Massive earthquake hits Indonesia, Tsunami kills thousands.

[dimwit]

More than 200 dead from earthquake off Indonesia

A strong earthquake that hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra has left more than 200 people dead in a wide area.

The US Geological Survey announced that the quake with a magnitude of 8.5 occurred 200 kilometers off the west coast of Aceh province in northern Sumatra at a depth of 10 kilometers.

A local radio station reported a 1.5 meter high tidal wave at a road in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province. The tidal wave killed nine people, including four children. Many residents fled the area before the tidal wave hit. Some parts of a hotel and bridges collapsed in the city.

The AP news agency says at least 162 people died in the coastal area of eastern Sri Lanka. A 1.8 meter high tidal wave hit Trincomalee.

The Reuters news agency quotes authorities in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh as saying that at least 74 people were dead there after being swept away by tidal waves.

Reuters reports that a tidal wave also hit Phuket, southern Thailand, leaving many injured.

Japanese Embassy officials in Bangkok say there is no information so far on any Japanese casualties .

http://www.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/

Current death toll said to be over a thousand. The Japanese government has annnounced that it plans to sent relief workers. I hope no FG were holidaying down there!

[GuyJean]

I hope no FG were holidaying down there!

No shit.. Phuket, I'm sure, is worked as well.. Actually, it's the locals that will suffer the most..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4125481.stm
GJ

[Mels]

Thanks for the information...Did not see this yet....

I have friends out there..Phuket, Malaysia and India....thinking they are okay, but you never know.

Hope they get help out there asap........

[GomiGirl]

Guess who is flying to Phuket tomorrow?? ME!!

I rang the hotel but they say they were unaffected by the tidal wave even though they are near Patong Beach. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

I will have my 'puter with me so I will report on the damage.

[dimwit]

A magnitude 8.9 quake is huge, and large aftershock or shocks SHOULD be expected. GG, if you are going there be careful!

Some vague news about Phuket here

"Phuket was most affected, not just people bathing in the sea but people driving their cars," Mr Thaksin told reporters.

"Every beach area got wiped out,'' says Gary Halpin, 43, a New Zealander who runs a diving business in Phuket, a tourist resort area on Thailand's west coast. "Bungalows were wiped out. Bigger buildings had windows broken."

[AssKissinger]

A magnitude 8.9 quake is huge, and large aftershock or shocks SHOULD be expected. GG, if you are going there be careful

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The world's most powerful earthquake in 40 years triggered massive tidal waves that slammed into villages and seaside resorts across Asia on Sunday, killing an estimated 3,000 people in five countries.

[FG Lurker]

Holy shit... I've got friends down there vacationing for the holidays. Damn. Hope everything's okay.

8.9...

[Mulboyne]

GG, BBC World is reporting that Pathong is the worst affected. Power lines are down and tourists have been evacuated to higher ground. The journalist based in Phuket is saying that hotel chains are looking for alternative accomodation but many will be leaving. Even if your hotel is OK, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun there. He says the waters have receded but there is a "complete mess".

[GomiGirl]

GG, BBC World is reporting that Pathong is the worst affected. Power lines are down and tourists have been evacuated to higher ground. The journalist based in Phuket is saying that hotel chains are looking for alternative accomodation but many will be leaving. Even if your hotel is OK, it doesn't sound like a lot of fun there. He says the waters have receded but there is a "complete mess".

Well if we can get there, then we will still go.. do our bit for the local economy which is probably going to tank from everybody cancelling.

Our hotel is on a hill at Karon Beach.. just the next beach over from Patong.

But the airline will be the ones to tell us whether we can get there or not. A different sort of holiday nonetheless.

[dimwit]

Well if we can get there, then we will still go.. do our bit for the local economy which is probably going to tank from everybody cancelling.

Our hotel is on a hill at Karon Beach.. just the next beach over from Patong.

But the airline will be the ones to tell us whether we can get there or not. A different sort of holiday nonetheless.

According to the BBC the airport on Phukat has reopened but God knows what the schedules are like.

[kamome]

I've been up late following this news. The global death toll varies depending on the news source. I've heard as high as 3,200 and as low as 1,000.

I once stayed at the Sheraton Grand Laguna on Phuket, but can't find any news about how that hotel fared.

[GuyJean]

I rang the hotel but they say they were unaffected by the tidal wave even though they are near Patong Beach.

This may sound strange, but Phuket's probably lucky it's so close to the epicenter; I believe tsunami's grow larger over distance..

One thing's for sure - you won't forget this trip to Thailand.

