Sea surges kill thousands in Asia (undersea earthquake, tsunami)

so sad.

i think this statement is ridiculous.

'I can tell you we have intelligence reports that there have been high-level contacts between all the oceans. The Atlantic and Pacific are clearly implicated in this outrage. The bombing starts in twenty minutes.'

i don't think this is a problem particular to the US.

It's appalling and horrifying and desperately depressing - that story quotes over a million people having to leave their homes in Sri Lanka, besides the thousands dead.

The parallel came because the thread drew the comparison with 9/11.

Let's leave disasters caused by man out of this - let's leave talk of 9/11 behind. What sort of scale are we talking here? Have there been tsunamis on this scale across SE Asia over the last century? Is this something normal or a freak occurence?

the bbc story says that it's the world's biggest earthquake in 40 years, so i guess it is a freak occurrence sort of thing.

literally, it happened very early in the morning here.

Not-stop coverage on FOX! Whouda thought?

indeed. is it because of Australian tourists?

(I know, i was being sarcastic.)

Sadly much like any other year.

you bastard

But I didn't.

http://geography.about.com/cs/earthquakes/a/ringoffire.htm
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/PlateTectonics/framework.html

barely - and certainly not out of tokyo. though the shoreline's well reinforced/replaced with concrete all the country round.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/tsunami.survivor/index.html

Well, expecting it doesn't make it any less offensive. I'm sure there's no shortage of actual stories that about this catastrophe--an occasional Oprah guest's survival probably shouldn't be one of the first ones.

I guess pretty soon I'll discover the scale of this devastation first hand...

You should write a letter to CNN and tell him about how digusting that is.. that someone who managed to actually get some form of communication back to his family and his place of work in spite of all the chaos.. should be denied being able to tell his brief side of the story because he works on the Oprah show. I can't hold my stomach myself! What a dick.

At risk of sounding too silly, did anyone else have dread "oh no" Day After Tomorrow kind of sensations upon seeing this? :/

glad your cousin and husband are okay, Andrew

Sure did.

I wonder if this will set any other plates off or cause any volcanoes to pop like an overripe pimple.

You think? Seems like just stereotypical Melbourne weather to me.

Oh come on, you don't think there's a problem of focus when CNN makes Nate Berkus the face of this tragedy? How hard did they have to work to find an American celebrity involved in all of this?

at least there's not an American version of momus in CNN making some dumbass comments like "haw haw if this had happened in America al-qaeda would have claimed they caused it haw haw" or something.

watching BBC News 24 does make me feel weird, though, when it repeats the same story over and over again, without any actual extra bits of information each time. the only other thing making it to the rotation is the ukranian election provisional results.

they add 2000 people to the death toll every hour or so.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see any other survivor stories on CNN.com. He didn't just "happen" to be remotely famous.

Um, surely a guy who works in/is regularly on tv is more likely to talk to someone in the media than the average tourist?

But as Alex implied, this really shouldn't be the discussion to have at this point and I'm going to bow out.

Is this true, does the water recede a lot before a tsunami? It's a chilling image.

OTM

Such a person is definitely more likely to know who to call when something like this happens. Similarly, the Washington Post coverage featured an eyewitness account by a correspondent already in Sri Lanka.

FFS, the area has been decimated, I imagine communication is hard enough without people being picky about who has managed to communicate with who.

This is astounding and so, so sad. Estimated dead now at 23 thousand including at least 12,000 in Sri Lanka (from a population around 20,000,000).

Have a great new year!

As usual, the aftereffects may be as deadly as the quake/tsunami itself.

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

http://www.ifrc.org/index.asp

Have a great new year

Hey, I was going to stay out of this, becuase this argument is stupid and trivial in the face of this. But I think it's worth pointing out that your self-righteous indignation is just as schmucky and useless as you see my comment. If posting a link is jumping on a tired soapbox (and I hardly think media coverage of the event is irrelevant, regardless of the value of my earlier comment), what is your pithy addition to the pile-on?

the US already maintains a major military installation on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean on land that it leases from the little old UK. the base was reportedly undamaged, and is now likely going to be used for humanitarian missions and perhaps extraction of American tourists.

Forget Phi Phi though, from what I've heard it's been pretty much knackered. The Andamans took it really badly too, some of my diving instructors are teaching there now, hope they're ok.

