Originally posted by Valhall
measles! Geez-louise...you know, just when you think you can't be surprised by something in this. I would have not been surprised at diseases being reported any time now...but I have to say measles was not on my radar screen.

Actually measles is an easy one. SPotty immunizations, bad conditions, high communicability and its a recipe for disaster. Cholera and malaria are next.

Thailand just reported finding 3,500 bodies in one single province.

And the people that died had no warning because the government was afraid the tourism industry might respond badly to a tsunami alert.

As far as I know, there is no set Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. Since mostly remote areas were affected first, there wasn't much in the way of warning given to other areas...as the remote ones simply didn't have the tech to know what was going on. Indeed, this seems to be the big problem, that there was no warning, so people were caught off guard.

The death toll has exceeded 125,000 with:

Sri Lanka: 29,000
Thailand: 5,500

I was just checking news on CNN.com as I do off-and-on throughout the day and they had a poll asking if people had donated. Of all the people who took the time to take the poll only 18% reported that they had donated. Is it me or does that seem outrageously low? I mean, I'm 52 and in my lifetime there have been some kickass disasters. But this is gearing-up to be the mother of all disasters in my lifetime. If people aren't inspired to donate for this one what WILL it take? For me I was able to make a donation in just a couple of minutes. The reputable aid agencies (I happened to donate to Doctors Without Borders) have secure online donation capabilities. Please donate to some agency. This situation could easily reach a quarter million people before it's over.

UK pledges £50 million($100 million) making it the highest aid giving country.

Another good place to give Donations to is World Relief. I have a friend that works there and I know that their donations actually go for what they say they go for.

What's the website for World Relief? I got paid today and I'm looking for the best place to donate what I can.

ok,
as i was reading todays newspaper, i read an article about a woman who felt the earthquake in sumatra, but was on vacation in tailand. and 4 hours later the tsunami hit the coasts of asia. so you are trying to tell me, nobody knew about this tsunami for entire 4 to 5 hours? well japan "invented" the word "tsunami" so they should have an early warning system so that they can calculate the time from the begining of the earthquake to where the deadly wave hits the coast.

and are there NO weather satellites over asia? or any OTHER satellites? what the hell is then orbiting around our planet? scrap-metal? dont tell me nobody saw this giant wave coming! people would only need about 30 minute warning to get the fu** away from the coast, somewhere HIGHER, thats all!

i think japan knew about the wave, since they should have an early warning system for this kind of cases, after all they are also in this "ring of fire" where lots of underwater earthquakes can happen. japan MUST have some kind of satellite system operational over pacific and asia. and china has no satellites here also? or russia? or the usa? since all the countries that were hit are relatively poor and have ANY kind of satellites!

isnt that a little bit strange?

According to Indonesia's Ambassador to Malaysia Dr. H. Rusdihardjo, the death toll in INDONESIA ALONE may top 400,000.

Originally posted by Souljah
ok,
as i was reading todays newspaper, i read an article about a woman who felt the earthquake in sumatra, but was on vacation in tailand. and 4 hours later the tsunami hit the coasts of asia. so you are trying to tell me, nobody knew about this tsunami for entire 4 to 5 hours? well japan "invented" the word "tsunami" so they should have an early warning system so that they can calculate the time from the begining of the earthquake to where the deadly wave hits the coast.

and are there NO weather satellites over asia? or any OTHER satellites? what the hell is then orbiting around our planet? scrap-metal? dont tell me nobody saw this giant wave coming! people would only need about 30 minute warning to get the fu** away from the coast, somewhere HIGHER, thats all!

i think japan knew about the wave, since they should have an early warning system for this kind of cases, after all they are also in this "ring of fire" where lots of underwater earthquakes can happen. japan MUST have some kind of satellite system operational over pacific and asia. and china has no satellites here also? or russia? or the usa? since all the countries that were hit are relatively poor and have ANY kind of satellites!

isnt that a little bit strange?

Every Geologist around the world knew about the earthquake and resulting tsunami within 2 or 3 minutes in Japan (in the Pacific by the way), the US and UK. The problem is, according to them, is that they had no idea who to call as they would if this had happened in the Pacific.

Why they didn't contact the media in the countries concerned however, is strange? It would have saved lives in most large cities i would think.

If the report that the death toll may reach 400,000 is true, then wouldn't this be the largest natural disaster in recorded history.

[edit on 30-12-2004 by TPL]

think japan knew about the wave, since they should have an early warning system for this kind of cases, after all they are also in this "ring of fire" where lots of underwater earthquakes can happen. japan MUST have some kind of satellite system operational over pacific and asia. and china has no satellites here also? or russia? or the usa? since all the countries that were hit are relatively poor and have ANY kind of satellites!

isnt that a little bit strange?

Japan is in the Pacific. This was in the Indian Ocean. There IS a system in place for this in the Pacific, but there isn't a system set up in the Indian Ocean. There will be now, but kind of a day late and a dollar short so to speak. Had this happened in the Pacific, you would have seen media warnings.

Originally posted by TPL
Every Geologist around the world knew about the tsunami within 2 or 3 minutes in Japan, the US and UK. The problem is, according to them, is that they had no idea who to call as they would if this had happened in the Pacific.

Why they didn't contact the media in the countries concerned however, is strange? It would have saved lives in most large cities i would think.

who would they call?!? i dont know, the civil defence president or something! somebody in charge for natural disasters! its like knowing an earthquake would hit somewhere and not telling them, just because you dont know the phone nubmer for 911?!? i mean...WTF??!?!
i dont think so!!!

I just saw on the news where relief workers had wandered upon a fishing village and came across 40,000 dead. The whole village was just destroyed and it looks like none survived. I don't know if this has been included in the ever growing death toll but that is just horrific to even contemplate.

Originally posted by regs
Don't know for sure. I just got a message from TMT asking me to post that for him since he was on his cell web browser and couldn't post it here at ATS. I've been trying to find out which experts too, but no joy as of yet.

regs

Good Looking out Regs , yah trying to type on a cell phone is not Good anyway, Im still looking into this... My main concern right now is if there is another quake close to this magnitude, how Mother Earth will react. Val had brought this up to me and thinking more about it, It does not seem Good.

Originally posted by Souljah
who would they call?!? i dont know, the civil defence president or something! somebody in charge for natural disasters! its like knowing an earthquake would hit somewhere and not telling them, just because you dont know the phone nubmer for 911?!? i mean...WTF??!?!
i dont think so!!!

It would be impossible, off of a phone call from some agency they have never set up procedures with, for governments there to evacuate the coastlines of SE Asia within a couple hours. There is no warning system set up in the Indian ocean, so they would have to evacuate not on actual data, but a hunch that the earthquake was going to produce a tsunami. You can't see the wave until it gets in to shallow waters, in deep water they travel at about 500 mph, not alot of time to spare. But this is not the first time this occurred there, they should've had a system in place, but should've won't help these poor people.

Originally posted by TPL

Why they didn't contact the media in the countries concerned however, is strange? It would have saved lives in most large cities i would think.

To the best of my knowledge the USGS did send out E-Mails about 20 minutes before, they just do not know what happened with the information. As another member mentioned, the Indian Ocean is not monitored, so there would not even be anything to put in place as far as Evacuation and such. So even if the info was able to get out, I really do not think it would have helped much, maybe would have made it worse.....