Tsunami catastrophie

[dinochick]

DC: Nice model, my mother (a geologist) loved it. Some of those little islands there must have disappeared, wouldn't they?

 

Glad your mom liked the model! I didn't know you had a geologist int eh family, very cool! What kind is she if I may ask?

 

As for some of the island, yes, several of them were entirely covered by water. Some are less that 3 feet above sea level and were completly washed over, but supprisingly there was not a great loos of life of these islands.

 

"I've read a little about the effects on the Maldives and

I think some of the atoll islands have simply disappeared, but there were

not many people on these. Also, I do believe Male was flooded; but it is

still amazing that it was not completely wiped out. Perhaps it is because

the construction of buildings on the island is stronger/more substantial

than in Indonesia, Sri Lanka etc."

 

Here is what a few of my friends have been saying about the situation:

"I heard an interview on NPR yesterday with the Minister of Education of the Maldives... He's now also in charge of the emergency response effort... he had flown over several of the smaller, outlying islands and noted that nearly all structures were gone.. said that they would have to rebuild approximately one third of all dwellings.. although the initial loss of life was not as great as might be expected, they have a critical shortage of drinking water since all fresh water comes from desalinization plants... and most were destroyed by the tsunami. "

 

"The effect of the tsunami probably was mitigated because the waves broke at the edge of the fringing reefs. The islands would probably still be

flooded, but is normally not the flooding that kills people and destroys

building, it's the power of the beraking waves. I suspect this is also the

reason the effects were so mild in Bangladesh which is also very flat delta

country with shallow water well offshore."

[Jahled]

The ways of the Force are strange.

 

 

Even stranger wielded by a vegetable ***das gemuse***Vong!

 

 

Unlike human-caused disasters tsunamis, earthquakes, tornados, etc cannot be averted, personally I believe it's Nature's way to bring some balance to the world..

 

Now at 150,000 dead. Balance... perhaps the word 'cull,' might be more appropriate. As we get more clever at everting death through progress through research, there can be no connection to the planet 'doing it's thing,' and exterminating lots of lives all of a sudden. It's been doing it for millions of years, and does so at every moment. I guess it rather depends what you classify as 'life.'

 

The Red Cross and the Red Crescent, ..

 

Why bother to mention them? The industrialized world is now donating money as if it quite frankly had just returned into fashion. Which begs the question where the hell does it all lurk when most of the world is so damn poor Also, where are the corrupt Arab League in this benevolance to fellow humans? Typically nowhere.

 

are doing what they can to save lives, yet one wonders how some countries mobilize thousands of soldiers to wage war, but cannot do the same when such a catastrophe as this one happens. ..

 

This is a very dull comment without to much thought. What profit is there in...errr...clearing up the rubble of lots of third world people?

[dinochick]

are doing what they can to save lives' date=' yet one wonders how [i']some[/i] countries mobilize thousands of soldiers to wage war, but cannot do the same when such a catastrophe as this one happens. ..

 

This is a very dull comment without to much thought. What profit is there in...errr...clearing up the rubble of lots of third world people?

 

Why help anyone anyway. I say let everyone fight thier own battles and if they survive, they do, and if not, they don't. That is the way it has been for millions of years in animal kingdom. Why change things now

[Trejiuvanat]

are doing what they can to save lives' date=' yet one wonders how [i']some[/i] countries mobilize thousands of soldiers to wage war, but cannot do the same when such a catastrophe as this one happens. ..

 

This is a very dull comment without to much thought. What profit is there in...errr...clearing up the rubble of lots of third world people?

 

Why help anyone anyway. I say let everyone fight thier own battles and if they survive, they do, and if not, they don't. That is the way it has been for millions of years in animal kingdom. Why change things now

 

I used to think so -and still do-, problem is that the twisted and hypocrital (sp?) "rules" of diplomacy of certain biped animals require the powerful-all-generous "industrialized" countries to give aid to those in need of it (this only after a devastating catastrophe that attracts the attention of international press) and especially when hundreds of their own citizens used to go on vacation to Thailandia, etc... Of course as Jahled pointed out money only comes out when a catastrophe happens, when an "evil" dicator has to be removed, but not when half africa is dying off AIDS, and half the world lives with less than one dollar a day, etc... (This appllies for all the G-something fellows)...

 

DC: Actually there's two geologist in the family, as my father too is one... (It can be very annoying when they talk about stones... )My mother, is more on the sedimentology side of geology (now works as a professor at University) and my father is more on the Environmental Geology side of things, working as a consultant.