Somalia reported hundreds of deaths, some 3,000 miles away from the earthquake off Indonesia that sent tsunamis raging across the Indian Ocean.

still...

also, in 1700, same thing happened on U.S. West Coast:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002131604_tsunamilocal27m.html

http://www.tamarindoestates.com/flamenco500.jpeg

and dude the jackhammer was pretty fun. i sweated like a motherfucker though. it wasn't til three days into the trip that i realized i hadn't peed once.

ok, ok, i'm just saying, don't guilt poor rob bolton into spending his hard-earned holiday with a backhoe! btw, there are some nice parts of the bronx and the alabama gulf shore, i've heard.

http://www.dn.se/content/1/c6/35/94/87/wavw_patong.rm

Plus, the news ticker has official responses to the news by the pope. WTF?

(xpost)

xpost

The subtext being something along the lines of, 'see what might happen if you go to one of these faraway countries.' Like the car crash news, and the burning news, and the violent crime news it's designed to make people scared to do anything but watch TV and TV's sponsors.

Sssshhhhh, dude! *whispers* THEY're everywhere!

I, personally, have a soft spot in my heart for the country of Sri Lanka, due to possibly sick, sad and shallow fannish connections to that country. So I am brokenhearted for all those countless victims of this horrendous event from the island nation, even more so than I am for the tourists who were visiting it and other affected countries in the region. Though every loss, either of home or of life, is heartbreaking.

At least 23,000 dead. Two of the most memorable for my mother and me will be the two little babies, names unknown, we saw being mourned over by their mother on the national news program we saw. And yeah, the fact that Nate Berkus's partner *could* be among the casualties *is* a rememberable one, but not as standout as those visuals, which will be burned forever in our minds.

i've just watched the TVB (hong kong tv station) satallite channel earlier.. the news talks a lot from the accounts of the hong kong tourist survivors, too. isn't it just a natural reaction?

The aftermath is what's going to be horrendous, trying to get thousands of stranded holidaymakers home without passports, ID or whatever, not to mention the inevitable pollution and disease passed on to the local population from the sheer volume of corpses floating around.

(xpost, the Scottish news update tonight was focussing on the Scottish holidaymakers out in Thailand, the Maldives etc - Ken's right, people will have an interest in any local aspect, doesn't mean we're all total spanners who can't actually digest that this is happening to people from all over the world)

And the French are trying to count their losses too.

http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Esteri/2004/12_Dicembre/27/farnesina.shtml

And the Italians.

P'raps because Australia is somewhat closer to all this, we're hearing a lot and have been right from the get-go - the TV has got its hands on tourist video, even clips done by cellphone-video, and a lot of stories on www.theage.com.au of people who totally got sucked out to sea and then spat back into trees and things. The scale of this... its very humbling and scary.

xpost

But yeah. Every loss is a deplorable and lamentable one.

Right now their top story:

SOUTHERN SORROW

Toll crosses 7,000, Car Nicobar still cut off

if they're still alive, yes maybe.

also, good news for momus!: if you pray to gavin mcinnes or grover norquist or whoever's buying you lunch this week real real hard maybe maybe next time some more new yorkers (maybe even some stock brokers! plz klaus plz!) can die and you can maybe get a really bitching blog entry out of it. as is you'll have to do with merely finding a way to spin the deaths of several thousand of the 'wrong kind of' asians (yknow, the kind that don't buy you lunch) to yr benefit (youcan doit! - r. schneider). keep them fingers crossed!

Many, many more families will have have numerous deaths including the loss of whole generations. It's one thing if some people from your town die senselessly, but when a huge number do so, it's much, much harder to come back from;

Many of the people affected on the littoral of these countries are living very hard even hand to mouth lives. The effects of this tragedy may be more than the emotional and psychological pain caused by the deaths of the loved ones. There may be a very dire economic aspects to this as well; and

Not to be too communist here, but the locals weren't enjoying a romantic holiday in a different clime. They were going about their daily routines in their own countries. They have no other home to return to, to forget this calamity.

What Trayce said about the tidal waves is pretty much what I thought too. I had to look at the video clip I saw a couple of times (of Thailand), the first time it just looked like a normal wave, but going a bit further inland. But the devastation it caused was phenomenal. It was the eerieness of it that got me, no big Hollywood crashing and banging, just quietly and silently and not very violently going about killing people.

(xpost)

Not with a bang but a whimper

I just find the concept of quantifying grief (or pity) a weird one.

