December 29, 200421 yr I'm sure there are sick people in this country doing a gambling pool on the amount of deaths. 644470[/snapback] Wait until the wacked-out bastards start auctioning off tsunami water on Ebay...... I'm at a loss as to what to do for these poor people. Many are so poor- they didn't have two sticks to rub together in the first place. And the death toll will rise higher and higher as disease will spread. I also hope that some religious pieces of s*** don't start this "They had it coming." Crap because of some crackass person claiming that it is God's will for this to happen.
December 29, 200421 yr The only good thing to come out of this is that it has stopped several civil wars for the moment.
December 30, 200421 yr Tsunami Death Toll Rockets to 114,000 Published: 12/30/04 Related Stories Saudi Police Look for Suspects in Blasts AP - 12/30/04 Panama Canal Defying Expectations AP - 12/30/04 Museums Advised to Check Bible-Era Relics AP - 12/30/04 Israeli V.P. Seeks More West Bank Pullout AP - 12/30/04 Asians Invent Ways to Survive Disasters AP - 12/30/04 Join the Conversation Discuss your viewpoints on this subject with others. Join in on the discussions in the BellSouth Message Boards now! BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) - The death toll from last weekend's earthquake-tsunami catastrophe rose to more than 114,000 on Thursday as Indonesia uncovered more and more dead from ravaged Sumatra island, where pilots dropped food to remote villages still unreachable by rescue workers. A false alarm that new killer waves were about to hit sparked panic in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Up to 5 million people around the tsunami-struck Indian Ocean region do not have access to the basics they need to stay alive - clean water, shelter, food, sanitation and health care, the U.N. World Health Organization said, saying it needed $40 million dollars to get those supplies to victims. The increase in the death toll came after Indonesia reported nearly 28,000 newly confirmed dead in Sumatra, which was closest to the epicenter of last weekend's massive earthquake and was overwhelmed by the tsunami that followed. Some 60 percent of Banda Aceh, the main city in northern Sumatra was destroyed, the U.N. children's agency estimated, and 115 miles of the island's northwest coast - lined with villages - was inundated. Indonesia, with around 80,000 dead, was the worst hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. The total across 12 nations in southern Asia and East Africa was likely to rise, with thousands still missing and fears that disease could bring a new wave of deaths. *article was longer, but for brevity's sake, I ended it here.
December 30, 200421 yr Hasn't been released yet how this is affecting my company, AIG, which has a large Asian presence One thing that they are doing is having a no-cap 100% matching on all employee contributions to the AIG Disaster Fund, which is also a tax deductable donation If interested, check to see if your employer is doing anything as far as a specific fund. If not see if they offer matching grants. AIG also does this and so do all of my past employers. For example, if i wanted to donate to the Red Cross, I'd fill out a matching grant request and if applicable the company would match my donation to them. Definitely a sad turn of events. Hopefully the cleanup and rebuilding process will foster a sense of unity in the region and end up making them stronger in the long haul.
December 30, 200421 yr Might I also add - this should definately help replace many of the shanty towns with much more suitable living quarters, create a state of the art water desalinization and purification facility, and enable seismologists to finally get the funding required for predictive analysis. It is actually a miracle that a catastrophe of these proportions has taken this long. And we were upset because of a flu vaccine shortage...
December 31, 200421 yr ABC Radio Offering Tsunami Special This Weekend Gil Gross anchors the one-hour Tsunami Disaster: The Aftermath, which is being made available to ABC Radio affiliates across the country. ABC News Radio VP/GM President Steve Jones says the special will include ABC News reports from the hardest hit areas, amazing survivor stories, and an update on the unprecedented world-wide relief effort.
January 1, 200521 yr Article on how animals seemed to escape the wave. Anyways, death toll almost to 150,000. How Did Animals Escape Tsunami? Reuters Page 1 of 1 12:38 PM Dec. 30, 2004 PT JOHANNESBURG -- Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami, adding weight to notions they possess a sixth sense for disasters, experts said Thursday. Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found. Today's the Day. "No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit," said H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka's Wildlife Department. "I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening." The waves washed floodwaters up to two miles inland at Yala National Park in the ravaged southeast, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild elephants and several leopards. "There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proven," said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behavior specialist at Johannesburg Zoo. "There have been no specific studies because you can't really test it in a lab or field setting." Other authorities concurred with this assessment. "Wildlife seem to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds ... there are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters," said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife. Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators. The notion of an animal sixth sense -- or some other mythical power -- is an enduring one which the evidence on Sri Lanka's battered coast is likely to add to. The Romans saw owls as omens of impending disaster and many ancient cultures viewed elephants as sacred animals endowed with special powers or attributes. The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean Sunday, killing tens of thousands of people in Asia and East Africa.
