Asian Tsunamis Kill at Least 20,000 People

AP ^ | 12/26/04 | DILIP GANGULY

[Central Scrutiniser]

Blah blah blah.

[Jon Alvarez]

"For you to take such a stupid narrow view of this situation and apply your idiotic biases to the situation is beyond childish. "

"And it is definitely not God like."

"Everyone is entitled to their opinions"

---

Yet YOU are the one who chose to castigate me for mine...and judge me. Good grief.

[TexKat]

Well, what you have posted regarding this matter in my viewpoint is not God like.

But yes you are entitled to your opinion.

[TexKat]

Yet YOU are the one who chose to castigate me for mine

Castigate!! I am not castigating you, I simply have a difference of opinion.

[TexKat]

Your first post on this matter on this thread is post #64:

note who Thailand has turned to for help...the USA...

Now, has Thailand withdrawn its troops from Iraq yet? Supposedly they were. If not, we should send over a similar amount of aid. If so, tell them sorry, all of our forces are picking up the slack...maybe next year?

note who Thailand has turned to for help...the USA...

Do you have a link for that? Where did you get your info?

I heard on cable news that the US had offered assistance first and at that time Thailand had not responded. I did find this: IMF, US pledge support for tsunami-torn South Asia

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush expressed his condolences to the victims of the massive earthquake and tidal waves that hit southern and southeast Asia. The State Department said three Americans have been identified as being among those killed.

Deputy presidential press secretary Trent Duffy said in a statement, "The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected."

The statement said US relief efforts were already underway to help people in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, a string of 1,192 coral atolls off the southwestern coast of India. "We will work with the affected governments, the United Nations, non-governmental organisations, and other concerned states and organisations to support the relief and response to this terrible tragedy," said the statement.

Now, has Thailand withdrawn its troops from Iraq yet? Supposedly they were. If not, we should send over a similar amount of aid. If so, tell them sorry, all of our forces are picking up the slack...maybe next year?

According to the following article dated 12/26/04 Thailand troops are still in Iraq. Read the article in the following attached link and let me know what your opinion if any you have.

Crackdown by premier strains Thailand's friendship with U.S.

BTW do you recall if Iran ever accepted the aide that the US offered to them after the earthquake in Bam last year? Did the US offer North Korea aide after the explosion they had earlier this year?

[TexKat]

Correction

Thailand's troops have withdrew from Iraq.

Thailand troops start pull-out from Iraq

Bangkok, August 27, 2004

[TexKat]

Newsfeed

TSUNAMI DAMAGE

[TexKat]

Acehnese people walk past a destroyed market building in Banda Aceh Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. Aceh province was one of the few places hit by both southern Asia's massive earthquake and the tsunamis it caused, a double blow that killed thousands and wreaked so much devastation that separatists fighting a decades-long insurgency called a temporary cease-fire. (AP Photo/ Achmad Ibrahim)

Asian Disaster Death Toll Passes 22,000

Unidentified western tourists wait to leave Phuket, Thailand, Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. More than 900 people have been killed in Thailand following a massive tsunami that struck the island on Sunday. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Unidentified western tourists sleep at the Phuket, Thailand, airport Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. More than 900 people in Thailand have been killed following a tsunami wave that struck the popular beach resort area Sunday. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)

A large statue of the Buddha stands among the debris in a street hard hit by a tidal wave early Sunday, as police stand guard to keep the peace and guard the buildings from looters in the southern Sri Lankan town of Galle, Monday Dec. 27, 2004.The death toll from the massive tidal waves that struck Sri Lankas coastline leapt to more than 12,000 on Monday as thousands of soldiers and familieas kept up the search for bodies. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel)

A damaged car sits in front of Baiturrahman mosque in Banda Aceh Monday, Dec 27, 2004. Streets in Banda Aceh, about 150 miles from southern Asia's massive earthquake's epicenter, were filled with bloated corpses, dead cows and animals and overturned cars. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

[TexKat]