Exactly. Some people on this thread appear to believe that this is or should be the function of journalism, or at least television.

http://www.savethechildren.org/emergencies/asia_overview.asp?StationPub=hp_asia_overview&ArticleID=&NewsID=

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

Aiding relief efforts is a worthy and noble task all of us with the financial resources to do so must do.

And ailsa, I apologize once more for the shallow and "odd" response. You were right. I should be equally despondent over every single one of the losses the devastating earthquake/tsunami has brought. I guess I just meant to express that not every "Westerner" is going to immediately think of the tourists first here. (And Ken... oops, big mistake. I meant the surviving victims, obv. But still, it all ties in to the aforementioned.)

"We will do everything we can to immediately help," Powell said. "This is, indeed, an international tragedy."

U.S. officials immediately sent $100,000 each to India, Indonesia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, and planned to donate $4 million later Monday to help Red Cross disaster efforts, Powell said.

The initial U.S. aid package being crafted was expected to reach at least $15 million, said Ed Fox of the U.S. Agency for International Development. He called it an initial response until surveys are concluded and requests considered.

Also, Fox said, the United States was drawing on shelter, food, water cans and other supplies that were kept in reserve in the Philippines and in Dubai.

Powell cautioned that was a "quick infusion" and that the administration was prepared to help with long-term rebuilding.

He also said while several hundred Americans were unaccounted for it does not imply they were casualties. "It just means we haven't been able to reach out and get contact with them," he told reporters at the State Department.

President Bush, who is relaxing at his Texas ranch, has sent letters of condolences to leaders of the seven countries that were affected by the earthquake, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Monday. The president received a special briefing Monday morning about the situation in Asia, has seen pictures of the damage on television and has spoken on the phone with Powell, Duffy said.

"This is a terrible tragedy," he said. "There is a significant loss of life. And our thoughts and prayers are with all those who are suffering."

Asked whether the United States was concerned that terrorists might take advantage of the catastrophe, Duffy said, "We wouldn't get into any classified types of information, but the American people can rest assured that no matter what happens in the world, that the government will be doing everything it can to protect the American people from terrorism."

That's the bulk of what I initially read at Salon. I would still choose to be in Washington, were I the President. The reserve supplies mentioned in the article are interesting.
If we're capable of having international military might shouldn't we be capable, immediately, of international humanitarian help? This is a real question, for me.

CNN & the NY times both have links to organizations taking donations, I'm not sure which are receptive to paypal but here's one of the links.

if you have a more intense feeling imagining people whose whole families and livelihoods are gone, rather than a treasured family member or two - this has been explained - is that really so odd?

applying grief from the grief bucket in deliberate and equal portions seems far odder. you feel the same pity and grief for a deceased bird as your own mother? for a corpse on the highway as your own parakeet? there aren't any answers to these questions. i just want to highlight the natural oddity of these things so that you don't have to keep calling people on it.

hopefully i can make everyone feel insanely guilty and then my mission here will be done.

aimurchie you've repeatedly singled Dee out as odd.. i think you know her well enough to know that this will provoke an apologetic response.

Not me!

There but for the grace of God.

But everything except HIV is going to happen. Dirty water is dirty water. We will be feeling (hopefully- if we are sensitive) the repercussions for a long time.
At this point, malaria is going to break out ...
It's toosad to contemplate.

I agree. I still rely on words and have not "seen" the devastation. Sometimes words are enough. It is too much for my small brain to comprehend,

In my defence, I think I misunderstood what Dee was saying, or am interpreting things differently to others at least. Of course I would grief more for my mother than for some random parrot on Sumatra. The difference here is, I don't personally know anyone directly affected (as far as I'm aware), I don't get the impression Dee does either, so the singling out of the Sri Lankan nation for an added degree of sympathy seems odd. That is all. Of course feeling more for a family whose story has touched you is natural, I'm not saying that. What I am trying to get at is what I think is the strangeness of arbitrarily choosing a nation for extra sympathy, and the willingness to admit this is for "sick" and "shallow" reasons. I'm not saying it's wrong, just a concept I can't get my head round.

For what it's worth, on Christmas Eve I was at the funeral of a young lad I barely knew who died alone in his flat at the age of 24. This disaster hasn't hit me as much as that did - 25,000+ vs one young boy. But that's because I knew him. I don't know anyone involved in this, so it's easier for me to not be able to single out any one person, region, or social demographic for sympathy or grief. Maybe I'm the odd one. I just thought I was entitled to my opinion same as anyone else round here.

