quote:

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Thousands died in the tidal waves in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

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It is now 4 days later and this disaster continues to unfold.
On behalf of Quoteland.com I want to say that our hearts go out to all affected by this disaster.
To our Quoteland friends that lived in or near the hardest hit areas, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

[This message was edited by thenostromo on 12-30-04 at 11:59 AM.]
Deaths by country (Thursday, December 30, 2004 Posted: 1607 GMT)
Indonesia: 79,940
Sri Lanka: 24,673, with another 6,589 missing and condered most likely dead.
India: At least 10,000
Thailand: 1,830. Thai PM says toll could rise as 5,288 people are still missing.
Myanmar: 90
Malaysia: 66
Maldives: 46
Tanzania: 10
Bangladesh: 2
Somalia: Kenyan media reports hundreds dead
Kenya: Kenyan media reports one death
Seychelles: Unconfirmed reports of deaths
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/tsunami.deaths/index.html

There is another thread on the General Discussion forum.

[This message was edited by thenostromo on 12-30-04 at 10:28 PM.]

Aftershocks (5+ on Richter scale) in Andaman & Nicobar islands, India (very close to the Aceh Banda epicentre) have made the Indian Government warn locals of more tsunamis.

People in the worst affected state of Tamil Nadu have been advised to retreat 2km (1.2 miles) inland.

So that means we need round the clock prayers. Also pray for Mother Earth, as she shifts her grid system too.

***

I'm compelled to post some meaningful quotations at this moment. Please contemplate while you are praying for the whole world.

"When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth to heal everything in sight."
-- Michael Bridge.

"People sense we are at a time of amazing change, and with change comes opportunities for both breakthrough and breakdown. If we do nothing, breakdown is the most probable course that the future will reflect. Breakthrough will take conscious effort. We can invoke the future we want."
-- Marianne Williamson.

One day, through my prayers, an overwhelming amount of love started flowing into me, filling up the dark hole that threatened to consume me. I suddenly realized that what I was feeling was the love of the Earth, the love of Creation. Every day we, as a species, do so much to destroy Creation's ability to give us life. But that Creation continues to do everything in its power to give us life anyway. And that's true love."
-- Julia Butterfly Hill, from the Legacy of Luna.

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal, no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down;no sin that enough love will not redeem. It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the
outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love
enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world.
-- Emmet Fox

The most important thing we can learn from the past is that no earlier civilization has survived. And the larger the pyramids and temples and statues they build in honor of their god or themselves, the harder has been the fall. Most of them have been so completely eradicated that it has taken archaeologists to bring them to light again. Neither the Sun God nor the creative power behind the Big Bang smiles upon the huge buildings or powerful armies of mankind. They smile at civilizations who respect their own creation and who show appreciation for it.
-- Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian archeologist.

"We end, I think, at what might be called the standard paradox of the 20th century: our tools are better than we are, and grow faster than we do. They suffice to crack the atom, to command the tides. But they do not suffice for the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
-- Aldo Leopold

"Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there."
-- Gary Snyder

A living planet is a much more complex metaphor for deity than just a bigger father with a bigger fist. If an omniscient, all-powerful Dad ignores your prayers, it's taken personally. Hear only silence long enough, and you start wondering about his power. His fairness. His very existence. But if a world mother doesn't reply, Her excuse is simple. She never claimed conceited omnipotence. She has countless others clinging to her apron strings, including myriad species unable to speak for themselves. To Her elder offspring She says - go raid the fridge. Go play outside. Go get a job. Or, better yet, lend me a hand. I have no time for idle whining.
-- David Brin

We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are.
-- Tobias Wolffe

***

-

much love, light and laughter,
ananya.

*~Come play with my children feel the peace and Scatter some joy.~*
~*Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make your's burn any brighter.*~
*** You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note. ***

The Washington Times ran an article on the day after the tsunami hit, giving a broad history of the effects and human cost involved in earthquake aftermath. It is very sobering and humbling to contemplate so many lost souls, in one single brief event of nature.

