We hear how people die every day in news but this just caught my attention while I was going to check my mail. Over 7000 people have died already and the death toll just keeps rising according to officials, it is frightening to think how many more will die. It is always a tragedy when even just one person dies but these kind of things just shock me. I could never live in a country where I would have to fear for my life most of the time.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...esia_earthquake

If I would believe in god I would be praying for the people who live there. :(

It's one of the worlds most poular tourist destinations too... Such things frighten me drastically and it's so sad.

I saw that in the news last night. It's such a horrible tragedy, and it must be very hard for all of the people affected by it. I'm so sorry for everyone who had to go through it, and for all the people who lost loved ones in this. It's incredibly sad.

I can't imagine how frightening it must have been to go through all that. So many have died because of that incident. It's truely very sad. Thankfully, there were some survivors.

Now it's over 8000 already, I fear it might go over 10k once they seriously begin to count all the lives that have been lost...I can't remember when something of this magnitude happened last time. Really depressing.

Do we have any board members living in those areas?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4125481.stm

The initial tremor measured 8.9 on the Richter scale...making it the 5th strongest on record and strongest for forty years. The quake caused a rupture displacing a 1,000 km strip of land 10 m upwards, causing huge shockwaves and enormous amounts of water to be displaced. The ocean wave then travelled several hundred km/h in all directions as a bulge, swelling to tsunami sizes and devasting the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the coasts of Indian, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia; and almost the entirety of the Maldives.

Ahh, thank you for posting a better news site. Yahoo! News rarely goes into details and leaves too many questions unanswered.

But unfortunately I have no idea if some of our forum members live in that region, no idea at all.

I have a lot of relatives living in the Phillippines, which I think is in that region. I heard a Tsunami hit there and I've been very worried. I hope my relatives are ok.

Yeah, BBC's better. The TV chanenl, BBC World, has been covering the story non-stop since about 4 am AST...that's about 9 or 10 am GMT...or roughly 11 hours ago. You can see some of the pictures and videos of it on that site, see how it was caused and so forth.

The Phillipines are ok. They probably felt the quake, though.

Check the map at the bottom of the link I gave to see the areas affected by the tsunamis.

From what I saw on the news and from my parents,
looks like India was hit the worst and in Malaysia, the eastern part of the main Peninsular Malaysia (Pulau Pinang, Pulau Langkawi, Kedah...) was hit quite badly.

Man... the whole place was partly in ruins. Luckily, my relatives who lived somewhere in the middle of Pulau Pinang (Penang Island) weren't affected that much but what worries me is , will there be another one and if there is, when?

That's the thing...no one knows. Currently, there's no way to know when or where an earthquake will hit. We know regions where earthquakes are likely to and usually hit, but not specific occurences.

What we can hope for, though, is that they'll implement tsunami warning systems in the Indian Ocean and all the other places even at remote risk. Hopefully, people can know more about safety with these things too. For example, when the sea draws back suddenly and significantly it's a sign that a big wave is coming on shore. Had people in those regions known that many lives would've been saved.

Yes, I live around the Philippines, but I don't think it is near the blast radius of the tsunami.

I heard of that tsunami, but I didn't know how much people had been killed. A shocking amount really. Eight thousand casualties? Oh my God...

Well according to some sources over 20 000 people have died already. The news here where I live just said that, I'll see if I can find a good english news site that would confirm that.

CNN news reports that over 21,000 have died. There's a potential for aftershocks and disease spreading, too. More information can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...uake/index.html

This is just a horrible tragedy. I feel so badly for everyone who went through it.

I live in Singapore! At the tip of Malaysia!!

Thank goodness for Sumatra, else I think we might be short of a smod and a site staff right about now. :lol:

It's at 23,000 deaths now and all indications point to it rising dramatically. There is little contact with Aceh, a town very close to the epicentre, where I hear almost 1 million people live. BBC continues excellent coverage with cross-references to many different, related issues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/world/...ter/default.stm

And oh...BBC World had some videos of when some of the tsunamis were coming in that they got recently. The ones they had weren't from the first, 10 m one...but they were still frightening....

