Thank goodness Nate survived the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, his friend is missing. Nate on CNN


Edited to add: I'm changing the title of this thread since it is such a widespread tragedy. I still can't believe the death toll.

[ December 28, 2004, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Mariner Duck Boy ]

Yeah 14,000 or so people died but they are so much less important than Nate. Thank goodness Nate survived! Who would help Oprah decorate her 95 homes?

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to hear ANYONE survived. But why Nate surviving when all those others died is comforting, I just don't know. Maybe because he'll help the other survivors decorate their devastated homes?

[ December 27, 2004, 04:13 AM: Message edited by: George_vikingfan ]

Amazing that in deep water these things travel faster than the speed of sound at the earth's surface if my calculation is correct.

And there may still be aftershocks to worry about, not to mention the interconnectedness of the earth movements of the "ring of fire" around the Pacific, of which this must be a fragment. The studies of these events should be revelatory.

This is just blowing me away. They now say maybe more than 20,000 people dead. Do they have any idea as to the size of the underground quake?? The article in my morning paper described it as of "epic proportions."

I know...isn't it awful? TWO AMERICANS dead and Nate's Friend is missing!!!.....something about 20,000+ "others" killed...but poor Nate!

NJ

I heard the earthquake was 9.0 in magnitude.

It's truly amazing that the result of the earthquake has affected at least nine countries. Even as afar as three countries in Africa. What a horrible, devastasting tragedy.

I remember growing up in Hawaii and everytime there was an Earthqauke in Asia, we would always be on a Tsumani watch.

The stories that are coming out are incredible and it's hard to believe that events like this really happen. So sad.

Among the facts that I find staggering are that in open water, the tsunami can travel 500 mph and that the entire island of Sumatra has moved approximately 100 feet.

~Adam

Is there any video of this?

Remember: that's wave velocity, not water velocity. The water isn't traveling 500 mph. It's the wave that's traveling 500 mph; i.e., the ripple, or the crest.

Here's an analogy:

In the old days, when there were copper wires, you could speak on a landline telephone to someone in Europe or on the opposite coast of the US with no time delay. The information traveled instantaneously, though not at 186,000 miles per second, which is the speed of light in a vacuum. The electrons themselves, having mass, traveled at a much lower velocity, but they were so tightly spaced that they bumped into each other instantly. The information conveyed by the electrons moved quickly, but the electrons themselves were slow.

It's the same with the tsunami. The information - the wave - travels quickly, but each individual molecule of water moves much more slowly. It was not the case that a wall of water twenty feet high traveling 500 mph smashed into the coastline yesterday. I mean, water from a firehose isn't going that fast.

To confirm that, look at the pictures. There's destruction, but not on the scale that would be associated with water going 500 mph.

I Googled for \"electron velocity copper wire\" and found this:

Drift velocity and current

I should point out that now, you would rely on fiber optics or satellites for communications. Only the last mile to your house still uses copper.

I was puzzled last night when having my sunday evening burger at burger heaven to see Nate reporting to CNN on the events of the tsunami. I'm glad he survived, but I was wondering when watching the report, "Why is he giving an account? He's no journalist, he's a decorator." Have we become so celebrity crazed that when a decorator survives a tsunami, we await his finding a car to power his phone so that he can call CNN to report on the scene? Was his agent already working the scene when he heard the devasting news? There was just something freakish about it. And sad on top of sad that that has become who we are. I hope they find his friend, I hope Oprah sends a plane for him, I wish him all well and good, but it seemed out of place that it was his story that was the lead story on the six o'clock CNN news.

Shore

For what it's worth, I would guess Nate was on the news because he was one of the few American survivors that could give a first-hand account of the tsunami. I doubt there were any journalists (American or otherwise) that were right there in the middle of things as it was occurring. The fact that Nate's been on TV w/Oprah probably makes him the best choice for a news report because he can talk on camera (or on the phone) and give a coherent report. The average person freezes up, or talks nonsense when put on the spot.

I've never heard of Nate before today, so I can't say I'm a fan of his. It's a disaster any way you look at it - last time I looked the death toll was estimated at almost 24,000, and still rising.

24,000 dead and counting. This is a tragedy of biblical proportions, as they say. Its impact is staggering. My heart goes out to all those affected, and I pray for everyone there--the dead, their relatives and friends, and those involved in the recovery.

frown

Actually, there were a lot of eyewitnesses. Read this by a Washinton Post writer who happened to be swimming in Sri Lanka when it happened.

