Thousands Killed by Indian Ocean Tidal Waves

mike65

I dunno if Christmas is cursed but most years some sort of disaster seems to happen somewhere, this year its the Indian Ocean with tidal waves speading across the from east to west after a 8.9 earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/971320.cms

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4694242,00.html

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=644034



Mike.

joe.

crazy news. worst earthquake in world in over 40 years

JackKelly

Happy Christmas

Wertz

There's most likely a good few Irish in thailand for the xmas, that have been affected by that.

simu

Does anyone have any idea if information helplines have been set up for Irish people affected by this?

mike65

Helpline at Department of Foreign Affairs 01-4780822.

Mike.

simu

Thanks Mike.

Dub13

Just looking at Sky News,they had a clip of all the earthquake plates and there is one in the middle of the Atlantic....I wounder if something like this could happen to the west coast

mike65

Dub13 wrote:

Just looking at Sky News,they had a clip of all the earthquake plates and there is one in the middle of the Atlantic....I wounder if something like this could happen to the west coast

I woud'nt worry, the various tectonic plates move against or from each other at different rates with different pressure. The Atlantic plates are slow moving as they move apart with only minor stress points like Iceland and the Azores.

Mike.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Barry Aldwell

Dub13 wrote:

Just looking at Sky News,they had a clip of all the earthquake plates and there is one in the middle of the Atlantic....I wounder if something like this could happen to the west coast

The plates at the mid atlantic ridge are seperating, whereas earthquakes are caused by plates colliding or sliding off eachother

Edit: That'll show me for walking away from a reply I'm typing

chewy

the Americas are moving away from Europe,

how topical:)

keu

last year if I remember right, it was Iran which suffered a massive earthquake which killed thousands on christmas/stephens day.

swiss

There's most likely a good few Irish in thailand for the xmas, that have been affected by that.

Including my brother.

I just got an email from him though, he's okay for the moment.

Creamy Goodness

woke up this morning to this news and my brother is out there atm, luckily he wasn't on the coast of thailand and phucket

chewy

its a bit strange disaster watching... morbid fascination i guess...

any good links on the maldives the island seem so small and vunerable...

i didn't see any footage of the tidal waves infact i don't think i've ever seen tsunami waves as i expect to the seem them, like big waves its more probably like just a big swell of sea rising?

jonny68

Over 10,000 people now dead..this is a terrible disaster..God bless them all......... :eek:

The_B_Man

yeah its horrible. imagine sunbathing on the beach and seein a massive wave comin towards u. hope the death toll doesnt go any higher.

edit: did anyone think it was weird that Titanic was on?ie ppl drowning. i was flickin between that and the news. was a bit surreal, like which one is real!! maybe its just my brain dyin from alcohol. nm

mike65

chewy wrote:

any good links on the maldives the island seem so small and vunerable...

Here you go
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Lagoon/1423/

http://maldive.com/

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mv.html

Lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
highest point: unnamed location on Wilingili island in the Addu Atoll 2.4 m

Mike.

CathyMoran

Its terrible alright - a girl in my old work was due to be either in Thialand or Australia over Christmas and another was due to go on Honemoon to the Maldives on the 30th. Have sent a text to the former. This was not a typical event so there was no early warning system available. Let us hope that if they have aftershocks that they are not that bad. Tragedy though and my heart goes out to all the people affected by the tragedy.

Yoda

I'm going to Bali on the 10th of January (to work on encoding the Balinese script in Unicode). So far I haven't found anything about affects of the earthquake to the east of Sumatra though.

chewy

http://www.dhivehiobserver.com/news/floodsdecember2004.htm

Mothman

These tsumani waves move at 300+mph and today they reached the likes of the Seychelles some 3000 miles away form the earthquake

Beyond my comprehension.....

mike65

22,000 dead and counting....


Mike.

Yoda

The Times reported that Bali was unaffected. A friend in Singapore said they were fine as well.

tinkerbell

Does anyone know if the island of Ko Samui was hit?

Say Phuket is here, then there's the mainland separating them, and then there's Ko Samui - not too sure the distance on the map that I have, but I'm assuming that place was okay?

My neighbour is out there, got an email from him on Christmas Eve, but haven't heard anything since.

Easy-C

samui was not hit,I have friends there,its on other side in the gulf of thailand

CathyMoran

Yoda wrote:

The Times reported that Bali was unaffected. A friend in Singapore said they were fine as well.

Phew - was hard to check Singapore - my best friend is from there...the fact that it was upgraded to a 9.0 is not good. Death toll is now over 23,000

ArphaRima

Anybody have a map of the earthquake and its epicentre? I live in SE Asia, am home for christmas, and want to see if it affected where I live.

tinkerbell

They have a map of the epicentre, etc. on Sky News all the time, so maybe check their website.

Agent Smith

may god have mercy on there souls....


have any irish people been killed?

seamus

agent smith wrote:

may god have mercy on there souls....


have any irish people been killed?

I haven't heard of any, but I know of 5 that were caught in it. 2 of them were hospitalised with cuts and bruises, one other hospitalised, possibly paralysed from the neck down

My cousin is head chef in a Maldives restaurant. He just happens to be home for Chrimbo...

elivsvonchiaing

Just checked the sky website. Couldn't find map Saw the death-toll seems to have stabilized at 23,700. Think this is just 'cos it's dark over there though :eek:

Fluffer no idea where you live - just assume a city - don't think a single city has been affected by this (apart from influx of the displaced).