I'll copy the article in it's entirity here.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041226-122654-7782r.htm

quote:

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Tidal wave tragedy teaches humility

By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst

Washington, DC, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- The tidal waves tragedy that took at least 9,000 lives on the shores of the Indian Ocean Sunday morning was triggered by the worst earthquake recorded around the world in more than 40 years. And even with accounts of the death tolls and devastation still incomplete, it teaches the sobering lesson that the wrath of Nature can dwarf the worst excesses of Man.


The quake that triggered the giant tidal waves or tsunami came at 7:59 am local time 100 miles off the giant Indonesian island of Sumatra. It registered 8.9 on the Richter Scale, making it the most powerful earthquake record in 40 years since the Alaskan quake of 1964. It was also the fifth strongest earthquake recorded anywhere in the past century.

The quake did not kill anyone directly. But as quakes beneath the ocean always do, it set off devastating tidal waves. According to first reports reaching UPI, 3,000 people died in Sri Lanka, 1,800 in Indonesia and 1,600 in India as tsunamis up to 30 feet high hit beaches. And the death toll in all three nations is expected to rise.

In fact, two of the most devastating tidal wave disasters in modern history occurred in the same region.

By far the worst was the enormous surge that killed at least 300,000 people and possibly as many as a million in Bangladesh (then still East Pakistan0 on Nov. 13, 1970. It was probably the worst natural disaster of the 20th century and the full death toll will never be accurately known. That tidal wave was not triggered by an earthquake, but by an exceptional cyclone in the Bay of Bengal.

Even earlier, in 1883, the Indonesian volcano on the island of Krakatoa exploded killing around 36,000 people and setting off powerful tidal waves. So much dust and ash was thrown into the atmosphere that the entire world experienced breathtaking sunsets for three years afterwards. Three months after the eruption the debris thrown into the atmosphere had spread to higher latitudes and it caused such vivid red sunset afterglows that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven in the northeastern United States because they seemed to be enormous fires.

The worst natural disaster by far of the 20th century is almost unknown in the West. It was a devastating flood along the Yangtze River in China in August 1931 that killed 3.7 million from drowning, disease and starvation.

The records of some ancient civilizations hint at even worse disasters in the distant past. The Shu-King, the records of the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao tell of an immense wave "that reached the sky" before it flooded the entire land of China. The account states, "The water was well up on the high mountains and the foothills could not be seen at all." According to the ancient Chinese records, it took years of massive public works and the labor of millions to drain the land.

The worst earthquake of the 20th century in its human toll was the 1976 quake, in Tangshan, China, which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale. It killed an estimated 240,000 people.

The two most destructive earthquakes in recorded human history are believed to have been the 1556 quake in Shansi Province, China, which killed around 830,000 people and a medieval quake in Upper Egypt in 1201 that is estimated by chroniclers at the time to have killed a million people.

The great French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer, excavator of the Bronze Age City of Ugarit, in present day Syria, believed that enormous quakes thousands of years ago periodically wrecked cities throughout the Near East, bringing to an end the Early Bronze Age and later disrupting civilization repeatedly.

A massive earthquake in Crete -- still a seismically sensitive zone -- is believed by many archaeologists to have destroyed the high civilization of Middle Bronze Age Crete, thought by many to have been the inspiration for the legend of Atlantis. The novelist Mary Renault used it as the basis for her classic historical novel "The King Must Die."

The city of Troy, immortalized by Homer in his Iliad, was found by archaeologists to have been destroyed by earthquake many times and repeatedly rebuilt.

One controversial scholar, the late Immanuel Velikovsky, even argued in 1950 in his book "Worlds in Collision" that the 10th Plague of the Exodus in the Bible -- the death of the first born of Egypt -- was in reality a massive earthquake that ended the Middle Kingdom period.

