Our condolences goes to the victims of the 8.9 EarthQuake & Tsunami

[Spices]

At a time of joy comes sorrow and pain. My prayers are for all those who became a victim to the recent occurence of the 8.9 (Richter Scale) earthquake and tsunami in the areas of Indonesia, India, Jakarta, and more. What a devastation! We all hope you overcome and rebuild towards a better community and a better system of awareness.

Regards,
*Angie*
:angel:

[nanik]

At a time of joy comes sorrow and pain. My prayers are for all those who became a victim to the recent occurence of the 8.9 (Richter Scale) earthquake and tsunami in the areas of Indonesia, India, Jakarta, and more. What a devastation! We all hope you overcome and rebuild towards a better community and a better system of awareness.

Regards,
*Angie*
:angel:

Hi,

I'm from Jakarta, and we are pretty lucky nothing terrible to us, but some part of the Sumatra island are not as fortunate. Most of the casualties are around Aceh. I read in the local newspaper that 1,847 people are dead.

The earthquake was recorded at 8.9 at the depth of 40KM.

Thanks

[Spices]

Hi Nanik,

Pretty shocking the numbers in the country you're from are low. Many more perished all in that area and the numbers are continuing to rise over 13,000! That is shocking. I sure would hope more will get done in order to have less casualties. If people had been informed about the huge EarthQuake near Antartica and Australia (8.1) I would think that people would gather their belongings and prepare for the worse. However, my question is what could they have done to prevent a highcount fatality? How can an island avoid the ocean's swell of over 30 feet high?

*Angie*

[discus4life]

Hi Nanik,

Pretty shocking the numbers in the country you're from are low. Many more perished all in that area and the numbers are continuing to rise over 13,000! That is shocking. I sure would hope more will get done in order to have less casualties. If people had been informed about the huge EarthQuake near Antartica and Australia (8.1) I would think that people would gather their belongings and prepare for the worse. However, my question is what could they have done to prevent a highcount fatality? How can an island avoid the ocean's swell of over 30 feet high?

*Angie*
please guysa dont remind me cause i have a buddy out there and have not heard from him yet. i am hoping for the best

[Moon]

Worst hit was Sri Lanka. 10,000 deaths todate and will increase as time goes by. I have many relatives there. Heard from some and the fate of the others is not known. I would request your prayers for those unfortunate people.

[Spices]

Yeah, it's steadily climbing. The death count I predict will be in the 40,000 range. I cried at the site of seeing people (children, animals, etc.) floating in the ocean.

I recommend all of us to storage water just in case of another devastation. I get the feeling that we may have another hit like that in the nearby time. It won't hurt to keep water bottles and extra batteries for laptops, radios, televisions, etc. The epicenter (cause) was centrally hit but from the East. It effected the planet's axis point.

I remembered looking up at the skies on December 25th, 2004 and noticed the moon was bright and full. I had an idea that something was bound to occur; I never thought I'd be so right.

Still my prayers go to the victims from Africa thru the region of Indonesia, India and more.

Regards,
*Angie* :angel: :angel: :angel:

[beta]

India has been pretty badly hit too. There has been a lot of casualties in the city I live in. Most of them were children playing on the beach, people who were out for a morning walk on the beach and Fishermen.

http://sify.com/news/imagegallery_slideshow.php?gid=13636943&imgidx=1&gname=Tsunami+shocks+Chennai&lid=1&gord=D&view=

[Spices]

India has been pretty badly hit too. There has been a lot of casualties in the city I live in. Most of them were children playing on the beach, people who were out for a morning walk on the beach and Fishermen.

http://sify.com/news/imagegallery_slideshow.php?gid=13636943&imgidx=1&gname=Tsunami+shocks+Chennai&lid=1&gord=D&view=

Thanks for the link, Beta...

I had to type in the link using the "sify.com" and then going onto that website and clicking "news." I knew it would hit over 40,000. Jet Li is fortunate as well as Nate Backus (sp?) from the Home Makeover show. My concern now holds to the aftermath. Usually after a quake comes small but consecutive movements. Where this may be and when is beyond our thinking. Just that we all need to be cautious. I'm on the Eastern neck of the USA and I worry because we're on an island set.

*Angie*

[brewmaster15]

My condolences to those who lost loved ones in this tragedy. Tens of thousands dead in such an unexpected way.. It breaks my heart. I have been reading the news reports all morning...so many families torn apart, so many innocent children dead, so many lives that won't be lived.

I look at my children and think of my loved ones and know how lucky I am.

I wish all those suffering from this tragedy the courage and strength to carry on.

-al

[roclement]

my heart and prayers are with all of you and your families...

Rodrigo

[Stephish]

To those of us who have the good fortune to be safe and healthy in our own homes with our families as the New Year approaches, please give as generously as you can to the organizations who are engaging in relief efforts. At times like this one feels so helpless, and yet the world only really changes through many small acts.

Wishing everyone peace and good health for 2005.