In other news, Mieszko Talarczyk of the band Nasum is missing in Thailand. Thought someone might care.

She lives in Columbo, Sri Lanka. Here's part of her email to me:

"thanks so much for asking and for worrying. i'm really touched by that. just a quick message to say i'm fine. we were very badly hit by hte tsunami and there is alot of devastation and loss. we were one of hte hardest hit countries by it so as you can imagine alot of people in office are concerned about their families out of the city and we have had alot of losses.

we have donated loads and loads of clothes and now i'm trying to get together medicine, dry rations, and personal items (like pads, soap, toothbrushes, etc.). millions have lost absolutely everything they own as well as loved ones. it's very sad.

over here people have big plans and spend alot of money on 31st night. we have cancelled our plans and donated all the money we were planning to spend that night for relief. i'm happy to say alot of people have done that and people were bringing in anything they could to help way past midnight yesterday but we really need loads of foreign aid. i hope they get a warning system now. the majority of hte millions who lost thier homes/lives were quite poor so starting over is very difficult for them. the bad thing was that so many people were ont he beach since it was a holiday weekend. we were there a week before.

i am incredibly thankfull that this was the only Sunday p did not go to the beach to see the status of hte beach house. now i'm going to be paranoid everytime he checks on it and frankly i dont really feel like having a home on the beach any more. i am terrified of water as it is."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20041228/ap_on_re_as/quake_tidal_waves_6

http://www.gawker.com/news/nydn_tsunami.jpg

"The greatest danger to civilians will come when they begin to return to their homes, not knowing where the mines are."

you can continue arguing about whatever it was i interrupted...

ihttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20041228/ts_nm/quake_dc_87

the haircut thing was a metaphor, i have no idea what your hair looks like!!

I feel bad saying that though, for horribly obvious reasons.

now they're saying there may be near-extinct tribes of people in those areas totally wiped out. fucking fuck.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/973963.cms

My girlfriend and I gave as much as we felt we could spare to the relief effort (we gave through American Jewish World Service, but there are a bunch of other ones listed at www.npr.org). I recommend everyone who feels affected try to do the same as well -- if not money then find a way to donate clothing or supplies or food, or maybe look at raising money through a church or school group or whatever. I hope I don't sound too self-righteous here, but there are so many people still in danger of starvation and disease, and so much rebuilding needs to be done.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable and noble response. But I don't think anyone who was otherwise planning to help should be discouraged by such thoughts. I think it's important to remember that, unlike in this country, there is almost no infrastructure at all to help the victims of the disaster. I applaud anyone who helps the homeless here, too, but the situation isn't comparable. Anyway, helping the needy is still helping the needy and the more the better.

i hope i can donate money without a credit card. i don't really know what else i can do right now but you know when you get fed up and want to help somehow...buh.

Not sure if anyone else replied as Ive skimmed - but many of the large charities/organisations have websites and you can quite simply go online, locate the relevant relief fund you want to donate to, and fill in how much you want to donate and yr details. I did this with Australia's Red Cross (I wanted to give to CARE but their site's got a page wrong somewhere).

Money will enable those organisations to, at a local level, help by buying basic supplies, water especially. Its cheaper and faster for them to do that than wait for international stuff to be sent.

Stop waving guilt around like flags and start helping! :(

xpost Ah, really steve? I had no probs yesterday with the Aus ones...

i didn't think it was the case that 37,000 suddenly died last night over there but that more dead people have been accounted for just now hence the rise in the figures??

"Tsunamis shatter celebrity holidays"

Not to mention the NY Times story about the fisherman who lost his wife and all five children (and there are countless like this, I'm sure).

We were in a hotel room in Echuca when we heard about this. We just couldn't believe it, and that was when we thought it was 168 confirmed dead. Then the 11,000 figure rolled up and we didn't know how to react. That night I had nonstop nightmares about the whole thing.

But 60,000? That's just horrific. I have a Lankan friend who was there for the christmas break, and I don't know if she got back okay.

you are quite right too hurting, the thought of whole generations and communities being swept into the sea without a trace is really unutterably devastating. i meant by my comment that the whole situation is sad beyond my comprehension, not merely the actual figures regarding how many people have died. although i can't comprehend those kind of numbers either.

Event Place Year Deaths
----------------------------------------
Flood, China, 1931 3.7 million
Earthquake, Mediterranean, 1202 1.1 million
Volcano, Indonesia, 1815 92,000
Avalanche, Alps (Italy) 218 BC 18,000
Tsunami, Lisbon, 1755 60,000

I don't know how they got the older numbers.

