthquake .................and there are 25,000 people on that island and 3000 Tourists ...........Still not much news form that Islands ........... :(


Yes, hope All our Asian Friends here and their Families are Safe .

Best of Luck Guys

--Good Luck--

God bless and watch over all those in the sticken areas. What a horrible tragedy to have to endure.

God harass and torment whomever decided it was not expedient to have some type of detection device in place for just such an occurence. It's not a surprise to anyone that this happened - especially given the volcanic nature of the area.

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source
Even Bapat agreed that Indian Satellites and Meteorology departments failed to caution people on the coast about the impending danger. ‘‘The tsunami took 180 minutes to travel to the Chennai coast after the quake in Sumatra coast in Indonesia,’’ he said. That gave two-and-a-half hours time-gap for the authorities to be prepared.

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and this... how horrid...

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source

It emerged that U.S. officials who detected the quake tried frantically to warn Asia the deadly wall of water was on its way but there was no official regional alert system to contact.

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Here are some pictures from Phuket, Thailand by a photographer who managed to have his/her camera ready as the water came around his/her hotel - it is theororized that this is the back side of the island, the side not hit by a 20ft wall of water - http://www.pbase.com/issels/phuket_tsunami&page=all

They also took some pictures around the hotel afterwards - http://www.pbase.com/issels/phuket_after_the_tsunami

Silence..

And all our media were focusing on was the Australian loses.. ****.. a hand full compared to the 10's of thousands of locals..

I am lost for words first for the disaster, and second for our selfish media

our prayers and thoughts are with ALL in the disaster area..

Regards

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God harass and torment whomever decided it was not expedient to have some type of detection device in place for just such an occurence. It's not a surprise to anyone that this happened - especially given the volcanic nature of the area.

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The governments concerned decided only last year NOT to install a listening / safety net.
The Pacific IS covered, as it is VERY susceptible to Tsunami.

The Indian Ocean is NOT as susceptible .............

THEY gambled ........the populace lost [as usual]

The earthquake registered at 8.9 on the Richter scale.
Worst one since 1964. [March 27th 1964 ALASKA USA]

Also: even if there were a safety net in place, is the communication infra-structure in place to advise the necessary people that **** IS happening, it's time to head to the high ground ?

And remember :
The Pacific net can give several hours warning, due to the size of the area involved.
The Indian Ocean net would 'only' give an hour or two tops...............

from Google :
http://apsn.awcable.com/1964.htm

An event of this size is completely unfathomable. Its really hard to comprehend the extent to which this disaster has affected the lived of the people in this area. How much they must be suffering!

As for an early warning system, all they would have to do is implement a telephone tree and give the rest of the world, that is watching for these events, a first number to call. something so simple could save thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives.

I am impressed that the world is reacting to this in the way that it is, in 2003 26,000 died in an earthquake in the same area and a few years before that (10?) 30000 plus died in a similar way and it was hardly mentioned. I hope its not just because “foreigners” are involved

The following list was compiled from foreign ministries, embassies and media reports:

- Britain: 11 dead, many missing and at least 69 being treated in hospitals

- Italy: 13 dead, many missing and dozens being treated in hospitals

- Norway: 10 dead

- Sweden: Nine dead, hundreds unaccounted for

- United States: Eight dead

- Denmark: Three dead

- France: Six dead

- Australia: Six dead, 11 missing

- Austria: Four dead

- Belgium: Two dead

- South Africa: Two dead

- Finland: One dead

- New Zealand: One dead, about 180 reported missing

- Malaysia: Unconfirmed reports of three dead

- South Korea: Unconfirmed report of one dead

- Switzerland: Unconfirmed report of one dead, 41 missing

- Poland: Media reports say one likely dead, three hospitalized and about a dozen unaccounted for

- Japan: Media report 15 bodies found in Sri Lanka appear to be those of Japanese

- Russia: Up to 120 missing

- Israel: Dozens missing and 28 injured, four seriously

- Turkey: Foreign ministry says it's unable to reach 23 Turks; media report at least 15 missing

- The Netherlands: 19 confirmed missing, 53 confirmed injured

- Spain: 12 confirmed hospitalized

- Portugal: Three confirmed missing, two confirmed hospitalized

- Czech Republic: Many reported missing, at least five injured

wel lemme add how bad it was ,in andaman nicobar islands, a total of 108-110 islands are present out of which 12 islands are missing!!!! missing ,get it lost
now where to be found

well that was a low populated are ,no one living there except the navy and the coast gaurd along with some tribal people ,but wow, missing islands that wave got to be huge

a warning was launched 3 hrs prior to the Tsunami, but that is too less for the people to evacuate the islands,

indian ocean and the bay of bengal are very unforgiving places to be............

in india we have on saying "IT COULD BE WORSE"
its like we are used to some disaster in a decade
as we had the great GUJRAT earth quake in 99. this Tsunami this year
the earth quake measured 9.0 on Ricter Scale could be worse if it had landed in a highly populas area.

evacuation is not as easy as it seems, here the cities are too over crowded and evacuation need to take place atleast a week before.......belive me a week ..........people are more arrogant and to them the govt means nothing ..............................
the whole of se asian is a diaster waiting to happen . people don't really care,
they say "one day every one has to die so why not today"
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peace to the worthy
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well it just got worse!

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Thousands more bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll across 11 nations to around 44,000.

Emergency workers found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town, Meulaboh, in Aceh province at the northern tip of Sumatra island, the hardest hit region in Indonesia, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry.

Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and surrounding towns, he said. Along Aceh's hard-hit western coastline, villages were swamped up to the roofs, still unexplored by soldiers combing the area for survivors and dead. Refugees fleeing the area described surviving for days on little more than coconuts before reaching Banda Aceh.

Full Story

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by the end of the relif work the toll count will cross 100 000,
belive me i ve had experiences like this