January 5, 200521 yr BAd news, death toll may double. :plain By Dean Yates and Achmad Sukarsono BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United Nations warned on Wednesday Asia's tsunami death toll could double to about 300,000 unless survivors received clean water and other basic services by the end of the week to prevent disease. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Indonesia for an emergency international aid summit on Thursday, flew over the worst scenes of devastation and said it was more horrifying than wars he had witnessed during decades as a soldier. Australia and Germany pledged more than $1 billion in aid, raising the U.N.'s global tally to nearly $3.7 billion, and a debt relief initiative by rich nations gathered momentum. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had sent emergency treatment to the region for diarrheal diseases such as cholera and dysentery but while the aid was reaching many locations, access to safe drinking water remained inadequate. "If basic needs ... are not urgently restored to all populations by the end of this week, WHO fears that outbreaks of infectious disease could result in a similar number of fatalities as occurred due to the direct impact of the tsunami," the U.N. agency said in a statement on the Internet. After getting a bird's-eye view of the battered northwest coastline of Indonesia's Sumatra island, Powell promised Washington would send more helicopters, food and clean water to isolated survivors of the tsunami. POWELL "HORROR" "I have been in war and I have been through a number of hurricanes, tornadoes and other relief operations, but I have never seen anything like this," said America's former top soldier. Powell, 67, served two combat tours in Vietnam during a 35-year military career that ended with his service as the country's military chief. "I cannot begin to imagine the horror that went through families and all of the people who heard this noise coming and then had their lives snuffed out by this wave," he said. About two-thirds of the U.N. estimated 150,000 dead from the tsunami were killed in Aceh province on Sumatra. President Bush, criticized in some quarters for what was seen as a slow and stingy initial U.S. response to the disaster, has contributed $10,000 himself for aid efforts, the White House said. U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland praised Washington for doubling the number of helicopters it was contributing to relief efforts to about 90, saying the craft were the best way of overcoming washed away roads and bridges. Egeland called on governments and rebel groups in the region not to wreck aid efforts by resuming conflicts. "We need that cease-fire, that peace, to hold because if new conflict breaks out, we cannot help the people," he said. Egeland said peace prevailed in Aceh, there was a cease-fire in Sri Lankan areas where the Tamil Tigers had previously been active and warlords were not fighting in "the better part of Somalia." The African state was a distant tsunami victim. After his helicopter tour, Powell left for Jakarta where U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other world leaders were arriving for the international relief summit for tsunami-hit Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and Malaysia. ANNAN APPEAL Annan called on world leaders to honor their pledges of aid, saying it should be "fresh and additional money, not robbing Peter to pay Paul, pulling it from other crises." A draft joint summit declaration, seen by Reuters, welcomed debt relief for tsunami-hit countries and supported an early warning system. The document, circulated among the 26 nations and groups attending the summit, called on the United Nations to mobilize the international community and called for stronger coordination and cooperation of relief efforts. In Europe, people from Riga to Rome observed three minutes of silence to remember the dead, who included several thousand tourists, many of them Europeans. Public buildings in Europe flew flags at half mast, stock exchanges fell silent, crowded railway stations came to a standstill and television and radio stations broadcast solemn music in memory of the victims. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he believed the Group of Seven industrialized nations would be able to agree on debt relief for Sri Lanka and Indonesia, both of which suffered most from the Dec. 26 disaster. Japan joined other G7 members Britain, the United States, Canada and France in supporting a debt payment moratorium, which will be discussed in Jakarta and also at a meeting next Wednesday of the Paris Club of creditor nations. Germany raised its aid to tsunami-hit countries to 500 million euros ($680.2 million) from 20 million euros previously, while Australian Prime Minister John Howard pledged A$1.0 billion (US$765 million) over five years to Indonesia. Indonesia said half a million people were homeless in Aceh, where the hungry scavenged for food and water and injured people flooded hospitals. U.N. officials said they were worried orphaned or lost children might fall prey to criminal gangs bent on selling them into slavery. Children make up a third of the tsunami dead and tens of thousands more have been orphaned. At an orphanage in southern India, 15-year-old Sitha, her sister Sitha Lakshmi, 10, and 8-year-old brother Amitha grappled with the loss of their parents. "I'm the head of the family now," Sitha said, holding back tears. "I have to look after them. Mummy wanted them to get educated and I have to make that happen now."
January 7, 200521 yr I've been trying to load this video from MSNBC.com but I can't get it to work...anyone think they can help? http://www.msnbc.com/modules/interactive.a...&CE=video&cp1=1 The one that says "Video shows tsunami approaching"
January 9, 200521 yr Front page of Drudge says aid workers are expecting to feed 2 million people for 6 months. :o
January 14, 200521 yr 210,000 That is simply unbelievable. 210,000 people going about their lives like nothing is wrong and seconds later...boom... they are dead. That is so many people and I'm sure with disease and everything it is jsut going to climb
January 14, 200521 yr Death toll in Indonesia is near 210,000. 654962[/snapback] where'd you see that? everything i've seen is in the 163,000 range.
January 14, 200521 yr http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington.../printstory.jsp This is where I saw it
January 14, 200521 yr Wouldn't be overly surprised if it did end up in this range, or higher. The toll just contiues to rise, and many missing people still haven't been added to the official toll.
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