Largest earthquake in 50 years.

Yeah, it's entirely possible for an earthquake to occur in the pacific ocean. But there's a tsuanmi warning system implace, so depending on where it occours there might be up to a few hours warning before wave hits. But nonetheless the damage and casualties would be huge.
 
Earthquakes happen all the time in all of the larger oceans on earth, but they differ in scale. All it needs is something to create tension in the crust, like for example the border between two continental plates. There are for example such borders in the Atlantic Ocean (running from north to south), the Pacific and, which triggered this recent event, in the Indian Ocean.
 
Tr0n said:
They said the quake that hit in souteast asia actually disturbed the earths rotation a tiny bit.

Don't think so. Angular Momentum is conserved. Bits of the earth would have to go flying off into space for that to happen.
 
or the shape of the earth could change which is essentialy what an earthquake is.
 
bbc.co.uk/news said:
The International Monetary Fund promised "whatever possible assistance"

The Red Cross launched an appeal for 5m euros (£3.5m; $6.8m)

The European Union pledged 3m euros (£2.1m; $4.1m)

The US promised $15m (£7.8m)

Australia pledged 10m Australian dollars (£4m; $7.7m) and sent two planes carrying drinking water and purification equipment to Indonesia

Russia sent 25 tons of humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka

The UK was due to send a plane to Sri Lanka with plastic sheeting and tenting

France sent a plane with 100 rescue workers, doctors and five tonnes of aid to Sri Lanka. The French Foreign Minister was to accompany another aid flight.

That was nice of us :/
 
Canada pledged $1 million I believe..which isn't too bad I guess. :|
 
mortiz said:
That was nice of us :/

What did you expect them to send?! Money!!? HAH! maybe if this country was'nt run by a complete twat then maybe.

This is terrible...so many dead :/
 
Actually, plastic sheeting will be made into tents, so that's why they sent that and tents.

That's one of the most important things that they need over there right now, one is shelter, other is food, third is medicin. If i'd have been older, I would have volunteered to the red cross to go there, if they paid my plane ticket there and back.
 
plastic sheeting and tents is vital tbh..

they could have sent money or medicine tho :(
 
The_Monkey said:
That's nasty, still if it would have happened in the western world it would have been a catastrophe, now it's just an incident. That's the scary part.
No. Seriously no.

This is such a cataclysm, it's beyond words. I was in Tamil Nadu this summer and it was gorgeous - it's literally unbelievable to see what's happened. It's so sad.
The UN has said that this will need one of the largest aid drives of all time. I just hope that countries - especially us wealthier countries in the West - actually get behind it and DO SOMETHING. We simply can't sit back and say how awful it is.
 
I think he meant that people are treating it like an incident because it didn't happen somewhere like the US. I mean, if it had happened in the UK I know a lot more people who wouldn't just casually be talking about it in the pub like they are doing...they'd actually be going and helping out.
 
Man, this truly sucks. Even a couple of people who I know are missing.
 
Farrowlesparrow said:
I think he meant that people are treating it like an incident because it didn't happen somewhere like the US. I mean, if it had happened in the UK I know a lot more people who wouldn't just casually be talking about it in the pub like they are doing...they'd actually be going and helping out.

Exactly, and when I posted that, "only" 2000 were reported dead. I had no idea of the scale of this catastrophe.
 
Farrowlesparrow said:
I think he meant that people are treating it like an incident because it didn't happen somewhere like the US. I mean, if it had happened in the UK I know a lot more people who wouldn't just casually be talking about it in the pub like they are doing...they'd actually be going and helping out.
Fair point, but then it's an extremely long and difficult way to go to help your fellow man. I think there's only a small percentage of people who would offer their services to a country nearly half-way round the world. Not that other people don't care or that if you don't you're a bad person, it's just that step beyond the call of duty, I think... Of course some philosophers would disagree, but that's a different matter. If you contribute money to an aid agency for example then that's still helping in some way.
If it happened in this country, of course people would be helping out in a first hand way, but I think it's the same in India or Sri Lanka - you help your fellow countrymen. Something of this magnitude binds you all together, even if it's only for a while.
 
Swedish nes now repost 42000 dead, although that number is not official.
 
its now been confirmed 42 000+ are dead, more bodies still to be found, and man thats around where im ment to be going in about 11days, to penang.......man i really feel bad for all those people....
 
Also, 49 people have died in eastern africa. It's like people in the US would die people of an earthquake in Freance.
 
I was watching the American News yesterday (CBS I think) and it annoyed me how they covered it. They made it too much about Americans and just as if it were another story. It was retarded. I guess they didn't realize what a huge disaster this is.
 
I wasn't saying plastic sheeting and tents weren't important, I just thought they'd have sent other stuff besides one plane with plastic sheeting an tents.
 
