Posted on 12/27/2004 6:08:33 AM PST by NYer
The largest earthquake in the past 40 years and the resulting deaths of thousands from 33-foot tidal waves are being compared by an American reporter to descriptions of disaster from Holy Scripture.
"The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible – a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before," said Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who was swimming off a Sri Lankan island when the disaster struck this morning.
"As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold of a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat, next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran, as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road."
Officials at the U.S. Geological Survey the 9.0 quake centered off the Indonesian island of Sumatra was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the biggest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.
The temblor sparked a tsunami, a series of giant walls of water which left more than 14,000 dead in six countries, with the death toll continuing to rise.
Dobbs gives a first-person account of the dramatic event in the Post:
Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky. ... I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Come back! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea." ...
In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet – but the sea itself remained calm, barely a wave in sight. ...
After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I didn't realize was that the floodwaters would recede as dramatically as they had risen.
All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed. Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings and were furiously bobbing up and down.
For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being swept out to sea.
I swam in the direction of one of the loose catamarans, grabbed hold of the hull, and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down and soon I was stranded on the sand.
As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams and yells were coming from the houses behind the road, many of which were still half full of water, trapping the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking dazed along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.
I was worried about my wife who had been on the beach at the time I went for my swim. I eventually found her walking along the road, dazed and happy to be alive. She had been trying to wade back to our island, when the water had carried her across the road and into someone's back yard. At one point she was underwater, struggling for breath. She finally grabbed onto a piece of rope and climbed into a tree, while the waters raged beneath her.
An Italian scientist says the earthquake was so strong, it even disturbed the rotation of the Earth.
"All the planet is vibrating," Enzo Boschi, head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute said on SKY TG24 TV.
The U.S. State Department says at least three Americans are confirmed dead, two in Sri Lanka and one in Thailand.
A written statement from the White House says "the President expresses his sincere condolences for the terrible loss of life and suffering caused by the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis in the region of the Bay of Bengal.
"The United States stands ready to offer all appropriate assistance to those nations most affected including Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, and Indonesia, as well as the other countries impacted. Already relief is flowing to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We will work with the affected governments, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, and other concerned states and organizations to support the relief and response to this terrible tragedy."
Relief agencies say the full scale of the disaster is impossible to assess, since communications have been cut to remote areas.
Certainly an interesting and at least somewhat plausible perspective.
Personally, I don't think we're there yet.
I suspect that the bag of gold for a loaf of bread will be a longer than brief period--much longer.
I also have a hunch that the leveling of the land and no sea will come at the end of the 1,000 years of Peace.
But none of this is a 'set-in-stone' issue with me at all.
I just want to live close to God and walk with Him regardless.
A common perspective.
Doesn't happen to be what The Bible says. Christ chided the religious rulers for being able to tell the signs of the weather but not the signs of the times. HE went on to exhort Believers to be alert for THE END TIMES with oil in their trimmed lamps and extra oil (Holy Spirit, evidently) stored, so to speak. IN Matt 24 He outline some factors.
History has had some periods when maybe 3-4 factors SEEMED to be in the critical direction. Now we have dozens and dozens AS NEVER before in history.
Key among them--Israel becoming a nation again IN A DAY in 1948 as Scripture predicted.
Anyways, I was driving due west this morning and the sun was in the south.
One of those "Oh, Sh**" moments!!
The Professor must be liberal, makes a one sentence statement. No details, no facts just says it, so it must be true.
Lousy journalism or lousy professor or both?
"I don't understand this. Did we stand still for a while? Did we jump forward, backward, slow, speed up? In what way did it affect our rotation and what is the data for this conclusion? If it did affect our rotation, everything will be affected. So, is this an emotional response or does the scientist have some measurements to back it up?"
Those are my thoughts......sounds like "Chicken Little" hysteria (IMO)
Affected the planet's rotation???
Totally absurd!
I have seen many Jews use that notation.
I have asked and been told because people are not supposed to use the full name of God.
Still enjoy your posts.
Thanks! I'm still a skeptic, too. Tragic as this event is, the world is filled with idiots willing to use these deaths and random mechanics of the earth as a pretext for their idiot agendas. I have no doubt that these deathes will be laid at the feet of global warming, not enough US aid, too much US insularity and all of the rest of the usual litany.
Too true.
I don't mind speculations. I speculate a lot.
But the hostile certain that their construction on reality is the absolutely pristinely accurate one and that set in gold gilded concrete . . . give me a break.
Please excuse my ignorance of the subject and jumping in here, but Hasidic Jews believe in God... I don't understand the problem with using his name as long as it's not in vain?
Some sects, both Jewish and Christian, think it improper to write or say "GOD", so they leave out the vowel, so that the reader will still know what they mean, but they won't be offending "G-D".
It's a form of reverance. Chill.
Unless of course the earth sheds a big chunk of matter on it's own, or a smaller amount at high speed. That would carry off some of the angular momentum. For example, if you mounted the Mother of All Rockets at the equator directed opposite to the spin of the earth, you could theoretically stop the spin and even reverse it.
I know that you know that, but thought I'd clarify a bit. It's a closed system that conserves angular momentum. The force (or more properly torque) need not come from outside.
Angular momentum, like linear momentum, is a not a scaler quantity. It has a value and a direction. If you've changed the direction, you've changed it.
You forgot to stand up first?
[grin]
Not at all. You have a 600 mile piece of rock moving tens of feet. It will affect things, although not all that much, since the earth is very large, even compared to a 600 mile long chunck of it's own crust.
.I've heard this rumor but not from what I consider a reliable source. Do you have a reliable source?
The Philippines was not damaged by this event. The problem with "prophesy" is that it's rarely if ever 100% accurate. What good is a 95% "true" prophesy? How would you know what part of it to rely on, which part to ignore?
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