Also, The Age newspaper in Australia has some amazing photos and first-person accounts.

[ December 27, 2004, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Jim at Outsports ]

Dude,

It's all over the news. CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC...

Perhaps what he is referring to is video of the moment the wave crashed ashore. I was wondering that last night. My guess is there isn't yet. Since they had no warning, how likely is it that anyone at the beach with a videocamera not only survived but managed to keep the camera safe and in running order?

Oh, I see.

Actually CNN has been playing videos, from different angles and cameras, as the waves hit shore.

There's one that is really disturbing. One guy got on tape when one of the waves came ashore and you can hear people screaming as the waves swept them away. He was on the roof, or someting like that, or a floor that wasn't at ground level.

Bzzzzt. It doesn't seem possible, but...

It Seemed Like a Scene From the Bible

The tsunami story took the first half of last night's half-hour ABC network evening news. How many stories get an entire half-hour?

Edited to add:

Oh, rats. That darn \"Jim at Outsports\" beat me to it. As long as I'm here:

Day After Disaster, Force of Tsunami Devastingly Clear



[ December 27, 2004, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: twin58 ]

Almost exactly a year ago, an earthquake killed 30,000 people in Iran. The death toll from the Indian Ocean tsunami will undoubtedly be even more tragic, and will get more media coverage because of the huge area that has been affected(and of course, because there will be more 'Western' casualties). The speed and distance travelled by these waves is staggering, as others have mentioned above. It was reported last night that an earthquake in 1960, off the coast of Chile, triggered a tsunami which travelled all the way across the Pacific and killed people in Japan, a distance much greater than the Indian Ocean tsunami, but fortunately far fewer people died.

My metaphor:

Shock waves, like sound, are longitudinal compression waves (force is in the direction of propagation) which can have variable speeds, though all are far less than that of light; whereas electromagnetic radiation is a transverse wave (both electronic and magnetic forces perpendicular to the direction of propagation and to each other) having speeds in the direction of propagation close to that of light.

Both vary in speed somewhat according to the medium.

Shock waves can be visualized as the push-pull motion of a slinky expanding and contracting in one dimension.

Electromatic waves are more like two slinkies, one pushing sideways (one dimension) and the other top-to-bottom (second dimension)while attached to an object moving forward (in the third dimension).

Molecules bumping into one another works for me for sound but I'm not so sure the analogy is instructive for EM radiation. I run into particle/wave problems visualizing that one.

Back to the tsunami (does this thing have a name?), my understanding is that it moves somewhat faster than sound. This would cause a sonic boom in air though I'm not sure what transpires under water.

The effect on whales, which are sensitive to sound, must have been horendous if they were in the vicinity.

where is plessthanpointofive to explain all this to us?

Can we stop posting links to Washington Post stories? It's a pain in the ass to have to go through that registration thing. I did it a year or so ago but forgot my info and do not intend to do the whole darned thing again. If the Post or anything else requiring registration is to be referenced, it's better to just cut & paste the info.

To avoid registering in order to read the articles at The Washington Post and other miscellaneous websites, you could use the free passwords provided at BugMeNot.com. In order to use this nifty website, you type in the name of a website that requires registration, and it will give you an e-mail address and its respective password. Just a little FYI.

Nick

Aw, hammer, that would take me a couple of keystrokes at least! Just how unlazy do you think I am?

The death toll is now up to at least 52,000. Unbelievable. How much do you want to bet it tops 100,000? God, I hope not! Apparently there are countries on the African continent that have lost people, but no reports have come out of those yet.

I was reading yesterday that Somalia reported dozens of people (mostly fishermen) lost--at one point I had read 100+, but another report had a much smaller figure.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if this figure tops 100,000 dead. This is a truly staggering disaster. The figure jumped tens of thousands from this morning--hell, I was surprised at how much it jumped in just a few hours.

Reuters already has the death toll at near 60,000, so it is still rapidly climbing, with many areas still apparently out of contact with authorities. The devastation appears truly beyond comprehension in some areas - in one place 2/3 of the people are estimated to have died; in another a train with 1,000 people estimated aboard simply vanished in the water.