GJ

[dimwit]

[quote="GuyJean"] This may sound strange, but Phuket's probably lucky it's so close to the epicenter]

No. In general the closer they are, the bigger. The shape of the coastline and the bathography are very important. Places facing the epicenter without obstructing barriers such as reefs or barrier islands tend to get hit hardest, which is why Sri Lanka and India were so badly hit - there was no barrier between the epicenter and them.

[GuyJean]

No. In general the closer they are, the bigger.

Of course. Like dropping a rock in a pond; the closer to the rock, the bigger the ripple..

GJ

[AssKissinger]

http://www.crystalinks.com/tsunami.html

As a result of their long wave lengths, tsunamis behave as shallow-water waves. A wave becomes a shallow-water wave when the ratio between the water depth and its wave length gets very small. Shallow-water waves move at a speed that is equal to the square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s/s) and the water depth - let's see what this implies: In the Pacific Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4000 m, a tsunami travels at about 200 m/s, or over 700 km/hr. Because the rate at which a wave loses its energy is inversely related to its wave length, tsunamis not only propagate at high speeds, they can also travel great, transoceanic distances with limited energy losses.

[FG Lurker]

You beat me to it AK! I was going to post this Wikipedia article with much the same info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami

I think yours sums it up better though. Distance doesn't make much difference to a Tsunami.

50 or 60 years ago a huge Tsunami hit a small town on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was generated by a quake in Japan. Totally destroyed the town. Picked up trucks from the waterfront and threw them multiple city blocks.

[dimwit]

Generally, however the further an tsunami travels the more likely it is to encounter shallows land barrier that break up the wave pattern. Yes, large tsunamis can do horrible damage thousands of miles away from their source, but they do the maximum damage close to the epicenter depending of the topography of the land. The 1950 earthquake which you are refering to, produced 10 meter waves in Hawaii and British Columbia, but it produced 35 meter waves at it's source in the Aleutian Islands.

[dimwit]

Via swissinfo

Quake and tsunami kill 6,300

By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO (Reuters) - The world's biggest earthquake in 40 years has hit south Asia, unleashing a tsunami that crashed
into Sri Lanka and India and swamped tourist isles in Thailand and the Maldives, killing more than 6,300 people.

A wall of water up to 10 metres (30 feet) high triggered by the 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian
island of Sumatra caused death, chaos and devastation

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5429954

Seeing as it is still night there and tsunami awaredness in non-existant in the Indian Ocean basin the death toll is going to get much much bigger.

[jim katta]

gomi girl,
I really like your presence here so I wish you wouldn't go. I'm watching cnn international and they say aftershocks will cause tidal waves for at least the next couple of days. plus there will be looting and disease. why still go there when you know the trouble happening there? just because your hotel isn't effected now doesn't mean you'll be safe. take the financial hit of trashing your travel plans and thank the gods you weren't already there in an effected area. seriously, you have always seemed like a really cool person, I would hope you kept yourself safe at home.

[jim katta]

totally side note rant:

this situation is showing another example of why I'm ready to move away from the u.s. when I'm abroad in europe or asia, when something like this happens, it's all over the news and you get full reports. but here in america? let me tell you, there's barely a peep about this major disaster on the normal networks. sure there will be a brief bit on the evening news, and world news reports, but shit, this is major stuff and you flip around the dial and everythingin the u.s. television world is business as usual. even msnbc, fox, and local cnn are barely saying anything. the only place I'm finding my info is on the internet, and via cnn international (a channel buried in the high 100s on cable tv).

in fact, as I honestly analyze the news here today, I can tell you that normal holiday travel delays in the u.s. are a bigger, or in some cases 'equal' importance story on most networks. wtf???

[Kuang_Grade]

The Washington Post is now quoting 10K+ dead
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26306-2004Dec26.html

and they have a piece by one of their writers who happened to be in Sri Lanka.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26784-2004Dec26.html

'There's Something Strange Happening With the Sea'

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 26, 2004; 11:31 AM

WELLIGAMA, Sri Lanka, Dec. 26 -- Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky.

I was taking my morning swim around the island that my businessman-brother Geoffrey bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise just 200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches on the Sri Lankan mainland.

I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Come back! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea." He was swimming behind me, but closer to the shore.

I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. All seemed peaceful. There was barely a ripple in the sea.

Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock walls of the island with astonishing speed. The vast circle of golden sand around Welligama Bay was disappearing rapidly, and the water had reached the level of the coastal road fringed with palm trees.