A seismograph read-out shows the magnitude of the quake that rocked Indonesia and unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia. It was so powerful, geophysicists said, that it made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional map(AFP/File)

Rescuers scoured the sea for missing tourists and fishermen in Asia on December 27, 2004 and fears of disease grew as emergency services struggled with rotting bodies from a devastating tsunami that killed more than 22,700 people. (Reuters Graphic)

Girls run over a road damaged by tidal waves at the Silver Beach area of Cuddalore, India, Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. More than 22,000 people are reported dead around southern Asia and as far away as Somalia on Africas eastern coast, most killed by massive tidal waves that smashes coastlines after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Indonesias coast on Sunday, followed by aftershocks in the region. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

[TexKat]

Residents walk past damaged market buildings in Banda Aceh Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. Aceh province was one of the few places hit by both southern Asia's massive earthquake and the tsunamis it caused, a double blow that killed thousands and wreaked so much devastation that separatists fighting a decades-long insurgency called a temporary cease-fire. (AP Photo/ Achmad Ibrahim)

[TexKat]

Residents walk past damaged market buildings in Banda Aceh Monday, Dec. 27, 2004. Aceh province was one of the few places hit by both southern Asia's massive earthquake and the tsunamis it caused, a double blow that killed thousands and wreaked so much devastation that separatists fighting a decades-long insurgency called a temporary cease-fire. (AP Photo/ Achmad Ibrahim)

[Chani]

ping

[Jon Alvarez]

do you always argue with yourself, LOL?

[TexKat]

Good morning.

do you always argue with yourself, LOL?

No not always, but sometimes.

[TexKat]

Asia Struggles As Death Toll Hits 44,000

By ANDI DJATMIKO, Associated Press Writer

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia - Mourners in Sri Lanka used their bare hands to dig graves Tuesday while hungry islanders in Indonesia turned to looting in the aftermath of Asia's devastating tsunamis. Thousands more bodies were found in Indonesia, dramatically increasing the death toll across 11 nations to around 44,000.

Emergency workers who reached Aceh province at the northern tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island found that 10,000 people had been killed in a single town, Meulaboh, said Purnomo Sidik, national disaster director at the Social Affairs Ministry.

Another 9,000 were confirmed dead so far in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, and surrounding towns, he said. Soldiers and volunteers combed seaside districts and dug into rubble of destroyed houses to seek survivors and retrieve the dead amid unconfirmed reports that other towns along Aceh's west coast had been demolished.

With aid not arriving quick enough, desperate residents in Meulaboh and other towns in Aceh — a region that was unique in that it was struck both by Sunday's massive quake and the killer waves that followed — were turning to looting.

"It is every person for themselves here," district official Tengku Zulkarnain told el-Shinta radio station from the area.

"People are looting, but not because they are evil, but they are hungry," said Red Cross official Irman Rachmat in Banda Aceh.

In Sri Lanka, the toll also mounted significantly. Around 1,000 people were dead or missing and feared dead from a train that was flung off its tracks when the gigantic waves hit. Rescuers pulled 204 bodies from the train's eight carriages — reduced to twisted metal — and cremated or buried them Tuesday next to the railroad track that runs along the coastline.

More than 18,700 people died in Sri Lanka, more than 4,000 in India and more than 1,500 in Thailand, with numbers expected to rise. The Indonesian vice president's estimate that his country's coastlines held up to 25,000 victims would bring the potential toll up to 50,000.

Europeans desperately sought relatives missing from holidays in Southeast Asia — particularly Thailand, where bodies littered the once crowded beach resorts. Near the devastated Similan Beach and Spa Resort, where mostly German tourists were staying, a naked corpse hung suspended from a tree Tuesday as if crucified.

A blond two-year-old Swedish boy, Hannes Bergstroem, found sitting alone on a road in Thailand and taken to a hospital was reunited with his uncle, who saw the boy's picture on the hospital's Web site.

"This is a miracle, the biggest thing that could happen," said the uncle, who identified himself as Jim.