Oh, how horrible!!!! My prayers are with the families and those lost...

wth... gosh i feel so bad for the victims... my friend was planning on a trip to thailand and malaysia the last time i talked to her.. i am at loss for words... i just hope well everything will be ok.. :S

I can barely watch the news, because this is all so tragic. Have tsunamis ever caused this many casualties in the past??

This is so incredibly sad. The death toll has now risen to about 33,000. More information can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...uake/index.html

There's a video listed that supposedly shows one of the walls of water, but it won't play for me.

The report at the link above says this near the end: "The quake hit a year after the 6.6-magnitude quake in Bam, Iran, which killed more than 30,000 people, injured another 30,000 and destroyed 85 percent of the buildings in the city." From that, I would say that yes, there have been comparable numbers lost in other tsunamis and earthquakes.

My brother said two of his colleagues are "unaccounted for", went to Phuket.

You know what's scary? My Dad was at that beach last week. X__X

What's really sad to think about it's that this kind of scenes is not so rare to see. Yes, this time, the disaster was further stronger than the usual one, but it's not so hard to spot a quake of 5 magnitude, which can be very deadly in areas that has no preparation towards those disasters. Being an area that is easily tergeted by tsunamis and quakes, those events keep killing people, day after day. this time, 30 thousand were victims. And next time... how many will be? That's what no one thinks about: prevention, and ignoring this won't make their lives any better.

Well apparently it's closer to 50 000 victims now and still rising.

Oh dear,
this is terrible. It's seems to be getting worse but when will it end?
I really worry for the victims whom have survived and wonder if their lives will ever be the same :( . It's very sad , especially if loved ones are lost .

Very sadly, the death toll as a result of the tsunami is now over 80,000. Health officials are now estimating that it may reach 100,000. They are also fearing the spread of diseases such as malaria, which would take even more lives.

More information can be found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/2...uake/index.html

Tsunamis have never killed this many. The last record for tsunamis deaths was in Japan. I can't find the BBC link where I saw it, though....

I heard today that the death toll may be as high as 150,000...


This's just... i can't even think of a word

As of now, 118,938 deaths confirmed...

I still can't think of a word for this...

I pray the predictions won't be as bad as they think...

If disease and famine and such double the amount of dead now...

*shudders* It's so tragic...

My thoughts and prayers are with those affected...

And I can only hope that this is the end, and not the begining of more disasters to come...

Sadly, the number above is not a prediction... but an actual count...

Exactly! And if the final total were to double due to disease and famine, it would be all the more tragic...

about 250,000? I don't even want to think about that...

Don't you hate it when people underestimate nature? It's so sad, that all of these people have to suffer now. :(

125,000 now... oh god... :unsure:

well, the least thing we can do now is..help!!
the donations can be made to Redcross or you know, just type Tsunami donations in google or yahoo and you'll get loads of sites for it!

this tsunami disaster is just horrible, I don't know when I've been so utterly sad about a world event. Just an unbelievable tragedy, and it will continue to negatively effect lives in that area of the world for years to come. I just wish the US had responded faster and with more money.


Good call Slower, I'm sure the Red Cross and other such organizations could use all the monetary help they can get right now.

Man, it's terrible, I myself can't help but feel sad for the victims and their families. So far my family has donated clothes for the victims and here at the university, Red Crescent Society donation boxes have deen placed in nearly every food stall for any contributions. Even through handphones, if you type a certain message and send to a specific number, about RM 1 is charged and used as a donation

I live in Malaysia, and north from here , forgotten which state, where the tsunami hit, and people died. And Malaysia is supposed to be one of those places where natural disasters such as tsunami do not hit.

The tsunami is really .. wow. It makes you realize how you could just die anytime. Okay, that's depressing .. but because of this, it makes you cherish your family/friends. It made me cherish mine because my dad's often going Indonesia and Thailand for business.

in the newspapers there was something like
"no more blankets, we need more body bags"
you know what that means.

True, events like this make you realize how very close to the Final Destination at every given moment.