Tsunami

[Marc -not logged in]

I would like to express my condolences to those that may have been effected by, or those close to others that may have been effected by the recent disaster in the south central Asia.

[MovieStuff]

Yes, my inhouse engineer's sister and family were on the beach there when it hit. She and the kids literally ran from this huge wall of water and barely survived. However, her husband was out scuba diving when it hit and is still missing.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

Wow. Just got word that her husband was found this morning and is okay. Their boat was capsized and some people drowned but he's okay. Whew!

Roger

[avortex]

My condolences too. The images I saw today were very terrifying...

[Alex]

8 times the number that perished in 911 have died.

It's soo sad it happened right after Christmas when people have just spent a wad on gifts and probably have little left to donate.

Anybody want to recommend charitable organizations that are the most efficient at converting financial donations into tangible items and services that save lives and cut down on the spread of disease?

[Dave Anderson]

What a tragic event indeed. One of my co-workers came in complaining about a layoff rumor yesterday morning and another co-worker said "24,000 people were just wiped from the planet and you're concerned about this?".

Puts it in perspective how we get wrapped up over our own petty issues in light of something like this.

In my reading about aid organizations, World Vision has a very good track record in converting financial donations. There's a link on their site to donate.

http://www.worldvision.org

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.c ... d/4768.htm



Dave

[Alex]

Thanks Dave, that was an interesting lead for comparing charities, I'm curious how OXFAM fares. Don't be too hard on your friend, loss of one's job is still a very big deal because our own existence usually depends on it.

If the Tsunami had happened just a few days earlier the juxtaposition of last minute Christmas Shoppers with the news of the Tsunami would have caused an incredible amount of soul searching.

I heard it said that the energy needed to cause such an event was equivalent to a million atom bombs. My client last night suggested it was an asteroid that fell into the Ocean caused the Tsunami.

[S8 Booster]

According to some estimations made based on the topography of the low level land in the area is is now believed that as many as 200 000 people may have died.


To get a picture on how incredible this shake was - check this:

Asia - AFP

Quake rattled Earth orbit, changed map of Asia: US geophysicist

Mon Dec 27, 8:33 PM ET
Asia - AFP

LOS ANGELES, (AFP) - An earthquake that unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia was so powerful it made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map, US geophysicists said.

The 9.0-magnitude temblor that struck 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast of Sumatra island Sunday may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters (66 feet), according to one expert.

"That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken Hudnut told AFP.
"Based on seismic modeling, some of the smaller islands off the southwest coast of Sumatra may have moved to the southwest by about 20 meters. That is a lot of slip."

The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said.

In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.

"We can detect very slight motions of the Earth and I would expect that the Earth wobbled in its orbit when the earthquake occurred due the massive amount of energy exerted and the sudden shift in mass," Hudnut said.

Another USGS (news - web sites) research geophysicist agreed that the Earth would have got a "little jog," and that the islands off Sumatra would have been moved by the quake.

However, Stuart Sipkin, of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center in Golden Colorado, said it was more likely that the islands off Sumatra had risen higher out of the sea than they had moved laterally.

"In in this case, the Indian plate dived below the Burma plate, causing uplift, so most of the motion to the islands would have been vertical, not horizontal."

The tsunamis unleashed by the fourth-biggest earthquake in a century have left at least 23,675 people dead in eight countries across Asia and as far as Somalia in East Africa.

The tsunamis wiped out entire coastal villages and pulled beach-goers out to sea.

The International Red Cross estimated that up to one million people have been displaced by the natural calamity.

R

[Alex]

125,000 people died from the Tsunami while 125,000 nuclear weapons continue to live. The Tsunami killed less people than the total amount of nuclear weapons that currently exist on the planet.

Usually a tragedy does not allow some of it's victims a choice, and in that sense the Tsunami was a tyrant with a heart. Some victims and some survivors actually had time to make decisions that would ultimately affect whether they lived or died. The same cannot be said about a nuclear explosion.

To go forward and implement a Worldwide Tsunami Warning System without addressing what to do about the worlds nuclear weapon arsenal would be unnacceptable in my eyes.

