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[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.

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[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Well, no, actually. Okay, it poured and poured and POURED for days and THEN there were floods. Wow, what a huge surprise for all ofus. I mean, it was terrible, especially for the people who got flooded, but there's also this wierd element of hey, pool party in the street. Tsunamis, on the other hand, kill people and do it fast.

And as for the earthquakes, what I really meant is okay, I know it's a really serious danger, but I've picked up the Wellington habit of being blase about it. Because we're so overdue, and because frankly we can't do anything about it, and it's the huge hanging threat, we tend to just ignore the possibility, and condescend to anyone who's scared of our baby quakes. ;)