Heineken

almost 30,000 people killed and you'd be doing well to fine 10 people who care. If it was 30,000 white people we'd all be in mass right now. 3000 white people and we'd know at least 10 people who would have signed up to help out.

aidan_walsh

I think you'll find the International Red Cross, not to mention the numerous other charities who will be out there conducting aid work, is comprised of a few more than 10 people...

Rew

Heineken wrote:

almost 30,000 people killed and you'd be doing well to fine 10 people who care. If it was 30,000 white people we'd all be in mass right now. 3000 white people and we'd know at least 10 people who would have signed up to help out.

They reckon up to a 1/3 could be tourists from around the world so im not sure your theory holds.

Heineken

Yeah I was listening to newstalk today when they were talking about it.

"They think 30,000 people are still missing"
"Ok ok yes but what about the irish people?"

Creamy Goodness

i obiviously care and so do the other relations of estimated 10000 british out there, also there is a lot of irish out there too, i can name about 10 people that i know that are out there but luckily none were affected (most of them on Ko samui and others in bangkok)

aidan_walsh

Heineken wrote:

Yeah I was listening to newstalk today when they were talking about it.

"They think 30,000 people are still missing"
"Ok ok yes but what about the irish people?"

My word, an Irish radio channel, listened to by Irish people, some of whom are possibly worried about their Irish relatives, expressing Irish interest... The bastards.

Listen, the first priority of any country after something like this is to make sure that their own are safe and well... The next will be to aid (Bertie and his €1m relief fund, Santa indeed :rolleyes:)

elivsvonchiaing

Well I'm safe! Got out of Batu Ferringhi just in time - 10 weeks ago!

The real tradgedy is there are no statistics on Heineken drinkers killed

Rew

Heineken wrote:

Yeah I was listening to newstalk today when they were talking about it.

"They think 30,000 people are still missing"
"Ok ok yes but what about the irish people?"

Seems selfish untill your stiting listening to newstalk and you hear about it and a friend or relitive is over there and you need to find out whats happend to them.

News stations all talk about things relevent to the locals first. Dosnt exactly prove anything. There are 500+ irish people out there thats 500+ families wondering WTF is going on which translates to 5000+ worried family and 15000+ woried friends.

bizmark

Heineken wrote:

almost 30,000 people killed and you'd be doing well to fine 10 people who care. If it was 30,000 white people we'd all be in mass right now. 3000 white people and we'd know at least 10 people who would have signed up to help out.

What total bullsh*t 30,000 people die and you find a excuse to bash white people with your idiotic generalization .

"They think 30,000 people are still missing"
"Ok ok yes but what about the irish people?"

My god irish people worryed about the faith of other irish people crazy fools! :rolleyes:

Giblet

A family friend lost half her family that was over in Phuket, including her father, mother, brother and various aunts and uncles. Also lost all of their property.

aidan_walsh

Ah ****, Giblet... Thats awful... My deepest sympathies to her...

Drapper

Sister was there last week in Phuket and flew out to Oz last week !!!

Thanks God she was not in the area.

So lucky !!!!

elivsvonchiaing

Thoughts on recent posts: Heineken - (Tennessee) Theory 1: (under 21) Pay a bum 30 bucks to get you a bottle of Jack Daniels regulary in order to keep yourself off boards. Theory 2: (over 21 - loves Heineken) Why not try JD?

elivsvonchiaing

Jebus! Gilblet I just don't know what to say, that is just so really ****ing awful! (Didn't meet you at boards beers - but kinda feel like I know you to offer condolences)

Hugh Hefner

This whole thing is quite a boring disaster. I'm not all that interested by how they are keeping communications up in the "Disaster Zone" using satelite phones. Lets get another 9/11 in there to really shake things up! That might make for some interesting news. I know, a comet! Big enough to wipe out Austrailia (it wouldn't be the end of the world) but not big enough to do any damage to the atmosphere or surrounding areas. We could even evacuate the continent first (if you really want to).
Hmm.... That's not a half bad idea....
Ehhh.... well, i'm off to.... eh.... bye..... <contacts alien friends and asks them to throw a small comet Austrailia's way>

Drapper

Hugh Hefner wrote:

This whole thing is quite a boring disaster. I'm not all that interested by how they are keeping communications up in the "Disaster Zone" using satelite phones. Lets get another 9/11 in there to really shake things up! That might make for some interesting news. I know, a comet! Big enough to wipe out Austrailia (it wouldn't be the end of the world) but not big enough to do any damage to the atmosphere or surrounding areas. We could even evacuate the continent first (if you really want to).
Hmm.... That's not a half bad idea....
Ehhh.... well, i'm off to.... eh.... bye..... <contacts alien friends and asks them to throw a small comet Austrailia's way>

Your a little sad mate ................

D!ve^Bomb!

indeed... Hugh Hefner can suck my balls and like it

D!ve^Bomb!

they think up to 40,000 could be dead.. i really cannot even comprehend such a number