A Tsunami is nature's way of slowing down the horror of a nuclear explosion by turning a mushroom cloud into a tidal wave. But unlike a nuclear explosion, a tsunami quickly retreats and allows all of mankind to immediately begin the task of rebuilding.

It's estimated that the energy released by the 9.0 earthquake that caused the Tsunami was equivalent to 1 million nuclear bombs. It would seem that nature really is much more civil than mankind could ever be when it comes to how it unleashes huge amounts of energy.

One Tsunami, aka a million nuclear bombs killed 125,000 people. One "civilized" nuclear weapon could kill 10 million people.

Just who is the friendlier foe?

99,999 nuclear weapons of fear on the wall, 99,999 nuclear weapons of fear, if one of those weapons should happen to fall, 99,998 nuclear weapons of fear on the wall.

We have far to travel when it comes to learning from our own planet. Cursing a Tsunami and questioning how God could unyield such a force entirely misses the bigger picture. For those who believe in God, Thank God that a Tsunami may have been the gentlest reminder we could ever be given about just how deadly our own manmade nuclear weapons really are. If we fail to see the connection between a Tsunami and our own nuclear weapons arsenal, we put the worlds future at great risk, and we have disrespected all of those killed by the Tsunami.

[DriveIn]

Well that's a strange response posted above. Seems off the wall to me. :roll: BUt anyway, on to why I was really replying.

Anybody want to recommend charitable organizations that are the most efficient at converting financial donations into tangible items and services that save lives and cut down on the spread of disease?

http://www.heartsandminds.org/links/givelinks.htm

Unicef stated they have had more donations for this disaster than all of last year. I think that's the way it was announced on the news anyway.
That's an amazing response. Kudos to Spain for dropping a wad to help.
I always wonder how much money is sucked up by management of the funds rather than disbursement of the funds where they are needed. Not all aid organizations are well managed. Worked with a local state and federal funded non-profit that said by the time they get their grants trickled down through the government system, the grant funds have many times been reduced by more than 70% to pay for mismanagers along the way. What a waste. :? 8O

[super8man]

For others, you may want to check out http://www.amazon.com - they have a 100% direct donation through to the American Red Cross. No fees, no hassles. Honest donation.

Be safe and stop worrying so much about film. It's the people and their stories that matter.

Cheers,
m

[S8 Booster]

Red Cross is allways a safe bet.

R

[Alex]

Well that's a strange response posted above. Seems off the wall to me. :roll: BUt anyway, on to why I was really replying.

Well it will be strange for me to watch the news gladhand all the countries come together to help the victims and to rebuild the areas devastated and then go back and hoard their own nuclear arsenals.

Don't fall for the feel good crap that will be televised about how nations can come together to help each other while cluster bomb nuclear weapons stand at the ready, each bomb capable of doing MORE DAMAGE than what the Tsunami did.

It's bullshit PR. If ever there was a time to bring up a discussion about nuclear weapons and how many there are on the planet and how many there should be on the planet (I don't have a number in mind, but I believe we have WAY TOO MANY) it should be in the wake of a Tsunami.

My time-lapse interests are at work here. I see a Tsunami as a slow moving destruction with the power of more than than a few nuclear bombs. But when the Tsunami subsides, civilization can immediately go to work repairing what can be repaired, saving what is left to save, the same is not true about a nuclear bomb.

I don't know how many nulcear weapons are on the planet, but if it turns out there are more nuclear bombs on the planet than people killed by the tsunami, won't you find that a bit odd?

[Alex]

Here is a link to a rather sizeable increase in spending by the US on nukes.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2099425/

And it looks like the most nukes on the planet ever was in the 80's and reached low 60,000's! Wow.

Here is a link to how many there still are in the world, remember each one can cause more devastation than the Tsunami because the weapons can be aimed into population dense areas.

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab19.asp

[DriveIn]

Well that's a strange response posted above. Seems off the wall to me. :roll:

Well it will be strange for me.......... won't you find that a bit odd?

Yes I do.. :? Guess I need to go calculate some new tangents for this thread.... 8O