So far, more than 80 Westerners have been confirmed dead across the region — including 11 Americans. But a British consulate official in Thailand warned that hundreds more foreign tourists were likely killed in the country's resorts.

In Sri Lanka, more than 300 people crammed into the Infant Jesus Church at Orrs Hill, located on high ground from their ravaged fishing villages. Families and childres slept on pews and the cement floor.

"We had never seen the sea looking like that. It was like as if a calm sea had suddenly become a raging monster," said one woman, Haalima, recalling the giant wave that swept away her 5-year-old grandson, Adil.

Adil was making sandcastles with his younger sister, Reeze, while Haalima sat in her home Sunday morning. Haalima said the girl ran to her complaining that waves had crushed their castles, then came screams and water entered the home. "When we looked, there was no shore anymore and no Adil," she said.

In Sri Lanka's severely hit town of Galle, officials mounted a loudspeaker on a fire engine to advise residents to lay bodies of the dead on roads for collection and burial. Elsewhere in Sri Lanka, residents took on burial efforts with forks or even bare hands to scrape a final resting place for victims.

The tidal waves and flooding uprooted land mines in war-torn Sri Lanka, threatening to kill or maim aid workers and survivors who are attempting to return to what's left of their homes.

Amid the devastation, however, were some miraculous stories of survival.

In Malaysia, a 20-day-old baby was found alive on a floating mattress. She and her family were later reunited. A Hong Kong couple vacationing in Thailand clung to a mattress for six hours.

The disaster could be history's costliest, with "many billions of dollars" of damage, said U.N. Undersecretary Jan Egeland, who is in charge of emergency relief coordination.

Hundreds of thousands have lost everything, and millions face a hazardous future because of polluted drinking water, a lack of sanitation and no health services, he said.

Scores of people were also killed in Malaysia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives. The tidal waves traveled as far as Somalia, where hundreds were reported dead, and Seychelles, where three were killed.

Children have emerged as the biggest victims of Sunday's quake-born tidal waves. The U.N. organization estimates at least one-third of the tens of thousands who died were children, said UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside in New York.

Officials in Thailand and Indonesia conceded that immediate public warnings of gigantic waves could have saved lives. The only known warning issued by Thai authorities reached resort operators when it was too late. The waves hit Sri Lanka and India more than two hours after the quake.

But governments insisted they couldn't have known the true danger because there is no international system in place to track tsunamis in the Indian Ocean, and they could not afford the sophisticated equipment to build one.

For most people around the shores across the region, the only warning Sunday of the disaster came when shallow coastal waters disappeared, sucked away by the approaching tsunami, before returning as a massive wall of water. The waves wiped out villages, lifted cars and boats, yanked children from the arms of parents and swept away beachgoers, scuba divers and fishermen.

The United States dispatched disaster teams and prepared a $15 million aid package to the Asian countries, and the 25-nation European Union) promised to deliver $4 million. Japan, Portugal, China and Russia were sending teams of experts.

Egeland said he expected hundreds of relief airplanes from two dozen countries within the next 48 hours.

[TexKat]

An aerial view shows tunami-damaged Meulaboh town, West Aceh, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004. Indonesia has so far confirmed the deaths of around 5,000 people as a result of Sunday's quake and the tsunamis it triggered across Asia and Africa. Most of the deaths in Indonesia have been in Aceh province, on the northern tip of Sumatra Island. (AP Photo/ANTARA)

Asian disaster toll surges past 55,000 as relief operations stall

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP) - Logistical problems hampered a massive humanitarian relief operation along Asia's devastated shores as the death toll from a huge earthquake and killer tidal waves surged past 55,000.

With the scale of the catastrophe rapidly unfolding, the confirmed number of dead in 10 countries shot up to 55,175, with Indonesia's Aceh province accounting for half of those killed, or 27,174.

In Sri Lanka, 17,640 are dead.

The fear that outbreaks of disease could unleash a second wave of tragedy on a region struggling to cope with the first also loomed large with decomposing bodies and sewerage contaminating water sources.