As for the famous people that have been interviewed, like Nate Berkus, it seems like that only underscores how widespread and capricious the disaster really was. Whereas in most natural disasters - floods, famines, even earthquakes, it seems like so many of the victims are poor, here the tsunami attacked shanty villages and high-priced resorts equally.

SI.com is carrying the story of Petra Nemcova, the magazine's 2003 swimsuit cover model, who survived the horror by clinging to a palm tree for 8 hours with a broken pelvis. Her boyfriend was washed out of the same villa she was in, and she has no idea of his fate.

There are also reports of the king of Thailand's grandson being among the dead.

Found this account from Patong Beach in Phuket striking because of the bit about the fish flopping on the suddenly water-less sea bed:



[ December 28, 2004, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: TomFord ]

Famous people (and in some cases, relatives of famous people) get their own article. It includes some athletes -- some Italian soccer players and an Australian Rules player on his honeymoon.

Celebrity victims

Another report says actor Jet Li slightly injured his foot protecting his daughter from the onrushing waters in his hotel lobby in the Maldives.

[ December 28, 2004, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

I'm waiting to hear Falwell or Roberstson to declare this was some sort of religious thing, where God went after the Muslims and "other" non-Christians....

NJ

This is a catastrophe of such unreal magnitude. I was completely out of the news loop during the weekend and only found out about this yesterday afternoon.

(Not to diminish the severity of this actual tragedy, but it made me remember something I read a while back which could be even more devestating if it should come to pass...
http://www.cdnn.info/article/tsunami/tsunami.html )


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[ December 28, 2004, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: m1 ]

This weblog has a direct link to a windows media movie file of the Tsunami happening (Dec 28th heading)

http://www.punditguy.com/2004/12/horror.html

Beginning is shaky but watch as the water keeps rising. Very sad, very scary.

I changed the title of the thread.

Interesting article from the LA Times about tsunami warning systems.

Global Warning Systems

That is just an insane amount of water. Sad to see the older couple below in the video that gets swept off to who knows where. But I think if I were the guy filming that Id be putting the camera down and holding on to something.

We got word from our Sri Lankan agent office today and they are ok but others not so lucky.

I found out about this while I was at the dealership getting my car serviced. At first, I was like, "Oh, gee a tsunami." Then, as I watched the footage I realized that the waves were dozens of feet high. Just...shocking. And saddening.

It's now up to 52,000 lives lost. That's just too sad.

The tragedy to me seems to be that tsunami warning systems exist in other parts of the world. Japan has them, and I think I read that Hawaii does as well. Maybe they could have prevented some of the deaths this past weekend. I've never been to Asia, and I really have no desire to do so. But sad to see while their royal families live in splendor, the poor and needy are left to fend for themselves. And yes, it happens in the United States, too.

This may not be a popular thought, and I certainly do not want to lessen in any way the loss of life. But I am a believer that nature happens, and that we need to learn to live with nature's whims. I live in San Francisco, earthquake country. I am reasonably prepared (water bottles, food, etc.), but I also know that when the faults go, they go. And even if I'm prepared, I will have to take my chances with everyone else.

I would think the same is true in these coastal parts of south Asia. This was not the first tsunami, and it won't be the last. I do hope, though, that these countries learn from this horrible tragedy and take practical and concrete steps to ensure that when the next wave hits that the citizens are better alerted and protected.

60,000 + now. Wow.

To add to this, now there's a UN official, someone named Jan Egelund (sp?), who called the United States's relief contribution of $15,000,000 "stingy." The U.S. announced today that it is adding another $20,000,000 to this amount to aid in the relief efforts. Suddenly, Jan says he was "misquoted."

Why is anyone in such a position even bringing that up? This is not the time to start criticizing amounts of money being provided by various nations. If so, then France would be the biggest target, for they're at the bottom with something like $136,000 promised.

There are more important things than who is giving what and when. Sure there will be chaos, problems, complaints, heated tempers, and everything else that accompanies such pain and suffering and shock, but let's not lose sight of the fact that the most important thing is to help these people. In any way possible.

And every little bit helps.

I just saw the video and am amazed at the ferocity of the water. The big concern now is the possibility of disease adding to the deathtoll.

What a horrific, horrific tragedy! I feel tremendous sorrow for all the nations and people who have been affected by the quake and tsunami. I fear that, as others have said, the final death toll could exceed 100,000, especially given the deadly force of both events, the poor infrastructure in the affected countries, and the difficulty for governments and NGOs in assessing the human toll even.