As I swam to shore, my mind was momentarily befuddled by two conflicting impressions: the idyllic blue sky and the rapidly rising waters.

In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet -- but the sea itself remained calm, barely a wave in sight.

Within minutes, the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea, rushing over the road and pouring into the flimsy houses on the other side. The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible -- a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before.

As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark.

Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold of a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat, next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran, as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.

After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I didn't realize was that the floodwaters would recede as dramatically as they had risen.

All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed. Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings and were furiously bobbing up and down.

For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being swept out to sea.

I swam in the direction of one of the loose catamarans, grabbed hold of the hull, and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down and soon I was stranded on the sand.

As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams and yells were coming from the houses behind the road, many of which were still half full of water, trapping the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking dazed along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.

I was worried about my wife who had been on the beach at the time I went for my swim. I eventually found her walking along the road, dazed and happy to be alive. She had been trying to wade back to our island, when the water had carried her across the road and into someone's back yard. At one point she was underwater, struggling for breath. She finally grabbed onto a piece of rope and climbed into a tree, while the waters raged beneath her.

Our children were still asleep when the tidal wave struck this morning at 9:15 am. They woke up to find the bay practically drained of water and their parents walking back across the narrow channel to safety.

The waves have been raging around the island for the rest of the day -- alternatively rising and receding.

It took us many hours to realize the scale of the disaster of which we had witnessed a tiny part. The road from Welligama to Galle is cut in many places. There are reports of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people missing and drowned in southern Sri Lanka.

The coastal road is littered with carcasses of boats and dead dogs. Even a few dead sharks have washed up on the road. Helicopters are flying overhead and loudspeaker vans warning local residents to leave low-lying areas for fear of more tidal waves.

My brothers' little island -- called Tapbrobane after the ancient name of Sri Lanka -- is largely intact, although a piece of our gate ended up on the seashore half a mile away.

His house rests on a rock 60 feet above the level of the sea, which rose a maximum of 20 feet.

We have no water, and no electricity and are practically cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka. It is impossible to buy food, we are existing on cold ham and turkey sandwiches, leftovers from last night's Christmas Dinner.

The holiday that we planned and dreamed about for many months is in ruins. We feel fortunate -- fortunate to be alive.

And while I am loath to defend US media, in response to Jim Katta's side rant, I would point out this happened late in the day on Christmas here in the US, and the media pretty much goes on vacation during Christmas week. Most of the stories on today's TV (beyond some stand up at the airport done by the single rookie reporter on duty) and in today's newspapers were done DAYS ago. I would expect that by tonight, TV media will be picking up on this and print media will be heavy on it on Monday's editions. While this is a part of the world US media doesn't focus on much, this story also happened during the lowest ebb possible of the US news cycle.

[djgizmoe]

Just saw the news on Fuji Terebi, with some ugly pics of Phuket. Only looks like some non-life-threatening flooding for the most part, but I would NOT want to go there right now, GG.

[Caustic Saint]

I'm pretty sure she's going. I talked to her last night and she went ahead and packed after calling the hotel.

[GuyJean]

Only looks like some non-life-threatening flooding for the most part, but I would NOT want to go there right now, GG.

On CNN International, they're estimating 300 - 400 dead, mostly from the area of Phuket. Probably a large number are fisherman, but they had some video of the waves hitting.. "Sun bathers were swept out to sea.".. Looks like a mess, but it's probably only along the coastline.

GJ

[dimwit]

japantoday

Japan sets up crisis center after tsunamis kill 10,000 in Asia


Monday, December 27, 2004 at 07:47 JST
TOKYO — The Foreign Ministry has set up an ad hoc office in the wake of Sunday's tsunamis that left nearly 10,000 people dead throughout Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia, ministry officials said Monday.

The government is already preparing to send a disaster relief team to Sri Lanka at the request of its government following massive tsunami damage from a powerful earthquake that struck off Indonesia's Sumatra Island

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1&id=323140

Maybe they could send some of the SDF in Iraq? At least in Sri Lanka or Indonesia they MIGHT be able to do something useful.

[jim katta]

I would point out this happened late in the day on Christmas here in the US,

I hear ya, it's just that I'm a media person myself, and I can't tell you how many times there's been a holiday or national downtime, and if an American breaks a finger nail in a foreign country, you 'instantly' hear about it all over the news. Also, I live in new york, the media capitol of the u.s. where the media never takes a break, and I heard nothing as cnn (based in atlanta) got on the job and had their international team reporting. my only point was that I think the u.s. tends to have a selfish view of the world as opposed to other places I've lived where, if there's a world disaster, everyone is put upon to be concerned. here in the u.s., if it doesn't effect us...we (our media) doesn't care much. Even now I'm looking at the nightly news and the reports are pretty much cursory, not comprehensive, or even indicating that this is one of the biggest disasters in history (over 11,000 dead).

keep in mind, I'm not a peacecorps bleeding heart kind of dude. it's just the recent political realities have awakened me to the true nature of america and how much I actually differ from popular opinion here. eh... bah humbug...