In some areas food and medicines were in desperately short supply.

In India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, where at least 4,000 people are confirmed dead, coastguard officials said the toll on Car Nicobar alone could top 10,000.

Police said they had received no word from dozens of islands in the Andaman and Nicobar chain which stretch over 800 kilometres (496 miles) and were close to the epicentre of the earthquake.

In Thailand, the toll rose to 1,516, with 8,432 injured and about 1,200 listed as missing, the interior ministry said.

More than 700 foreign tourists are believed to be among those killed, and relatives across Europe were desperately seeking news of missing loved ones.

The quake Sunday, the biggest in 40 years at 9.0 on the Richter scale, ruptured the Indian Ocean seabed off Indonesia's Sumatra island, sending huge waves thousands of kilometres (miles) to kill and destroy in countries around southern and southeast Asia and even in Africa.

In Indonesia, the death toll leapt suddenly as casualties were tallied from Aceh Jaya, an isolated region on the northwestern coast of badly-hit Sumatra island which lies less than 150 kilometres (120 miles) from the quake's epicentre.

Officials have said the figure is expected to keep climbing.

Bodies continued to be pulled from washed out trains, cars and smashed buildings in Sri Lanka, as the death toll jumped above 17,000.

Mass funerals were taking place across the region amid scenes of traumatic grief as bodies lay rotting along coastlines to a point where identification was no longer possible.

"The people should be buried and the animals should be destroyed and disposed of before they infect the drinking water. It's a massive operation," said UN disaster relief coordinator Jan Egeland.

Gruesome scenes met emergency teams in the worst hit countries of Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand, while the death tolls ticked up even in the less affected areas of Malaysia, the Maldives and Myanmar.

As survivors were evacuated from stricken areas tales of the full horror of carnage wrought by the tidal waves emerged: babies torn from their parents' hands, children and the elderly hurled out to sea from their homes, entire villages swept away.

Hundreds of rescue ships, helicopters and planes were mobilised to evacuate tourists from wrecked resorts and airlift stricken victims to hospitals already overflowing with the injured and corpses.

The UN's Egeland told a press conference at its headquarters in New York that relief operations would be the biggest ever as the destruction was not confined to one country or region.

"The cost of the devastation will be in the billions of dollars. It would probably be many billions of dollars," he said.

As events unfolded, aid agencies warned that the threat of disease was growing, but efforts to rush relief to the worst-hit areas met logistical problems, particularly in remote Aceh at the far northern tip of Sumatra island.

"It is going to be a huge problem getting relief even out of the airport," Michael Enquist, the head of the United Nations Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP of Aceh.

Even though the region was crying out for body bags and sanitation, and aid as flooding in, there was no way of getting it to where it was most needed.

"There is no petrol, no food, no water and no vehicles available," he said.

In Sri Lanka, drinking water wells were already badly contaminated with sea water, government minister Susil Premajayantha said, but the biggest fear is of water contamination by decomposing bodies which could spark epidemics of cholera and typhoid, experts warned.

"The biggest health challenges we are facing are the spread of waterborne diseases," said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies health official Hakan Sandbladh.

Compounding the problem is the huge number of people left homeless, and a lack of food.

In Aceh province, a lone SOS call from police in cut-off Meulaboh said looting had broken out and starvation loomed.

"If within three to four days relief does not arrive, there will be a starvation disaster that will cause mass deaths," chief police detective Rilo Pambudi said in the e-mail, released by officials in Jakarta.

In southern India, vultures gathered as survivors grimly buried or burnt their dead. The number of dead passed 8,500 Tuesday.

Tens of thousands spent the night huddling in emergency relief camps as the government stepped up relief efforts and the Indian Red Cross appealed for food, clothes and tarpaulins.

In the worst-hit Indian state of Tamil Nadu, fisherman A. Ravi wept as he recalled watching his family, including four children, swept away as his village was flattened.

"We went fishing in the early morning and a few hours later the water started swirling around us and suddenly the level went down so sharply we could see the seabed," said Ravi.

