8.9 earthquake and tsunami ravage South Asia

Elizabeth said:
I imagine it will end up close to 100,000....I still can't believe, though, there was no way/time any of these people could have been warned....:(

Yes, I guess it took some time for the tsunami to reach Sri Lanka, India or the Maldives. Then even seeing it coming from afar, they have enough time to escape. They just didn't realise that such a thing could happen. Some people were still filming until the wave came a few meters from their feet.
 
sick of & mad from counts & numbers

The AnteLyfe said:
death count is now at 116,000
and counting this is a other lunacy; please count the jref_community aids n backings-
and let us know about ya expressive results..

:souka:
 
And how many thousands more are not yet counted as missing, it's just horrifying (I was reading a BBC page today...) And epidemic will outbreak soon too (related page.)

Just hoping that relief operations will be well coordinated under this coalition.
 
This is really crazy, who knows how many might die in the end, I guess figures will rise up to 200,000 or more, and then many millions are without food, shelter and with homes destroyed.

I wonder if this catastrophy would have gotten so much attention if it weren't for all the foreigners killed. Remember the quake i Iran, and the mine collapsing in China? Where were the western news coverage?

The swedish papers are mostly writing about Swedes but then it's pretty big, the prime-minister said over 1,000 swedes might die, and 4,500 Swedes are currently missing in Thailand. That's quite alot for a small country, and there are also a few famous Swedish people like artists and such in the area, a big corporate ceo died from Pneumonia after he spent 2 days searching for his wife and kids (not yet found).


edit: http://www.waveofdestruction.org/

For those who haven't seen footage of it all.
 
To put things in a historical perspective, here are some of the worst tsunamis ever, and none of them come anywhere near the nearly 150,000 deaths from the recent tsunami.


Nov. 1, 1755: After a colossal earthquake destroyed Lisbon, Portugal and rocked much of Europe, people took refuge by boat. A tsunami ensued, as did great fires. Altogether, the event killed more than 60,000 people.

Aug. 27, 1883: Eruptions from the Krakatoa volcano fueled a tsunami that drowned 36,000 people in the Indonesian Islands of western Java and southern Sumatra. The strength of the waves pushed coral blocks as large as 600 tons onto the shore.

June 15, 1896: Waves as high as 100 feet (30 meters), spawned by an earthquake, swept the east coast of Japan. Some 27,000 people died.

April 1, 1946: The April Fools tsunami, triggered by an earthquake in Alaska, killed 159 people, mostly in Hawaii.

July 9, 1958: Regarded as the largest recorded in modern times, the tsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska was caused by a landslide triggered by an 8.3 magnitude earthquake. Waves reached a height of 1,720 feet (576 meters) in the bay, but because the area is relatively isolated and in a unique geologic setting the tsunami did not cause much damage elsewhere. It sank a single boat, killing two fishermen.

May 22, 1960: The largest recorded earthquake, magnitude 8.6 in Chile, created a tsunami that hit the Chilean coast within 15 minutes. The surge, up to 75 feet (25 meters) high, killed an estimated 1,500 people in Chile and Hawaii.

March 27, 1964: The Alaskan Good Friday earthquake, magnitude between 8.4, spawned a 201-foot (67-meter) tsunami in the Valdez Inlet. It traveled at over 400 mph, killing more than 120 people. Ten of the deaths occurred in Crescent City, in northern California, which saw waves as high as 20 feet (6.3 meters).

Aug. 23, 1976: A tsunami in the southwest Philippines killed 8,000 on the heels of an earthquake.

July 17, 1998: A magnitude 7.1 earthquake generated a tsunami in Papua New Guinea that quickly killed 2,200.
 
The most comparable recent disaster figure I've heard mention of was the 1991 flooding in Bangladesh (I believe) which left around 142,000 dead.
 
myjp said:
and counting this is a other lunacy; please count the jref_community aids n backings-
and let us know about ya expressive results..

:souka:

I understand that you may find it inhumane to refer to each human life as "just another statistic", but counting the number of casualties is the only way one can put this tragedy into proper perspective.

For example, I believe today the deathcount was established at around 150,000+ . Today I also read that 150,000 people die globally every 3 days due to starvation and lack of clean drinking water. While it is encouraging that so many countries are willing to send "aid" to victims of the tsunami, one can't help but wonder why it takes a cataclysmic event such as this to get the worlds attention?
 
One year after, I checked the statistics of casualities by country. Looking at tourists who died in the region, we get (countries with 10 or more deaths) :

Germany : 537 dead and 15 missing
Sweden : 526 dead and 18 missing
Finland : 171 dead and 7 missing
United Kingdom : 149 dead and 1 missing
Switzerland : 106 dead
France : 95 dead
Austria : 86 dead
Denmark : 45 dead and 1 missing
Italy : 40 dead
Hong Kong : 38 dead and 2 missing
Japan : 37 dead and 7 missing
Netherlands : 36 dead and 5 missing
Australia : 26 dead
South Korea : 17 dead and 3 missing
USA : 18 dead and 15 missing
Belgium : 11 dead

Sources : Wikipedia
 
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