[Spices]

I couldn't agree with you any more. Many of us are just a paycheck away from being in poverty. I, personally, am dedicating to give aid (whether it is the purchase of clean sanitized paper towels or donating funds). We all live on this Earth and we all are human beings first and we all have feelings too. It will only be good if we all seek ways at giving aid to one another.

Regards,
*Angie*

[wildthing]

I cannot imagine a richter 9 quake as this one turned out to be. I was in a couple , 6.8 & a 7 when I lived in LA in the 80's and that scared the crap outa me.
There are still about 150 Brits missing and thousands of Americans.

There is some interesting ( to me anyway) stories coming from the region .
Some of the survival stories are amazing.
Some reports note that altho there are now over 155 thousand human casualties and rising, not a single wild animal body has been found..implying that they all somehow were warned, through their senses......which makes me wonder how we can be so out of tune with our environment compared to the other land inhabitants of this planet.

" when Atlas shrugs civilizations crumble"

[wildthing]

Do animals really know if disaster is about to strike?
By Nigel Hawkes
Elephants are said to have fled the tsunami, but such tales have abounded for centuries
IN THE past two weeks there have been stories galore of how animals sensed the approaching danger and fled inland.

In Khao Lak, Thailand, elephant handlers claimed that they owed their lives to their animals’ “sixth sense”. Kirtsada Salangam, 20, a mahout, said: “I was surprised to see my elephant and the others scream since early morning on the day the waves hit.” The elephants broke their leg chains and stampeded towards the hills.

In Sri Lanka people marvelled at how elephants, leopards, deer and wild boar in the Yala National Park apparently escaped unscathed.

Flocks of birds were also seen flying inland on the morning of the disaster.

Such stories are nothing new. Ever since 373 BC, when rats, weasels and snakes are said to have deserted the Greek city of Helice just before it was demolished by an earthquake, animals have been widely believed to have powers of detection denied to human beings.

The idea gained widespread currency in 1975, when the Chinese authorities successfully evacuated the city of Haicheng several hours before a major earthquake struck. The decision to clear the city was said to have been based on observations of animal behaviour, and to have saved 90,000 lives.

After that, serious studies were carried out in the US and Japan, and some enthusiasts swear by the power of animal prediction. One retired geologist, James Berkland of Santa Clara County in California, said that he could predict earthquakes with greater than 75 per cent accuracy simply by counting the “lost pet” advertisements in his local paper.

But geologists who have checked his statistics are sceptical, and many believe that in the wake of such traumatic events people see patterns that never existed.

The US Geological Survey carried out a project in the 1970s, and concluded: “Even though there have been documented cases of unusual animal behaviour prior to earthquakes, a reproducible connection between a specific behaviour and the occurrence of an earthquake has not been made.”

The British Geological Survey has done no comparable research, but Roger Musson, a seismologist, has kept up with the literature. He said that studies carried out in Japan struck him as interesting.

“In the first, a tank of catfish were kept in a laboratory and observed for 10 to 15 years to see if their behaviour changed before earthquakes. It didn’t, so that was a failure.

“A second study collected all the data that was available about zoo animals, and how they behaved before earthquakes. But the problem always is that data tend to be biased: we don’t have reports of animals behaving oddly when there is no earthquake.

“I’ve got a cat at home, and he often behaves oddly. With hindsight, it would be easy if something happened to say he must have sensed it.”

There has been at least one attempt to reproduce the effect experimentally, again in Japan. In this case, Dr Musson said, the experiment consisted of slowly crushing rock in a laboratory full of animals, and observing if they behaved oddly just before the rock disintegrated.

“The report of this experiment, in a Japanese journal, said that the animals did respond, and that at the same time electrical emissions were produced. That is quite interesting,” he said.

The US research includes a 1985 study published in Geophysical Research Letters that involved interviewing 59 households near Willits, California, and 35 near Ovando, Montana, about the behaviour of their pets. In California, 17 families reported strange behaviour before a quake, but in Montana, only one family did.

William Kautz was involved in the study but he said that he would not do it again. “It’s not workable,” he said. “The problems is that the hypothesis is too broad. “You’ve got three different areas where there’s a big range of variability — the animals, the earthquakes themselves, and the kinds of behaviours the animals might exhibit. So what is the hypothesis that we’re testing? It’s all over the map.”

[Spices]

Hi David, a very good article. Thanks.

Does any one know what became of Thai Discus (Farms)? And any information from India would be helpful, too. I'm not sure which areas in India my friend has traveled to, but I have been looking for my friend and have not been able to contact him over in India. The lines do not cross over. It's not looking very good. I pray for my pal's safe return and hope his family can overcome the devastation in India, too.

Any information about India is helpful. Thanks. :angel:

Regards,
*Angie*

[nacra99]

You know... i hear so much about the terrible devestation and loss of life and property, but being in the U.S safe and sound, I have to admit that i really could not grasp the extent of the devestation in Asia...... Until i saw this ....

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html (http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/9.html)

Even so.... it's hard to imagine what it must feel like on scene...
Deepest condolences to people who have lost friends and family..
And to all the people directly affected, my prayers are with you.

Marc