Breaking News: Massive Earthquake South-east Asia

[Rick van Opbergen]

About the boy of which I posted a picture yesterday (see a link I posted): he has been identified as Hannes Bergstrom, a Swede. A relative of him saw his picture on the Internet and contacted the relatives who were in Thailand. He was reunited with his uncle and grandmother today. The boy's father and grandfather are treated in another hospital; his mother is still missing.

Also latest news: 37,000 people reported killed.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

This is just like the Jaws movie.
I know when I swim in an ocean, it is very likely I'll get eaten alive.

I would never be able to sit on a beach again without watching the next wave on the horizon.

This is gonna be horrible for tourism world wide. This event will affect beach front business just like 911 affected air travel. Everytime I hear a plane flying low, I expect it to crash.

Calm

 

[peapod]

Wow! your really are paranoid, paranoid and just a small point, but I don't think a whole lot of people are thinking about how this will effect tourism right now, considering the amount of people that have lost their lives.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

Hey! PeaPod

Yep! That is paranoia.

You should hear my nightmares! Paranoid and in the dark, in a hotel on the ocean front, trying to enter a peaceful sleep .... and hearing the waves crash against the shore .... each one sounding a wee bit louder than the earlier wave ....

I would need to change hotels.
I'm gonna be just like Jesus .... and hang around mountain tops.
You live in BC .... I'd be choosing mountain-view as opposed to ocean view.

At the very least:
If a poor-paranoid person can't afford to move .... the government should at least pay for a contractor to come over and turn my house around on the foundation so that it faces the mountains and not the sea.
It would be a start.

Calm

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Breaking News: Massiv

Actually a whole lot of people are worried about tourism right now, Peapod. It's a major industry and if it goes away so does a lot of the economy in places like Thailand.

I know it doesn't seem like it should be important at a time like this, but it is one of the ways that people feed themselves.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

Hey! Reverend Blair

For sure!

This is serious stuff if your livlihood depends on an ocean view.

It will affect people just like those 200 thousand employees who lost their jobs in downtown New York. All the restraunts closed and small business had no clients.

I joked about it to make a point, because I try to find humour in everything .... but this is very real to anyone living or depending on the ocean for certain economic benefits.
I'm not thinking about where it happened, I'm thinking about how this will affect the psyche of future tourists to any ocean front here in Canada.

Calm

 

[missile]

According to Drudge,the island of Sumatra has been moved over 100 feet off course by this event.Amazing!I'm afraid to predict this,but the death count will be over 100,000.

 

[peapod]

Well rev maybe thats the problem, people should think more about humanitity than the wheel of commerce.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Breaking News: Massiv

I thought I heard somebody say 70,000 on the TV a while ago...not sure of the context though. It will be over 100,000 before it's all over, Missile. How much over depends on how quickly they get it cleaned up and how fast they get the diseases under control. Everything from malaria to dysentry gets a lot more common after something like this because the infrastructure and the mechanism that are usually in place are suddenly gone.

I don't think it will hurt ocean-side tourism in Canada and other western countries, Calm. It's irrational as hell but, "It happened over there in Asia so we must be safe here in Canada," won't be an uncommon thought. It is stupid given the facts, but I'll bet California gets busier now.

It will hurt tourism in other poor countries though. South America, the Caribbean, Africa...they'll all feel the sting.

 

[missile]

California should take the hint. The San Andreas Fault could let loose at any time and place most of that state into the ocean. We have the highest tides in the world here and although we live in the lower sections of the City,we aren't aware of any dangers from them. If anything, tourismhere may benefit from this disaster.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

Tsunami Death Toll Tops 67,000
Wednesday, December 29th
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/asia.quake/index.html

Some statistics:

- 33,000 deaths in Indonesia (Atjeh), with villages and towns totally destroyed;
- 23,000 deaths in Sri Lanka, fear for the spread of diseases is rising;
- 10,000 (12,000 according to other sources) deaths in India (according to CNN), some 7,000 on the mainland and 3,000 on the Andamar and Nicobar islands;
- 1,500 deaths in Thailand, a great part of them tourists;
- hundreds of deaths on the Maldives (55), in Myanmar (36), Somalia, Tanzania, Kenya (all three together 133), Malaysia (64), Bangladesh (2) and the Seychelles (10 people missing).

What I was wondering is the following: for what I know, the Maldives have been totally flooded. The Maldives are a group of islands which are just above the sea level, which meant that the tsunami could roll over the islands fairly easy. What will this mean for the future of this country? The tourism is gone - with some 75% of the land flooded (that's what I've heard), it will be very hard to restore tourism on a short base. What about sources of income, like fishing or farming? So again, what will be the future of this nation?

According to NOS News (Dutch), so far some 570 tourists have been reported killed, 470 in Thailand and 100 in Sri Lanka. In the whole of southeast Asia, some 3,500 tourists are missing; among them 1,500 Swedes (!), 440 Norwegians and 200 Fins. Among the killed tourists in Thailand are 54 Swedes, 49 Germans, 43 Brits, 36 Koreans and 9 Dutch.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

According to UN coordinator Elmquist, the death toll on Sumatra, in Atjeh, can rise to "somewhere between 50,000 and 80,000". He claimed that as many as 40,000 people in the city of Meubolah, a coastal city in Atjeh of 120,000 people, had died because of the tsunami. The Red Cross also fears that there have been many people killed on the Indian Andaman and Nicobar islands. The Swedish government fears as much as one thousand Swedes have died because of the tsunami. That for the latest updates.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

For some useful information you can use the following links:

BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/2004/asia_quake_disaster/default.stm

CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/asia.quake/index.html

Lankaweb
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/latest.html
- For the latest news about Sri Lanka

For people who are searching for relatives or friends:
Phuket Hospital (Thailand)
http://www.phuket-inter-hospital.co.th/vstoday_Forien.htm

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

Wave Toll 'Could Exceed 100,000'
December 29th 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4132725.stm

 

[Cosmo]

RE: Breaking News: Massiv

Rick ... I think it was you that posted the pic of the little boy. I just heard on CNN that he was recognized by relatives because of the internet pic and reunited with his father. The mom is still missing.

 

[Paranoid Dot Calm]

Yuh know;

All this talk on the news about water and waves is gettin' to me.

I went and got myself a glass of water this morning and I was so paranoid, I had to sneak up on it.

Calm

 

[Just the Facts]

Yuh know;

All this talk on the news about water and waves is gettin' to me.

I went and got myself a glass of water this morning and I was so paranoid, I had to sneak up on it.

Calm

Thanks for the comic relief, I needed that!!

Still laughing.

 

[Rick van Opbergen]

Rick ... I think it was you that posted the pic of the little boy. I just heard on CNN that he was recognized by relatives because of the internet pic and reunited with his father. The mom is still missing.

Yes, I've heard that. His grandmother and an uncle were eventually reunited with him, and not so long after that he was also reunited with his dad and his grandfather. I do hope his mom is OK, would be great for the boy.

Meanwhile, the death toll has risen to 116,000.

 

[snooker]

Hi ... What I thought was odd was I heard this morning on the radio station that I listen to that none of the animals where kill , How is it that they all made ?? Or was I misunderstood ??

 

[Matty]

I heard the same thing Snooker...what they said was that it was as if the animals knew something bad was going to happen, as they didnt see as many dead animals as people. Many think animals have a "sixth sense" about such things ..able to sense when an earthquake or any other natural disaster is about to happen. If only someone had seen this one comming