The most physically powerful earthquakes over the past century in terms of the energy expended and shock waves they produced registered 8.6 on the Richter scale and occurred in Kashmir in India in 1905, killing 19,000 people, and Valparaiso, Chile in 1906, killing 1,500 people. The contrast in casualties reflects the sparsely population in the Chilean quake zone.

However, the most physically powerful earthquake ever believed to have occurred in documented history occurred in the continental United States. It was the 1811 New Madrid quake. It was so powerful it radically changed the course of the Mississippi River.

In those days, the region was lightly populated wilderness and Indian tribes there lived a nomadic existence and therefore were not exposed to being killed in collapsing buildings. But if a quake of that magnitude occurred in that region today, near the modern city of St. Louis, for example, hundreds of thousands would die.

The Book of Revelation predicts a dramatic earthquake will shake the earth before the Second Coming of Christ. Accordingly, Christian fundamentalist groups have always been prone to see earthquakes as signs of divine judgment or of the imminence of the return of Jesus.

In 1923, Tokyo was destroyed by an earthquake that registered 8.3 on the Richter scale. It is believed to have been the most severe earthquake ever to strike a major city in recorded history. The 1976 Tangshan quake, for all its even vaster death toll, "only" measured 7.8.

Estimates of the Tokyo death toll vary from 99,000 to 150,000. It was as destructive than the U.S. Army Air Force firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. The great movie director Akira Kurosawa later said the vivid tableaux of slaughtered armies in his classic samurai movies was inspired by what he saw in the aftermath of the Tokyo quake.

Some psychologists and anthropologists have even theorized that the immense popularity of Godzilla and other monster movies in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s was in some way a reaction to the 1923 quake and the 1945 firebombing.

Such myths reflect a powerful truth subconsciously felt. The wrath of Nature, when aroused, can outstrip the worst monsters of the human imagination.

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I have been extremely moved by the events of 26th December as we all have. We have witnessed the scenes and the videos taken by thos on holiday when the Tsunami hit land. None of this I can remove from my heart and from my mind.

I believe it was Ananya who mentioned that the people of the area were resilient - I totally agree from all I've known in the past and from what I have seen on my TV this past week.

I wanted to mention here something I saw yesterday on the news. I believe very much in my own life that the silly things are not those which we should waste our time and energy on, for such in my book is wasted. Yesterday, I saw businessman standing laughing on what looked like a building site - all around was devastated and he was trying to salvage what he could. This man had seven businesses all of which had been destroyed. When asked why he was smiling, he simply told the reporter that he was alive and his businesses could be rebuilt, then pointing seawards, he reminded the reporter, that the sea would be littered with many who had not his chance.

This is the way we should look at life. I had a lump in my throat as I watched this very optimistic man.

Later in the news I saw a man crying and holding onto what looked like a little boy of perhaps 4 or 5 years old - with other family members lying flat on the ground at his side.
One could see the look of disbelief and despair on his sad face. I hope I have not swayed too off topic here, but this thing has just so overwhelmed. I am so annoyed that I am not fit and well right now, the frustration I feel is awful.

Under the sand on what used to be the childrens' play area, with climbing frames etc. yet more small bodies are to be revealed in the fullness of time. On uninhabited islands, in the vicinity, more bodies being washed ashore - it is so awful to even contemplate, where many of the bodies will ultimately be.

I am reminded somewhat of the earthquake which hit Tangshan, China, killing around 600,000 in July 1976, this perhaps is the closest in terms of numbers, that I can personally compare something of this huge loss with.

I have been following, almost hourly, Satellite News, namely Sky, and sometimes the others. They are saying the total number may never be known. It is so awful for survivors and those who have relatives on holiday, to imagine them not having a body to bury. Almost to those families, it must be as if their loved ones have been wiped off the earth - this is so hard for me to even contemplate.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13274869,00.html

~~~~Littera scripta manet~~~
the written word remains.
(the saying continues; The weak word perishes)