Asian Tsunami

[marianne]

Hi all,

I'm writing a guest editorial for my community newspaper here in Brisbane.

How can we have progressed so far in so many ways yet we have no useful early warning systems set up globally, to avert such a catastrophy?

I'm also pondering the dreadful feeling of impotence that donations to aid organisations doesn't even begin to alleviate.

If any of you would like to share your thoughts on this please do.

MDP

[Chirugal]

This really shocked me, I have to say. Everyone these days is so obsessed with terrorist threat that we forget what destruction our own earth can cause. I hope nobody here had family or friends who were affected.

[Mouse]

A very close friend of mine (we pretty much grew up together) was in Kerala (which is on the affected coast of India) on the morning of the tsunamis. It was a very scary day and a half until she emailed us all saying that she'd flown out of Kerala to Mumbai several hours before the tsunami actually hit. Awfully scary, especially watching it on the news and thinking, Oh my god, Alice might be in all that somewhere...

I think terrible things like this prove how insignificant we really are on the face of the earth. As humans we like to think we rule, we are dominant, we are the most important species. But we're not. The earth has a hiccup and it destroys hundreds of thousands of lives, not necessarily by killing them. It leaves behind such a mess that we're going to be trying to fix things for months, years.

It makes you feel so helpless, knowing that our environment can unleash destructive forces like that without us having time to do anything about it. As a race we're exploring space, inventing new technology every day, discovering new things every day. And yet we don't have a way of at least knowing of these things in time for people to get out of the way. It seems so stupid, that a race that do things like advanced medicine and space exploration can't even warn people of things like tsunamis or earthquakes. Perhaps if we focussed some more of the energy we use on searching space and fighting each other on understanding our planet better, things like this tragedy could eventually be avoided.

I've always disliked watching too much footage of disasters like this on the news, because it does end up getting to me. Pictures of so many people suffering, and there's not a whole lot you can do to make it better. I mean, this year I've experienced a couple of fairly awful things, like my house burning down at six in the morning while me and my mum and sisters where all there, and my cousin barely walking out of a major car accident, but I watch disasters like this and think, what I felt then is only a fraction of how awful it must be for some of the people there. And I would never wish what I felt on anyone, let alone something worse. So I definitely feel helpless and even a little guilty, that all my family is okay, that I have a place to live and food and water and all those things.

And that's my two cents. Hi Chir! *wavies*

[Cj]

Its the things i'd never think of that amaze me most like the threat of rabid domesticated dogs who havent been feed since the Tsunami hit, the fact that all the inland fresh water has been contaminated with salt water and is unfit for use and familiys as large as four are trying to live off a few litres a day, how people have lost all personal identification and cant even prove that they are from a different country and places are clamping down on security not letting people out.

In ten years time Asian will still be suffering from the backlash of this tradegy. It costs 150 for a child to go to school in thailand and that covers clothes, food and books

Fundraising ideas are all over the internet and if you have any way of acessing a big crowd like schools or groups there isnt a worthier cause then sending a child to school for year, then they will have a chance to get a job in a stronger industry within their country and help their economy back to strength.

Goal and Unicef seem to be the main collectors at the moment.

The problem i fear is Christmas will have overshadowed this and people wont want to give any more money or they wont have paid attention to whats happened. I'm not saying that on Stephans Day i ran around collecting money, i just mean that nows the time to do it quick before people forget.

[Chirugal]

Mouse said:

And that's my two cents. Hi Chir! *wavies*

Hey Mouse! ;D

A story I saw made me cry. A woman was going from encampment to encampment, searching for her three kids who were all under 5. As you watched you just knew that she was never going to see those kids again.

But on the other hand, did you hear about the baby they found still alive in the rubble after 7 days? It's good to know that not everything going on out there is bad.

[Ros]

There was talk of using cell phones to broadcast early warnings, but the problem would be getting everyone to subscribe to the warnings, it would have to come from each government. Then everyone would have to have a phone, and have it switched on. When the tsunami's out at sea the wave is barely visible, so it's not a question of tracking it by satellite as soon as it happens. Those hit first by the wave wouldn't get a warning anyway.

It's sobering to think how helpless we are in the face of nature, and we're still a way off being able to give helpful tsunami warnings.

[Mad Max]

Its the physics that makes it near impossible to detect tsunami. The displaced water rises under the earthquake zone and then radiates in all directions. It just keeps travelling at around 700klm/h until it finds land. The only give away one has of its passage is a slight rise as the wave passes. Slight being from six inches to up to a metre!

The best warning system is the earthquake monitering stations that can triangulate the epicentre and tell where the quake is, now if its near or under water then they know a tsunami is on its way. Now if it occurs in the middle of the Pacific its only a matter of hours to get the warning out and the closer the epicentre the less time one has.

The Chilean earthquake in 1960 took over a day to reach Japan 17,000 klm away and killed 2000 in japan alone.

Ok enough of the science lesson, if we were to be overly concerned about what could happen to us on a daily basis we wouldn't leave our houses and we would live our lives in fear, not my cup of tea I assure you. Hell I ride a motor bike daily, I sit down and read the stats stating the mortality rates of bikers. I'm not blase' about what would happen (a dozen slides and 3 hi sides can tell you that, p.s I only go fast on a track)I don't ignore the stats, I take them on board and do my best to not be included in that group. Although sometimes these things can't be avoided all we can do is just do our best to live life to the fullest and help our fellow man when the needs arise.

In these days of distrust and suspicion on a global scale its great to see civilian populations banding together for the comon good, yet we see that the government of Arche has already given a deadline for all foreign aid agencies and millitary forces to pull out by, even though they know they haven't the resources to continue helping their own populations should the foreign agencies leave.

It seems we still have a long way to go before we are a united species, maybe we should kick out all governments for a little while and let anarchy reign, sure the roads wouldn't get fixed but it would remind the governments to listen to their constituents.

Ah, what am I worried about, we keep selling everything and it will all be corporatised and we won't have to worry about governments any more any way! See its all in the perception, so who cares if the corps and media then control our lives, its not like they were ours in the first place.