"Then I saw a huge sheet of water going towards the shore... when I got back I found my village under water and my family gone," he said.

Similar stories of personal tragedy were repeated throughout the region, with new horrors revealed each time rescuers reach previously cut off areas.

As countries mobilised their resources thelp the victims, dazed foreigners began flying home -- still struggling to come to grips with what had happened.

The waves triggered by the quake were so powerful that the destruction reached the shores of Africa about 7,000 kilometres (4,000 miles) away, killing more than 100 Somali fishermen.

The tragedy has sparked a growing chorus of calls for a tsunami alert system, as many victims were swept from coastlines hours after the quake which triggered the giant waves was recorded.

A boat passes by a damaged hotel, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004, at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, in Thailand. Officials said around 44,000 people were killed in 11 countries in southern Asia and Africa after massive tsunami waves smashed coastlines Sunday morning. The Thai government said more than 1,500 people died, among them more than 700 tourists. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

This undated publicity photo shows supermodel Petra Nemcova. Nemcova was injured and her boyfriend, British photographer Simon Atlee was missing after the pair were caught up in the Asian tsunami disaster, a spokeswoman for Atlee, said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Simon Atlee,File)

Cranes lift vehicles and scattered debris in between hotels along Patong Beach on Phuket Island, Thailand on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 as rescue and clean-up efforts commence following the tsunami that killed thousands of people. (CP PHOTO/Deddeda Stemler)

An aerial view taken from a helicopter shows debris of houses destroyed by tsunamis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, Dec.28, 2004. Families of the dead used cooking utensils and even their bare hands to dig graves in the aftermath of a huge tidal wave in Sri Lanka, as rescuers searching through the debris uncovered thousands of bodies Tuesday. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Rescue and clean-up crew survey a flooded lobby at the Seapearl Beach Hotel along Patong Beach on Phuket Island, Thailand, on Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 after massive tsunami waves smashed coastlines Sunday morning. The government said 1,516 people died, among them more than 700 tourists. (AP Photo/ CP, Deddeda Stemler)

A mother, along with her two children, sits in the Indian Air Force AN32 plane as they are evacuated from Cambal Bay, in India's southeastern Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004. About 40,000 people are reported dead around southern Asia and as far away as Somalia on Africa's eastern coast, most killed by massive tidal waves that smashed coastlines after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Indonesia's coast on Sunday, followed by aftershocks in the region (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

Swede Carl Michael Bergman of Stockholm holds his son Hannes, 1 year old, while talking about his missing wife, Cecilia Bergman, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 in Phuket, Thailand. Cecilia Bergman was missing after a massive tidal wave struck the beachside resort the couple was staying in north of Phuket, Thailand. More than 1,500 people in Thailand have been killed in the tsunami, among them more than 700 tourists. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)

Search and rescue workers lift a body onto a pier, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004, in Phuket, Thailand. Soldiers used bulldozers Tuesday to push into a strip of Thai luxury resorts destroyed by tidal waves, and picked the bodies of European tourists from ruined gardens and suites. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

Debris is scattered where bungalows and shops formerly stood, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004, at Ton Sai Bay on Phi Phi Island, in Thailand. Soldiers used bulldozers Tuesday to push into a strip of Thai luxury resorts destroyed by tidal waves, and picked the bodies of European tourists from ruined gardens and suites. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

Bodies lay in front of a shop area near Takuapa, Thailand, Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004, following a massive tsunami which hit the beach resort area of southern Thailand Sunday, Dec. 26, 2004. More than 1000 people, many of them western tourist, have been killed in the tidal wave and thousand are listed as injured. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)

[Jon Alvarez]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1309689/posts

Sri Lanka's sentiments towards our friends the Israelis...wow, now I'm really fired up to send all of our hard earned money over there!

[Jon Alvarez]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1309689/posts

Those nice, anti-semitic Sri Lankans...

[jetson]

When it comes to fast kills, nature has it hands down.

[TexKat]

True dat, jetson.