I know it's the festive season, and the last thing you'd like to read is something like this, but I had to put a note here.

There was a massive earthquake in SE Asia on 26th Dec. The epicentre was somewhere off the coast, west of Sumatra, at the Richter scale of 8.9; apparently it's the strongest earthquake in 40 years, and the 4th strongest since 1899.

What's worst was the tsunami waves that were generated were powerful enough to hit Sri Lanka and India (which are thousands of kilometres away). There was no tsunami warning system in place at the Indian Ocean, unlike for the Pacific Ocean, so the devastation came without warning. The death toll has been catastrophic, at about 12000 but is still rising. For more details, please check your favourite news source. I'd suggest CNN or BBC.

Singapore was lucky; it was sheltered by the surrounding land masses and only felt slight tremors. I'm very relieved.

Please keep the victims of this horrible disaster, and their families in your thoughts and prayers this festive season.


metwin1

The updated Richter scale reading of the earthquake is 9.0. That makes it the fourth largest earthquake since they started recording.

The death toll is incomprehensible. Friends of mine who live in the area (and are, thank God, safe), describe scenes that bring to mind battlefields.

I heard on the news early this morning the devestation caused by the tsunamis is very extensive displacing millions of people. Last I heard there were reports that currently around 11000 people dead. Aftershocks from the initial tremor are between 6 and 7.5 on the Ricther scale.

Thanks for checkin in, Metwin1. I was thinking about our friends in Singapore yesterday. Such a dreadful end to the year.

LabRat

Death toll over 21,000.

Metwin1, I can only imagine how horrible this must be for you and Meclone2; I know you two are in Toronto at the moment, far away from your family.

The devastation and deaths caused by this earthquake are simply beyond comprehension. Words can't express how horrified, how desperately sorry I was to read about it.

As I'm sure most people know, the International Red Cross is accepting donations for disaster relief; I'm sure the Red Crescent will be as well. With most of these appeals, it's easy to donate via your local bank.

I know you must be relieved that Singapore escaped the worst of it, and I hope you've been able to speak to your family. You know we're always here if you need company, though - on the boards or on IRC.


Wendy

They are asking for $$ instead of blankets and such b/c money is easier to transfer. Physical goods would take some of their resources away from the people.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. It is unfortuante that it happened. Let's hope it doesn't get really bad...

I find this sort of stuff facinating, but on a human level it is sooo sad

I followed a link to this site which seems to offer a pretty comprehensive list of where you can donate to help the victims. Also note the comments section re a message board to help make contact with people in the region.

Any Canuks out there who are wanting to donate, aren't afraid of the internet and want a tax receipt go to www.redcross.ca

My friend in Sri Lanka particularly recommends donating to the Red Cross and Oxfam. Some of the other places accepting money are potentially less likely to get the money where it can do much good, for various reasons.

There's a dedicated site for making donations here , although it's obviously been set up very hastily - not all of the links work yet and it's a little slow. However, it's definitely bona fide; so far I've found links to it from the Scotsman and Oxfam, and I've heard references to it on the BBC.

Having said all of that, I'm still going to donate through Oxfam just because the other website is a bit flaky at the moment.

Yvonne

news say over 100.000 victims, and as many people are at risk because of epidemic.
I have no words.

Simona

It's definitely trustworthy. It's a co-ordinating, umberella group set up by the biggest charities.

Apparently it's raised £5m alone in the last 24 hours. I might try donating there as I've been unable to access the Red Cross site so far.

LabRat

I couple of days ago I saw this on the news - one village/town had noone die. Why? I cannot remember if it was part of their folklore, stories and it is a part of their way of life that every time there is an earthquake the people run for the hills. So once again they fled and well no one was around when the tsunami came.

I think they said over 100 years ago they were devestated by a tsunami and it came a part of their lives and was not forgotten.

Can anyone remember what tsunamis/tidal waves (and yes we all know that is tech. incorrect) are called around the world? I'm embarassed that I cannot remember!

This has been a terrible week for many here in Scandinavia also, for many thousands used to travel to Thailand for Christmas holliday. In Finland alone, there are 15 dead and 183 missing (i.e probably dead also) people. Among them, there are many children and entire families. This is the most terrible accident during the peace time.

The hardest is the lot of Sweden where there are at this moment 52 dead and 1903 missing people (their number may go down, all is not yet clear). This means, it is for the Swedes even a far greater catastrophe than the sinking of Estonia in 1994.

All living tourists are nown flown home, and although many are lost family members and/or are suffering from physical and mental scars, their lot is not yet so hard as many Thai people who lost all they had.

Knowing this, it has been amazing to learn how the Thai people helped tourists who were complete strangers to them, by giving them food and shelter and lending them cell-phones in order to call home. So, people here has already made records of all time in money raising campaigns in order to help Thailand and other lands hit by the tsunami.

Even though I don't have any relatives or friends among the victims, I want to express my gratitude for any Thai FOLCs reading this as well my condolences of any FOLCs around the world who have relatives or friends among the victims.

What do you mean? All I've heard the news reports call them are tsunamis. I didn't even know there was another word. Blame it on the US education system, I suppose.

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask here. However, the word "tsunami", though it has a Japanese origin, is an English word. In fact, it first made an appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1897. It is used when describing this phenomenon in English all around the world. So a tsunami is called .... a tsunami around the world.

If, however, you are interested how tsunami is refered to in other languages, I can start the ball rolling in Chinese. The chinese characters literally mean "roar of the sea", and is pronounced in:

Mandarin - Hai Xiao (pron. hai siau)
Cantonese - Hoi Siew

Other chinese dialects will pronounce the characters differently. You probably won't be interested in how the characters look like.


metwin1