Tsunami devastates Pacific

[hundurinn]

130.000 are believed to be dead now. And they are predicting that number could go up to 200.000. 60.000 people are missing in Thailand. Iceland, which probably few know about is one of the richest nations in the world, only gave around 81.512$ People are furious and demand additional 5.000.000 - 15.000.000$ millions will be given.

[Red Peasant]

This is a rather poignant transcript of an interview with a survivor that was aired on the World Service, from the BBC website:


Arjuna Seneviratna, a 40-year-old IT consultant from Sri Lanka, lives in the capital Colombo but was staying in Beruwela on the south-western coast when the tsunami wave struck.

He witnessed the tsunami, and told the news and current affairs programme The World about the harrowing experience.

"When the first wave came in, we were happy that we were seeing something that was really strange, but it was a very mild wave. Then the sea receded back, and we didn't know what that meant.

It was like someone had pulled the plug on the ocean, and crags and outcroppings of rock inside the sea were visible for the first time in years.

We just watched it, and I was taking photographs of it. Then came this massive wall of water. What did I do? I just sat and watched it. I just watched it and watched it as it came in - it took maybe four seconds from the point when I was aware of it to the point when it hit the hotel.

Those four seconds were like a lifetime. Even if someone runs at you with a knife, you can hit him back, or run away or claim insurance or whatever. This time, there was nothing I could do. I could only watch, and it was coming in, and it hit the crags, and I saw those people on the crags just being flung into the air like confetti, just blown out of the water.

Then this thing hit the hotel - I was on the first floor of the building in the restaurant - and it was like a bomb hit it. I saw a part of it just get taken off.

I still kept watching. I don't know why - I think that my mind was so completely numbed by the phenomenon of this, and the power of what was happening. I just stood. I stood my ground, not because I'm Superman, or a superhero, but I didn't know what to think.

Very little was left standing after the wave hit Sri Lankan coastal resorts
And this thing blasted through - I heard windows just bursting, not breaking, but bursting. It's a very special sound. It was like a movie. I just watched the whole thing.

I watched it go - I watched it take so much away. I saw so much life terminating, that I was seriously wondering what was more difficult - whether to live watching death, or just to die.

I really don't know if my life was in danger. There were five hotels that were really hard-hit in Sri Lanka - one of them was the hotel that I was at. I know only one thing: that there is no hotel there now. I do not know how I lived.

I wasn't submerged in water. The problem is not being submerged in water - it's the sheer force of the destruction. I think I was relatively lucky that I was very close to the ocean - that meant that only water hit us.

But if I had been 150m (500 feet) inside the coastline I would have been hit by flying debris, by 250 cars, by brick walls, by reinforcement bars. I would not have drowned, I would have been beaten to death.

The only reason I think I survived was that the walls were relatively strong to withstand the initial impact.

Subsequently, literally, I just walked out in three feet (1m) of water. I had an extremely small cut.

But what is more important is not how you manage to survive a 30-second burst of a wave, it's how you manage to survive what comes afterwards, when you see men looking for their wives, when you see mothers looking for their children and screaming their names, when you see people that you have danced the night before away with, not accounted for.

That is when reality strikes.

The night before, I had been dancing. It was Christmas. We danced into the wee hours of the morning. With everyone, everyone bonded. There were Finns, there were Dutchmen and Dutchwomen, there were Brits, there were Japanese - I actually won a dance competition.

The next morning it was like it was a whole big family of 150 people. And then the next day I am seeing one of those people screaming for their loved ones.

Now, I'm drinking a lot. I do not think it helps because right now, I've got a bottle, and it's not helping me - I'm as lucid as ever, I've been lucid since then, and it really doesn't help. What do you do? What do you do?

It's like 9/11. I was on top of the continental ridge on the Rocky Mountains when 9/11 happened. I saw only one thing. What I saw, was what I heard - silence. You know what that the silence was? The silence was that all the planes had dropped out of the sky - and in America, at any given moment, if you look up into the sky, there are at least 10 planes up there. There's a drone, that nobody really notices, until the drone stops.

My nation is silent right now."



I don't think it lends any dignity to this difficult situation for people to brag about what country gives what, or accuse others of being stingy. People will give what they feel like. Anger and recrimination don't seem to be appropriate responses to an event of this scale. It is numbing. This catastrophe was of a magnitude that defies belief, and it happened and travelled so fast that most of these poor people would not have been able to get away in any event. It reminds us that we do not control this world.

[Big_John]

I don't think it lends any dignity to this difficult situation for people to brag about what country gives what, or accuse others of being stingy. People will give what they feel like. Anger and recrimination don't seem to be appropriate responses to an event of this scale.

to some degree.. but a person has the right to criticize their own government (which they support/are supported by) if they feel it is not acting appropriately. who cares about that abstract dignity when peoples lives are in the balance? if i were suddenly homeless and destitute, dignity would be somewhere below survival on my list.

[Red Peasant]

to some degree.. but a person has the right to criticize their own government (which they support/are supported by) if they feel it is not acting appropriately. who cares about that abstract dignity when peoples lives are in the balance? if i were suddenly homeless and destitute, dignity would be somewhere below survival on my list.

I think anger is also somewhat below survival for most of these poor people.

Though one can understand the anger and violence of those, for example, on the Andaman and Nicobar islands who are starving and dying of disease, yet they are denied foreign aid by their govt (India) because it refuses to acknowledge the need for help. What price national pride?

[Muneyoshi]

Now at a confirmed 150,000+ with an estimated total of around 500,000+ not to mention the injured, missing, or displaced. Keep in mind that 150,000+ is that though currently because a number of the counties (Indonesia mainly) arent keeping official counts at this current time because of the devastation, hence the estimed 500k+. Apparently a large number of people went to pick up fish off the seabed when the water receded shortly before it hit, especially children. If you look at the pic Templar provided you can see how far it receded.

Apparently 2 billion dollars in US currency has been given already (Japan has the most with 500 million, then USA with 350 million, the World Bank with 250 million, UK with 150 million, Sweden with 125 million.) Officials say that billions more will be needed, but thats to be expected.

Looks on course to be as bad as the Bhola Cyclone.

Oh and Tito, Fish is right: the area doesnt get tsunamis regularly, its actually quite rare in the Indian. The last large tsunami the area had seen was in 1883 when Krakatoa erupted

PS - Pics of a part of the Banda Aceh shore. Before

After