It also looks like other famous people were affected--including the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl, was stranded and had to be airlifted out of Sri Lanka.

Kansas City Star: Kohl evacuated

In addition to Berkus, I keep hearing about some model (Nemcova?) who suffered a broken pelvis and whose boyfriend is missing. CNN seems particularly fixated on her. I definitely feel bad for her...but thousands of other people are DEAD or severely injured or missing as well!

I can't even watch the news reports anymore. They just showed a blond, 2-year-old Swedish boy who was stranded on a beach swept clean of life. He didn't know what was going on, of course, and was crying for his parents. His father was injured and his mother is missing.

My only nephew who is a blond 3-year-old is in town for the holidays. I couldn't help but picture my little nephew when I saw this Swedish toddler. It was so sad, just so sad. I turned off the TV crying. God, as I type this my eyes are again tearing up. Is it because this is, indeed, a horrific tragedy? Or is it because I'm selfish by thinking of my nephew, whom I absolutely adore? Regardless, I am heartbroken when I see such images. frown

What I find disgusting is how the media has absolutely no problem showing dead bodies as long as they're not white.

NJ

70,000+ now and it is projected that number will be matched by deaths due to disease caused by infested drinking water.
Two top organizations that come to mind when you want to donate money are:
American Red Cross International Response Fund, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Secure online contribution by visiting http://www.redcross.org.
Doctors Without Borders, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/ or call 1-888-392-0392.
And many other organizations can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...ites/index.html

A couple things...


The reason the countries do not have a warning system is because that area is not really tsunami prone. Tsunamis happen rarely enough, let alone in the areas where they rarely happen to begin with. Also, the timing of the tsunami wasn't very good either. To begin, this all happened rather early in the morning, so what little warning there was obviously did not reach many. It was a religious holiday in India, where many were worshipping on the beach. And many of these areas are very, very poor areas. Obviously warning systems are usually more adequate in more affluent areas than in poor villages.


As for the U.N. spokesman comment, there was absolutely no reference to the United States. The man mentioned that rich countries aren't really stepping up and providing adequate relief. At the time, it was rather obvious that one of those countries was the United States since they had only given 15 million dollars.

What was the United States' reaction?

And as many countries use the % of GNP for comparison and coming up with a figure to donate, the U.S. rejects it.

For example, the US GNP is 12.1 trillion and we initially gave 15 million. Saudi Arabia's GNP is 232 BILLION and they gave 10 million dollars.


The UK only pledged 15 million pounds at first and was criticized for that, but their response was that it was the first 'wave' of donations and more will be coming.


I wish the US would stop being so damn defensive (and boasting that we out match everyone and how our economy is so much better than everyone is rather pathetic) and be diplomatic for once. Of course, this story is coming across as some UN guy ripping on the United States when his comment was made about western countries in general.

The videos are incredible. Just so devastating.
You think you only see these kinds of images in movies. I can't even imagine this happeneing to me, but it used to be one of my childhood fears in Hawaii about being sucked out to sea.

The death tole is horrendous. I will be donating to charities such as OXFAM which help the families and survivors. That tragedy is mindboggingly horrific. Bless the victims and the survivors.

If you donate money, don't forget to check to see if your company will match your donation.

All indicators point to more than 100,000 lives will be lost due to the earthquake and tsunami, especially when we take into account that many sites most impacted are in isolated regions, difficult to reach. Emergency workers have yet to be able to get into some of these areas. Additionally, water-borne diseases (cholera, as an example) will also take a toll.

In a far lighter note about this, Los Angeles has been experiencing a series of rain storms. This morning on the local news, they showed some lady having difficulty filling her car's gas tank in the rain. The anchor commented "There is nothing worse than having to get gas when it's raining." His co-anchor agreed and added that "After this break, we'll be getting the latest on the Asian tsunami, where people are having weather problems just like us." Pumping gas in the rain, 100,000 dead....you say tomato, I say tomahto. Amazing!

~Adam

Nemcova was the covergirl for the 2k4 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, so CNN would be somewhat fixated on her as SI.com is cnn's affiliated "sports page" plus remember their foray into sports news a few year back?

This experience was especially heartbreaking.

So many instances of family members trying to save their loved ones.


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[ December 30, 2004, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: m1 ]