50'000 dead from what I heard now. It just keeps rising and rising...

Around 1500 Swedes are missing, many of them are probably dead.
 
Loke said:
50'000 dead from what I heard now. It just keeps rising and rising...

Around 1500 Swedes are missing, many of them are probably dead.

And most of them died from just the flooding and the Tsunami, imagine how many more will die when the disease hits ! :(
 
When they showed it on ITV I just felt so bad, they had pictures of drowned people just floating in the river, terrible a true disaster.
 
Loke said:
50'000 dead from what I heard now. It just keeps rising and rising...

Around 1500 Swedes are missing, many of them are probably dead.
I think the death toll will go over 100k... Probably the largest global disaster ever, considering there are 10+ nations involved.
 
This is like a freaking biblical disaster.... :(
 
I'm feeling sick.

According to the Foreign minister and the government along with the media are now assessing the number of dead swedes and they say it might be hundreds but 1700 are still missing.

I know of course for you non-swedes this sounds like a piss in the ocean compared to how many others have died but we're a small country, and almost everybody will be affected by this in some way.

I just hope things work out for all of the people down there. Wish I could do something but I'm one month away from being allowed to give blood and too poor to give money. :(
 
vetebulle said:
I'm feeling sick.

According to the Foreign minister and the government along with the media are now assessing the number of dead swedes and they say it might be hundreds but 1700 are still missing.

I know of course for you non-swedes this sounds like a piss in the ocean compared to how many others have died but we're a small country, and almost everybody will be affected by this in some way.

I just hope things work out for all of the people down there. Wish I could do something but I'm one month away from being allowed to give blood and too poor to give money. :(

And the goverment does almost nothing to get home our people. Sure, now they've sent 10 planes, but they must put more effort into it. This might be the worst swedish catastroph since Estonia.
 
I know it's not much help, but I just have to say I wish the best of luck to all of you who have friends and family who might be/were affected by this horrible quake. I hope that everyone here is re-united with the ones they love.
 
Sinnsykt said:
now just over 60,000 dead, man i feel like crying
It might get worse. UN in Jakarta recieved unconfirmed reports of as many as 40,000 deaths in Meulaboh (western Sumatra)... Wouldnt surprise me if it was true.
 
Listening to individual cases makes it worse, it's easy to think of 60,000 as just a statistic, it's bad to do so but it's human nature, but I heard on the news today that Richard Attenborough's 14 year old granddaughter has been confirmed dead and his daughter and son-in-laws mother are missing, he's already accepted them as dieing also.
 
mortiz said:
Listening to individual cases makes it worse, it's easy to think of 60,000 as just a statistic, it's bad to do so but it's human nature, but I heard on the news today that Richard Attenborough's 14 year old granddaughter has been confirmed dead and his daughter and son-in-laws mother are missing, he's already accepted them as dieing also.
oh my god....this is so bad...feel so helpless :(
 
Hectic Glenn said:
oh my god....this is so bad...feel so helpless :(

I kind of feel that way too...

At first when this happened my initial reaction was.. "Wow, 9500, that's three times as bad as September 11th!" (I wasn't really comparing them too closely though, because one is a natural disaster and one was an act of war)

Then skyrocketed to 20,000 which put it on a whole new level, but 60,000? That's hard to even comprehend.
 
Baal said:
I kind of feel that way too...

At first when this happened my initial reaction was.. "Wow, 9500, that's three times as bad as September 11th!" (I wasn't really comparing them too closely though, because one is a natural disaster and one was an act of war)

Then skyrocketed to 20,000 which put it on a whole new level, but 60,000? That's hard to even comprehend.

This is 30 times worse than 9/11 so far.
 
Baal said:
I kind of feel that way too...

At first when this happened my initial reaction was.. "Wow, 9500, that's three times as bad as September 11th!" (I wasn't really comparing them too closely though, because one is a natural disaster and one was an act of war)

Then skyrocketed to 20,000 which put it on a whole new level, but 60,000? That's hard to even comprehend.
Then you probably dont want to read up on history, as millions have died over the last few decades in natural disasters... Typhoons around india kills 200,000+ at a time. Quake in China kills quarter of a million people.

The biggest disaster is also in China I think, 16th century quake that killed about a million people.

60,000 may be hard to comprehend, but its still a tiny figure.
 
Not compared to the single beings that we are...You are comparing it to larger numbers, which have no meaning to us ut when you put yourself into that number of 60,000, you quickly see that its too big to fully imagine without seeing it.
 
I just saw that apparently a UN worker called the US's donation of $35m and a couple of naval ships "stingy", then I compared this to our (as in the UK) government's contribution which, as far as I can see, is close to f*ck all. Very very disappointing.
 
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