This is an international website with users from all over the world, so this is a good place to post this here. I'm shocked about the high amount of victims caused by the earthquake in south asia. My prayers and thoughts are by the ones who are dead and wounded and also by their relatives and friends. Jimi

Yes sir...I am sending some cash to The Red Cross.......

i don't think there's ever been a bigger natural catastrophe in recent history :( drac

Yep I'm very sad about this too:( All we can do is pray for those that are left and to find a way to help those in need. I go to the beach in southern California a few times a summer and this makes me stop and realize that it could just as easily be me and a million others. My heart really goes out them.

This has got to be the saddest thing Ive heard in a good while. The figures are horrendous and almost beyond belief and they keep coming in. The devastation and sadness is unfathomable. My prayers and thoughts go out to all those afflicted by this catastrophe.

A couple of people at work seemed kind of dazed. They're from Varanasi which is well off the coast. There's already talk of cholera and malaria that will quickly run inland if they start. These initial numbers could be quickly dwarfed if disease gets a foothold. Most of the families that can afford it are sending nieces and nephews to the states. This is not over by a long shot.

Please be sure if you want to give that the money goes to relief. The American Red Cross makes this statement:

The American Red Cross is not able to accept small, individual donations or collections of items for this crisis. Financial support is the best form of assistance those wishing to help can provide.

You can help those affected by this crisis and countless others around the world each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, which will provide immediate relief and long-term support through supplies, technical assistance, and other support to those in need. Call 1-800-HELP NOW or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the International Response Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross International Response Fund, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution by visiting www.redcross.org.

In other words, Most agencies would rather buy a gallon of water or blanket in europe and ship it rather than try to ship yours from Colorado. Red Cross and most other organizations will put your money in the general fund if you do not specify it is for the India relief effort.

Message edited on: 12/27/2004 16:06

What is so amazing is the total geographic scale of this. We have friends from Mauritius and the Seychelles who still have family there, and they are frantically trying to get in touch, since hearing that waves have spread that far. Its just incomprehensible! My thoughts are with all those involved.

Aye, I am quite isolated from here, as long as you consider isolation having cable internet and only going to my email and to 'Rosity, of course, so I hadn't heard about this disaster. And I certainly am not numb to human peril, but considering that the U.S. has actually killed 1 MILLION PEOPLE IN IRAQ in the last ten years, I really can hardly blink at a natural disaster. And there are hundreds of thousands being mercilessly slaughtered in similar situations all over the world, not just between the U.S. and Iraq by any means. No thread hijacking, death is not a joke, I'm merely pointing a finger at what should be completely avoidable deaths caused by war, and I think that the world would be a better place if people didn't kill each other but instead focused on the needy people, for example, that have been hit by this quake. I hope the best for them, Mother Earth is a cold killer at times, hopefully the worst is past for the people of my native continent.

It is bad.. One of my friends is in Pondicherry.. he's ok..but has no news of his friends in the Andaman Is. He was to have gone back today. I was going there for a few days next month..but don't think I will. I have family in Madras..(Chennai)..they ok, but say the streets are waterlogged. I thank my lucky stars.. that I am in west India..not south..where things happened. Sometimes..there are lots more to be grateful for than donuts.

I think it was Stalin that said, "one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." I remember a story about a little girl. She was by the ocean at low tide pushing stranded starfish back into the tidal pools. A man came up and said, "What are you doing?" I'm saving starfish! Look up and down the beach. There are thousands of starfish. You can only save a handfull. Can't you see that it is only a drop in the bucket? What you're doing doesn't matter! The girl just flipped the next starfish into the pool. "It mattered to that one!" Don't look for the last starfish, or Iraq, or the last natural disaster. There will always be another further down the beach. Politicians are talking about monitoring stations now for waves. After that I guess we'll need to set up an asteroid watch, then there's that big flu pandemic... You can never be safe from life! All you can do is try to live it how it should be lived. Flip em in, on, or off as appropriate when the time comes. I do know that none of us are getting out alive. There's a tidal wave or a slip in the shower waiting for us all.

relief planes have started flying from my home town.. news show pple crying, radio news have them. Front page has three images.. one of a lady crying, the other.. of five women praying towards the sea, hoping to appease the sea gods, the other..of damage done. one can feel so helpless.....

I hear the numbers are past 64,000 now.......very horrible indeed.

Relief planes should have left the UK by now, according to tv news, although I did hear that empty planes have already gone there to pick up stranded holidaymakers. What sickens me is that every Christmas we get a disaster in the form of a plane or train crash. I've been waiting for something to happen since November. I actually said to a couple of my family members that we hadn't had the Christmas disaster yet on Christmas Eve. Then I logged on to see that AOL had picked up the story and that at the time there were only 3000 deaths....! The really frightening thing is that this was apparently worse than all the earthquakes on the entire planet for the past 5 years put together! Here, they are saying it was 9 on the Richter scale, which in case you didn't know, is ten times more powerful than 8 !! (Unless I'm badly mistaken on how this works) We live in strange times. This horror is more real to us because instead of anonamous reports from far away lands, we can see it through the lens of a video-cam as we did on 911.

past 40 years.. .. 8.9. last nite.. tehre was a 6 after shock tremor...

I am glad you are safe, Erosiaart. The reports I heard here say that most of those who died in the tsunami are children. My heart and prayers go out to all those families who lost so many dear to them.

I have to agree with Tjohn. As soon as I heard and realised the extent of the devastation the first person I thought about was you Erosiaart. Didn't like to say anything though, waited till you came on line, and heaved a sigh of relief.

I had no idea Erosiaart was in that area...!

Attached Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/28/quake.sumatra.reut/index.html

I'm in the western section of India.. all of what happened is in the south and eastern section. It's also not really far..by flight..one and half hours. Life goes on in our part.. xept that the only thing anyone talks about now is the disaster..and everyone is out to pitch in help however they can. Of course..lots of brawling of how the gov't cld have helped if there was a warning issued..but I guess that all coutries are doing that. What is sad is that there will be squabbles about how each gov't responded to the disaster..it's already happening in the gov't here..pretty internally still.. After shocks keep happening.. death toll keeps rising...just saw this (the url) on my desktop news ticker while writing this...

cple of stories in the papers.. : the earth wobbled on it's axis.. , sumatra may have moved by 20 metres, couple of tribes- Nicobarese and Sentinalese, esp the altter.. may have been wiped out.. the latter lived along the coast with a pop of 100. Still hazy. There is this town..Bhuj.. (they had a massive earthquake in 2001.. cple thousand pple died..) are being warned by doctors not to watch news of the disaster.. it's affecting them too much... corpse disposal a problem in certain arears.. family of 17 washed away ..one survivor..they were at a temple on the beach for wedding when it happened... lots of heroic stories too..men battered against the rocks to save women, another of a tourist to help whoever he can..etc...

What really struck me, watching people being interviewed as they returned from Thailand.....they were all describing how the local Thais rescued them, ran into the water to help them, helped them even when they were losing everything themselves. I'm so impressed with how the Thais and Indonesians are dealing with the disaster. OK, it's taking time to get organised, but they're helping each other, clearing the bodies, people are queuing for food and water, I admire them tremendously. There doesn't seem to be any money/help being pledged from the oil-rich countries in the region :^(