(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

:-/ 14 thousand people killed, and growing, in India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar, malaysia, the Maldives, elsewhere.

Tsunamis are in many ways my greatest fear, in terms of natural disaster, in a practical sense. Tornados? We don't get 'em. Cyclones? Sometimes the tail-end of one, that's all. Drought? Yeah... but Sydney's across the Ditch and that tends to give one a senseof perspective every January. Flood? Sure, but not dramatic. Earthquake? Hey, I live in Wellington, I'm cool with them.

...tsunami? NZ is an island- okay, three islands- and we are low. All our cities are ports, pretty much. And this tsunami was caused by an earthquake offshore of 9.0 Richters. Just last week we had, down south, an 8.4 or 5 richter. It's not all that far off. >.<

So, well, I'm thinking a lot about the people in Southern Asia. it's so surreal, it's like some movie or something, this idea that on the other side of the planet thousands and thousands of people just died. All at once.

Comments

[nzlemming.livejournal.com]

It is pretty awesome. The impact on Asia will be extreme for some time to come, in terms of recovery, restoration and tourism costs.

I'd need to check the continental shelf map, but I suspect last week's one may have been a precursor to this one.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

Last week's? What have I missed? The last tsunami I remember hearing about was the one in Papa New Guinea a few years ago.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Um. We missed it because we were drunk last night, but hello, girl, go read your paper, it's front-page news.

[sixth-light.livejournal.com]

You actually think I'm that stupid? I was not referring to the Boxing Day tsunamis. I was querying nzlemming's mention of another tsunami last week, to which he has kindly provided links below - that was an undersea earthquake near Tasmania. I am well aware of Sunday's tragedy.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. ;)

You said it, not me.

Anyway, the earthquake was mentioned here too.

[nzlemming.livejournal.com]

http://www.geonet.org.nz/x2342423g_l.html

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=623b92564d287b9d&cat=0b75a2fd5e16e87e because Stuff doesn't have a free archive, the bastids

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/12/25/world/9746778&sec=world

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I know- it's kinda frightening a disaster of this magnitute. In Thailand, apparently, a lot of the islands the worst affected were the tourist islands where 80% of people are non-Thai- that's going to really affect them, I mean economy-wise.

Although i despise the way media is so hung up on that. I can understand NZ media caring if NZers were involved, but beyond that, hello, tourists or he local dairy owner, the death is the same.

[mandor700.livejournal.com]

Yea, and I was just thinking, about the impact didn't it take like 6 months in Papua New Gunea just to assess the damage? Now it wont be nearly as bad in these countries because they are all in all more developed but over the next month or so with little clean water...

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Well, you just need to look at the way the death tolls keep rising... :-/

are the countries more developed? India? It's still a thrid-world country, and I would pick that as maybe the most developed in the bunch (except the tourist bit of Thailand, i suppose. Dunno about the rest of it.)

[mandor700.livejournal.com]

Yea but its on the coast of India and the coast is generally the most developed part (What d'you know? 5th form Geo did pay off for something).
But in the context on New Gunea they're quite developed by comparison.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

You reckon? hmm, I guess. It's not like I know even one thing about socio-economic growth and developement in South Asia, after all.... :P