[dinochick]

I used to think so -and still do-, problem is that the twisted and hypocrital (sp?) "rules" of diplomacy of certain biped animals require the powerful-all-generous "industrialized" countries to give aid to those in need of it (this only after a devastating catastrophe that attracts the attention of international press) and especially when hundreds of their own citizens used to go on vacation to Thailandia, etc... Of course as Jahled pointed out money only comes out when a catastrophe happens, when an "evil" dicator has to be removed, but not when half africa is dying off AIDS, and half the world lives with less than one dollar a day, etc... (This appllies for all the G-something fellows)...

 

I have to agree with you. The world and the minds that "controll it" makes it all sick to me and makes me want to move to Marse sometimes if I think to hard on it

 

DC: Actually there's two geologist in the family, as my father too is one... (It can be very annoying when they talk about stones... )My mother, is more on the sedimentology side of geology (now works as a professor at University) and my father is more on the Environmental Geology side of things, working as a consultant.

 

LOL OMG so that is how my kids are going to feel one of these days, interesting! Very cool about your parents they sound like cool people. What university does your mom teach at? Did your parents meet in college? When I consider myself a geologist (rather than just a paleontologist) I would consider myself to be more of the sedimentary/stratigraphy side of things.

[Ivo]

Yeah its pretty sad what happened with the tsunami over in Asia, but I think its pretty awesome the the way the rest of the world has responded to the disaster.

 

Everyone knows that a real geologist works with hard rocks in a greenfield terrane!!!!

[Trejiuvanat]

LOL OMG so that is how my kids are going to feel one of these days, interesting! Very cool about your parents they sound like cool people. What university does your mom teach at? Did your parents meet in college? When I consider myself a geologist (rather than just a paleontologist) I would consider myself to be more of the sedimentary/stratigraphy side of things.

 

My mother teaches at the Central American Geology School at the University of Costa Rica, yep they did meet there, then worked at the Costarrican petroleum refinery, for a while. My mother also workd on the petrographic side of things, whle working there but as that didn't prove useful in a country where political leaders do not want to search for petroleum.

 

@Ivo: Not all rocks are hard... and a greenfield terrain might not do as the grass would cover what you are looking for. (Unless you were looking for rocks blasted out of a vulcanic eruption, which are pretty big to miss and are most of the times the same things) Cracked terrain and faulty areas are far much more interesting... I can't believe I said that.

[BadSamaritan]

Death toll now about 125,000. This was obviously a post that went wrong, cause otherwise you and me have a problem about your grasp with what goes on when you turn away from your monitor.

 

I'll let you say your piece about how it was sort of phrased wrong or something like that.

 

If my comments offended anyone, I do apologize, but not much makes me laugh anymore. Most of the few freinds I have in RL can testify to the fact that I am a very morbid person. Frankly, I have managed to de-sensitize myself to a point that I never thought was possible.

 

In all reality, I am not the type of person that most of you would want to know as a RL friend. I have a sick sence of humor, as I have stated, and as this goes to show, what makes most people weep, makes me laugh.

 

There are other reasons besides my twisted sence of humor that made me laugh about this whole catastrophe, but that is entirely a different matter.

[Mad78]

And what may that matter be?

[BadSamaritan]

My personal belief on humanitys' own stupidity.

[AdmiralFishface]

I wonder if the same catastrophy had resulted in the same amount of media presence and/or help by rich countries if there were less western country tourists involved. This way, everyone has a kind of personal relationship with the disaster. Everyone knows someone who's been there, or who almost went there but didn't, or someone who's missing, etc.

 

By the way, I'm kind of a Geologist myself, at least in the foreseeable future I will be. Hi.

[Jahled]

My personal belief on humanitys' own stupidity.

 

I'm torn between suggesting you finding it amusing seeing people struggling to survive the torrent of water, and you finding similar grim humor in people throwing themselves out of the twin towers 9/11, for example. I don't know what media access you have access to, but what i've seen has been pretty bloody grim; ie: people loosing that struggle to survive in front of your eyes. Not very nice.

 

Whilst it is good the globe is addressing a very natural disaster, and doing stuff like they are; your comment on humanity's own stupidity shouldn't be to lost, and if viewed when stood back, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand in this context; despite the fact I still find it hard to understand your amuzement at seeing people struggle from the oncomming wave.

 

Why does it take a disaster of such magnitude to mobilize the world's financial resources into action? This is humanitys' own stupidity. Poverty is still the biggest 'cull' factor in the world, as Trej pointed out, there is an AIDs epidemic about to utterly destabilize the African continant at least.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Why does it take a disaster of such magnitude to mobilize the world's financial resources into action?

 

The answer to this is quite simple. If humanity, or rather, the portion of it that is comprised of western countries, were to use its money to better the lives of the poor and needy so that we can all live at the same level of good health, there would be a significan shif in powerand we would have to give up much of the comfort we live in.

