Originally posted by IAF101

Do we really need to be smacked on our bottoms to sit up and pay attention!

IAF

Our bottoms should be blistered by now...and we still haven't paid any attention!

I've read a few different places now that these islands, esp. the Maldives, were high end tourist destinations for european elite. I wonder if any notable business owners, power brokers, bankers were on the ground at the time, or in any of the other places that were hit.

Any large conferences going on down there. I noticed something about 10k to 20k swedes, what's the deal with that? Out of all these wealthy vacationers, how many global players got eaten by a wave of water? Just curious. Maybe Tesla rolled over in his grave too many times and altered the geomagnetics of the planet with the kinetics of his rotation. Ha!

Originally posted by IAF101
What the heck are the Indians doing? Where is America? Where are the Chinese? Where is world cooperation? Anybody?

These are times to come forward- why aren't the Chinese helping out- since they have the maximum resources in that region? Every minute the number of dead jumps by a thousand[ its 6800 now!] What are all those great military nations out there[China & India] doing? Whats the use of 10million army if you can't utilize it to save lives?Even though the quake was off the cost of Indonesia how did Sri Lanka get so badly affected?- its 1400kms away!
...
IAF

You can't just send thousands and thousands of the military without inventarization of what is needed or they will just hinder damage control and the relief efforts. At this moment across SE Asia, governments are probably trying to get an overview of the situation.

Blobber

Originally posted by Blobber
You can't just send thousands and thousands of the military without inventarization of what is needed or they will just hinder damage control and the relief efforts. At this moment across SE Asia, governments are probably trying to get an overview of the situation.

Blobber

What I mean is- aren't India, Thailand faced with constant typhoons? -Don't they have some sort of Rapid Response Teams to contend with these calamities.
India in particular should have some sort of Natural disasters cell- I've heard that India in the last decade has faced almost 2 massive earthquakes umpteen floods and a barrage of typhoons.

The military sure could help those rescue workers get to places cut off by helicopters and drop rations and amenities to all those cut off by the quakes. Also the military medical wings will be better trained to deal with this sort of mass exodus of patients.[ I presume all the militaries are trained somewhat like they are in the west]

Hell of a way to end Christmas!!

IAF

Just heard on MSNBC the death toll is up to 9000. I wonder where it will come in at the end. This really is so devastating. It boggles the mind.

Originally posted by Relentless
Just heard on MSNBC the death toll is up to 9000. I wonder where it will come in at the end. This really is so devastating. It boggles the mind.

Its so intresting, 9000 people is nothing, have we forgot the 40000 that just died this year in Iran from an earthquake?

This is so devasting to so many people. I just read this is the largest earthquake in 40 years!!!! I knew something was up with all those recent quakes all around the world and in the caribbean and knew a big one was coming somewhere.

The sad truth is that governments that oversee a large citizenry care less about the individual citizen than a smaller nation. The larger a nation gets, the less it cares about the individual. India has a lot of people. So does America. African nations have the most, while the netherlands have the fewest. Do you see my point?

As America has gotten more people, it has taken more and more freedoms and expectations away from its citizens. The same has been happening to India for longer, so it stands to reason they have a worse time of it than the US.

Another problem is that the shaking hasn't stopped, and the waves could keep coming. I think a lot of rescue operations and humanitarian missions will be delayed by the tides, and the storms that are battering the whole region. It's hard to get the scope of the event, because one news source reports a wave, and another reports an earthquake in the region, and you have to go to a third source to get the report of severe storms. A fairly sizable chunk of the globe got messed up pretty bad, and it's not exactly over yet. That is probably the primary reason for any delay in rescue operations.

Originally posted by SpittinCobra

Originally posted by Relentless
Just heard on MSNBC the death toll is up to 9000. I wonder where it will come in at the end. This really is so devastating. It boggles the mind.

Its so intresting, 9000 people is nothing, have we forgot the 40000 that just died this year in Iran from an earthquake?

I don' think we forgot about Iran, Kobra, but 9000 isn't nothing... Actualy this is a lot...And remember this are not only figures, there were REAL people -they might be your friends, relatives...

I think Iran came in at 25k people dead from that earthquake.

Ghoulish isn't it, to be able to throw around numbers like that, impervious in the digital realm, while real corpses are being counted in the physical..

There's been no reporting whatsoever on death totals in the Maldives, and those numbers could realistically be in the six figures, based on Indigo's census figures claiming 200k+ residents.

Is California still attached by the way? I've been wondering about that..

[edit on 26-12-2004 by WyrdeOne]

Originally posted by SpittinCobra

Its so intresting, 9000 people is nothing, have we forgot the 40000 that just died this year in Iran from an earthquake?

Actually, no but I don't think these numbers are anywhere near finsihed coming in and in addition, this one is affecting such a widespread area. The rate at which the reported death toll is increasing is what I find disturbing seeing the area of impact and the high possibilty that this is no where near being fully assessed yet.

I wonder how the number of deaths from natural disasters are adding up for this year compared to other years at this point.

we'll be hearing about rising death counts from this throughout the week, too many islands and major areas were affected by this and some of these islands are very remote in the first place. I wonder if there were any cruise ships in the area and if they were affected?

I know of a few luxury yachts with 100 or passengers that usually cruise the area during this time of the year, but I can't find any info on how the cruise line industry has been affected yet.

just saw the pics from India its so devastating, you could see the people being washed away.

[edit on 12-26-2004 by worldwatcher]

My dad is vacationing in Thailand right now... He really likes the island of Phuket, too. I hope he's alright...

Zip

So far, 16 magnitude 5+ earthquakes have struck one geographic area today, within an elven hour period.

Has that ever happened before?

For all the death there, Rest In Peace.