Tidal wave toll jumps to 20,000 in southern Asia

Associated Press ^ | 27 DEC 2004 | Staff Reporter

[roaddog727]

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A military spokesman raised the estimated number of deaths in Sri Lanka caused by devastating tidal waves by more than 5,000 people on Monday, raising the death toll from the regional catastrophe to just under 20,000 people.

[roaddog727]

WOW.

9.0 on the Richter Scale.

Unimaginable devastation.

[Imaverygooddriver]

Have they blamed Bush yet? I guess we`ll see it this morning in the NY Times. The libs will come up with some reason, probably a US nuclear sub or ship upset the plates in the earth triggering the tsunami and they were told not to go near this section of the earth but Bush told them to, then Hitlery Clinton and Ted blotto Kennedy will hold press conferences to denounce this outrage.

[Rebelbase]

I think the scenario will be that Bush had an attack sub fire a nuclear torpedo at a submarine fault line in order to induce this mass earthquake and tidal waves so as to draw attention away from the falling dollar.

[gortklattu]

It wasn't a nuclear warhead, it was a tobacco warhead financed by Halliburton.

[Bon mots]

Reuters is reporting it at over 21,500 now.

[Non-Sequitur]

Wait till Rush comes on today. He'll find someway to blame it on Clinton.

[Rebelbase]

mmmm...To cause a quake that big it would have to have been stronger than a tobacco warhead.

Tomacco, perhaps?

[Route101]

Give it a few minutes....It will be Georges fault....

[ThanhPhero]

Your screen name is quite apt.

[glockmeister40]

The media is saying the tidal wave is only 20 feet tall. I can't understand how a 20 foot wave can cause this much loss of life and property. Is the wave actually much bigger?

[eccentric]

Georges 'fault'? as in faultline?

[Rick.Donaldson]

A "wall of water" a few inches in height will wash cars away. 20 feet of water, as a wall, is simply packed with pure kinetic energy. I can't even imagine a 20 foot high wall of water and I've seen plenty of flash floods that are 2, 3 or even 5 feet in height. They are devastating themselves.

[Ticonderoga34]

How will the libs blame Bush? That's a easy question.

Since liberals can't blame an earthquake on "global warning" the libs will say the Bush administration didn't spend enough money and resources on the rescue/cleanup effort. And that is why people around the world hate America. Because the U.S./Bush administration doesn't give the peoples of the world enough money. Of course Bush could have given more money, but Bush spent too much money on the Iraqi war.

Remember this post because a week from now, I will have been proven right....unfortunately.

[Blowtorch]

Have they blamed Bush yet?

Can we get past politics and sarcasm on this one? It's the same thing thread after thread when we should be worrying about the victims. Sheesh.

[jla]

At least you acknowledge that you listen to Rush. Usually those who malign him say they "never tune in".

"Pay attention, Non-Sequitur,
and you might just learn something"

[Condor51]

The media is saying the tidal wave is only 20 feet tall. I can't understand how a 20 foot wave can cause this much loss of life and property.

Uh maybe because Asians are 'little' people.

Ok seriously... the force contained in a wall of water 20 Feet High is .. technically speaking .. 'humongous'.

It's that physics thing, Newton's 2nd law; F=ma (force = mass x acceleration)
Remember one gallon of water weighs is 8.345lbs and a cubic foot of water weighs 62.428lbs. And the speed of this tidal wave has been estimated at 500MPH. Do the math and it's self explanatory.

[roaddog727]

Take into account that all of the places that were hit don't rise more than 5 feet above mean sea-level. So, imagine a wall of water 20 feet high that keeps on coming and coming.

[Modernman]

Take into account that all of the places that were hit don't rise more than 5 feet above mean sea-level.

Many of the places that were hit were actually below sea-level.

[roaddog727]

Yep,

Decks-awash territory.

[RayChuang88]

I can't understand how a 20 foot wave can cause this much loss of life and property.

You're forgetting that there are very large numbers of people living along the coasts of India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Even a 20-30 foot tsunami will cause huge numbers of casualties, to say the least.

And we ended up being very lucky this time. If the earthquake had just occurred two to three hours later the death toll might have reached 100,000 or more as the beaches where the tsunamis hit would have been filled with a lot more people.