 

Let's say that the US, Great Britain and Canada (replace Canada with any other nation for the same effect) did as much as they could to increase the quality of life, in as many countries as they could, without placing their own people into the position of a possible severe decrease in quality of life. We would loose a great deal of our nationally funded services (health care etc.), there wouldn't be the excess of goods we enjoy now, which would lead to hording and panick, a chaos would ensue.

 

I know you were'nt suggesting that the west do anything of the sort, but we do have to pick and choose our battles. AIDS is very deadly, true, but there is no cure, and at most we can extend the lives of those infected, people who will eventually die, saving hte lives of a handfull. In the case of the Tsunami, there is hope of saving lives, a great deal more lives than could potentially be saved in Africa.

 

It all comes down to a few factors:

 

Politics: Whether we like it or not, that area is close to the "War on Terror". It is potentially forseeable that some of the effected nations may be called upon to be staging sites for whatever the next phase is. Best to be on their good-side.

 

Sudden: If this were 150,000 people drowning in unsafe swimming pools there wouldn't be the outcry, especially if they all died over the course of a year or so.

 

The "Local" Effect: Because there were some Western nationals effected, it would seem cold of us not to lend aid.

 

I don't want to sound cold myself, I think we should be helping those in Africa, as well as those in Asia (indeed, Canada has spent millions on those effected by AIDS in Africa, and millions more, $33 Million to be exact, on tsunami victims), but we can only do so much. I like the level of the quality of life I live in, and though it may be selfish, I would do much to keep it, and there are many who feel the same way. Once can't expect the west to help with every problem in the rest of the world.

 

Now, all of that said, in situations like this, the nations most able to help should be contributing the most. Canada has contributed only $2 Million less than the US, and many of the European nations, who have better economies, even less. Would it really hurt the US to hold off on buying that cruise missile or B2 Bomber and give the money to flood relief or another cause?

 

Why can't some of the big businesses give some of their profits to relief? There is an executive somewhere who make more money for qiping his ass in the morning than these countries will recieve in assistance.

 

Just my two credits.

[dinochick]

 

By the way, I'm kind of a Geologist myself, at least in the foreseeable future I will be. Hi.

 

Hi, glad to see another Geologist around

[BadSamaritan]

Actually, I felt sorry for the people in the videos who los tthe fight against the water. They did nothign to deserve one of the most painfull ways to die known to man.

 

What makes me laugh, actually, is that fact that so many people died, because of how they were allowed to live. Over-papulation of the coastline combined with poor housing is what led to a large portion of the fatalities. Thats the stupidity I was referrring to.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Remember though, there are many regions that have the same population as a few miles of that coastline packed into a smaller area. Had the same events happened in New York, what would the death toll be? Certainly there would have been some warning, and those higher up in buildings may have been safe, but I believe the number of dead would be even higher than what we are seeing now.

 

The way in which they live and the location didn't have so much to do with it as a lack of warning.

 

What I find strange is that events such as these happen, and people are surprised. If I'm not mistaken, that area of Asia is prone to seismic(sp?) activity, is it not? We know that Japan is prone to earth-quakes, yet every time one happens, our jaws drop. Though it may be simplifying it, that's like taking a vacation to the arctic and packing only shorts and t-shirts. Perhaps it's simply shock at the unnesessaryloss of life.

[BadSamaritan]

The way in which they live and the location didn't have so much to do with it as a lack of warning.

 

Yes, the lack of warning also contributes to my over-all reaction to everything. For a part of the world renown for seismic activity, one would think that that would already have warning systems in place.

[Trejiuvanat]

What makes me laugh, actually, is that fact that so many people died, because of how they were allowed to live. Over-papulation of the coastline combined with poor housing is what led to a large portion of the fatalities. Thats the stupidity I was referrring to.

 

I don't think you can refer to stupidity to not having a choice, they don't have a choice, nor the knowledge to do that in any other way. Because of the level of quality of life in the industrialized countries, and because they want to keep it, the resources and riches are badly reparted. Most countries do not have warning system, because they already have a critical budget.

 

Costa Rica doesn't have one and it'd cost about 30M dollar that the country doesn't have and won't have for a long time and even so it would only be a warning system coming what? about ten minutes before the waves? Costa Rica has two coasts one on the pacific and another one on the caribbean and is in a very active volcanic/seismic area a 9.something richter could do terrible damage (a 5.something about two months caused enough losses) so politicians won't probably opt for one.

 

About seismic activity the entire world has to some extent seismic activity, LA and San Francisco are in a very active area, but they're still there. There Napoli right under a Volcano and the Turks are still living in Turkey with earthquakes and all.