[Captain Japan]

10 bodies likely to be Japanese found in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO, Dec. 27, Kyodo - (EDS: RECASTING, CHANGING DATELINE)
A Sri Lanka police official said Monday that around 10 bodies, which may be Japanese, have been found in the Yala National Park following massive tsunamis that hit coastal areas across Asia on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Japan's Foreign Ministry said that around 10 Japanese, including one of its officials who was on vacation, may have been caught in the tsunamis on Thailand's resort island of Phuket.

At least three of the 10 missing in Phuket are adults, according to the ministry.

The official is Sadayuki Yoshino, 41, First secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok, the ministry said.

The ministry is now working on confirming this information, its officials said.

According to Reuters, a Sri Lanka government official said Monday that 22 Japanese tourists may have been killed by the tsunamis.

''We believe we have found the bodies of 22 Japanese tourists who were stranded in Yala,'' the news agency quoted Lalith Weeratunga, secretary to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, as saying. He was referring to the Yala National Park in southeastern Sri Lanka.

''There were a group of Japanese who were in Yala today,'' he said. ''We are bringing the bodies to the morgue and Japanese embassy officials are going to identify them.''

[AlbertSiegel]

LOS ANGELES--U.S. officials who detected a massive earthquake off Asia's coast on Saturday tried frantically to warn the deadly wall of water was coming, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Sunday.

But there was no official alert system in the region because such catastrophes only happen there about once every 700 years, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.

"We tried to do what we could," McCreery said. "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

Within moments of detecting the quake, McCreery and his staff were on the phone to Australia, then to U.S. Naval officials, various U.S. embassies and finally the U.S. State Department.

They were unable to reach the thousands in the countries most severely affected--including India, Thailand and Sri Lanka--because none had a tsunami warning mechanism or tidal gauges to alert people, he said.

The 8.9-magnitude underwater quake--one of the most powerful in history--off the Indonesian island of Sumatra devastated southern Asia and triggered waves of up to 30 feet high, killing more than 11,300 people.

"We actually issued a bulletin about the quake but it only went to the countries in the Pacific...that subscribe...and that would include Australia and Indonesia," McCreery said.

Because of the lack of monitoring mechanisms, U.S. officials had no access to government or scientific information in the areas affected by the latest tsunamis and were relying on more general information.

A warning center such as those used around the Pacific could have saved thousands of lives, Waverly Person of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center, told Reuters.

"Most of those people could have been saved if they had had a tsunami warning system in place or tide gauges," he said.

"And I think this will be a lesson to them," he said, referring to the governments of the devastated countries.

Person also said that because large tsunamis, or seismic sea waves, are extremely rare in the Indian Ocean, people were never taught to flee inland after they felt the tremors of an earthquake.

Tsunami warning systems and tide gauges exist around the Pacific Ocean, for the Pacific Rim as well as South America. The United States has such warning centers in Hawaii and Alaska operated by the U.S. Geological Survey and NOAA. But none of these monitors the Indian Ocean region, McCreery said.

It takes a substantial investment and long-term commitment to set up a 24-hour communications infrastructure, operational capabilities and specialized training, he added, declining to estimate the cost.

In addition, U.S. seismologists said it was unlikely the Indian Ocean region would be hit any time soon by a similarly devastating tsunami because it takes an enormously strong earthquake to generate one.

But Person said governments should instruct people living along the coast to move after detecting a quake. Since a tsunami is generated at the source of an underwater earthquake, there is usually time--from 20 minutes to two hours--to get people away as it builds in the ocean.

A major tsunami, a Japanese word meaning "harbor wave," occurs in the Pacific Ocean about once a decade. It is generated by vertical movement during an earthquake and sometimes incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave, according to the Web site of the U.S. National Geophysical Data Center.

U.S. officials are now trying to help officials in the region set up some sort of informal warning system and feeling badly that more couldn't have been done, McCreery said.

"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get...to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said. "You can walk inland for 15 minutes to get to a safe area."

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Its a good job the US is the #1 at everything.

[Mulboyne]