beerbarrel wrote:

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 18:36:57 -0800, running dogg wrote:

Michael Lawson wrote:


"running dogg" wrote in message
...
dxAce wrote:



dxAce wrote:

DeWayne wrote:

Well Uncle Sam is again chipping in to help the victims of
earthquake and
tsunami. Let's see who else chips in. Rich Arabs? Muslim
nations? Don't hold
your breath.

I think it's safe to say that there will be aid coming from all
corners of the
globe.

Additionally, I spoke to the Red Cross here earlier this afternoon
and if you
desire you can make a donation with your local Red Cross to the
International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) specifically for earthquake
relief which will be
forwarded to them.

Radio Australia is reporting that the UN has said that the relief
operation will be the largest in HISTORY. 23,000 dead so far, and
injuries and disease (from all the dead bodies and bacteria
contaminated
water) are expected to kill thousands more. It's the worst natural
disaster in nearly 100 years-hell, the quake itself was the largest
since the Alaska shaker in 1964, and that one caused the earth to
ring
like a bell for three weeks. American experts are guessing that the
Indian Ocean hasn't experienced a tsunami like this in 500 years,
but
they don't know since nothing in the recorded histories of those
countries matches what happened.

The only thing that springs to mind offhand is what
happened to Thera and the Minoan civilization, circa
1500 BC.

And that was as much the rain of hot lava as the tsunami created by the
eruption.

As I understand it, the damage caused by the 9.0 magnitude earthquake
was relatively minor and localized, it was the tsunami that caused all
the death and destruction. That means that this tsunami was easily the
deadliest and most destructive tsunami in recorded human history. Radio
Habana Cuba claimed last night that "hundreds" of people in Somalia-in
Africa-died in the tsunami, although I have yet to hear confirmation of
that anywhere else. Somalia is on the other side of the Indian Ocean
from Sumatra-6,000 miles, IIRC.


--Mike L.





The Pacific is by far the most active tsunami zone, according to the
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But
tsunamis have been generated in other bodies of water, including the
Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
North Atlantic tsunamis included the tsunami associated with the 1775
Lisbon earthquake that killed as many as 60,000 people in Portugal,
Spain, and North Africa. This quake caused a tsunami as high as 23
feet (7 meters) in the Caribbean.

But most of the dead in Iberia (Spain and Portugal) were from the
earthquake, not necessarily from the tsunami that followed it. In
Southeast Asia, most of the dead were specifically from the tsunami. See
the difference?