I really want to help with the relief efforts but the holidays have left me too broke at the moment. Is there any way to donate goods?

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/12/29/nation/9766851&sec=nation

It's from a diver who was in the area at the time of the tsunami -- the sense is of being in the eye of the hurricane, that everything around you is unsettled but you yourself are all right.

"Strangely enough, some tourists have started sunbathing and swimming. It is unfathomable that they can even go out into the water - the bottom is full of broken sun chairs, parasols and broken glass. And further out in the water are dead people. It is like swimming in a cemetary. Unbelievable!
(...)
I meet a Danish couple with their son who have flown down from Denmark after the disaster.
Why have you come here?
- We are curious, we want to se the devastation, was the answer."

That, I believe, is one of the creepiest stories I've seen. Being in a state of shock obviously means people do strange things. But flying down to watch the disaster wtf?!?

Sri Lanka, Kulatara Beach, 12/26/04
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/world/0412/gallery.before.after/popup.04.kalutara.so.jpg

Also, I have been scrupulously avoiding media coverage on this because I didn't want to start sobbing but I clicked on Gear!'s picture. I'm about to lose it.

china had it rough in the 1930s....

The sidebar was for the most deaths per type of event, so the earthquake of 1202 with 1.1 million dead wrapped up the earthquake category. Elsewhere on the site an earthquake with 830,000 deaths in the early 20th century in China was mentioned.

"WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD IT'S THEM.. IN-STEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAD OF YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"

I am deeply tempted to rewrite the whole song but that would be a thing of evil.

I really hope he doesn't go, I know he feels he needs to but he's 79 and I don't feel he's fit for it. I don't think he will manage to get a flight directly and I'm not keen on him travelling himself.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041230/ap_on_re_as/tsunami_self_help

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041230/wl_uk_afp/asiaquakebritainaid_041230174629

I'm not surprised either. Nor am I necessarily demanding an aid package that's exactly comparable with what we spend here at home. But the raw numbers are just so appallingly lacking in scale -- the tsunami aid money pledge (SO FAR) is a mere quarter of one percent of the aid spent on this year's hurricanes.

...I'm not in any way trying to defend Bushco, who I think are complete assholes..

Yes, that's very right. One could say that residences, buildings and infrastructure probably cost much more in Florida than in Sri Lanka or Indonesia. Still, even mentally factoring that in, the numbers are still highly provocative to me.

Yes, but the US has an enormous fucking war to drain all of its money. Fuck you, needy third-world... Freedom is on the march! (or, will be soon, we expect. January elections! January elections!)

Plus sea snakes. Lovely.

I hope I'm correct in calling 'bullshit'. The news channels' race to proclaim the highest possible figures has been sickening me since about 12 hours after the news broke.

http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001805.html

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/more_aid_stuff.html

where is that exactly?

I sorta guess this blog has been mentioned already, but if not, the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami aka SEA-EAT blog is a solid clearinghouse of info:

http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/

yeah, maybe if they're including with the tsunami deaths those killed in political massacres.

One of my best friends from high school is Sri Lankan and I emailed him a few days back, I haven't heard anything yet. I know he went over there on holiday a fair amount.

Again, I'm not saying "everything is fine" by any means, but there are many possible scenarios in the case of not being able to get in contact with somebody, and death shouldn't be the main assumption. It can be hard enough to contact friends even in the case of no disaster at all!

Still though, the frustration and anticipation is gnarling and painful. I understand that.

http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3524751

It cost $5 billion to clear up after Hurricane Mitch, which killed 10,000 in Central America in 1998. The UN says this disaster will cost much more—perhaps $14 billion or more, reckons Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer. Many families will have lost their bread-winners, many more will have lost their homes. The boats and nets of fishermen will have been wrecked, the crops and livestock of farmers devastated. Roads and railways have been washed away. One of the most insidious contaminants is also one of the most innocuous: salt. Paddies, fields and wells are now inundated with seawater and thus may be unuseable for years. Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has proposed freezing the debts of Indonesia and Somalia to help them rebuild their economies.

We set up a donation box at work and got £250 in 6 hours in my office. The company I work also donated USD$1mill

The subject matter of this BBC piece may appear obvious, but worth dwelling on...

BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4131941.stm
For a start, the notional insurance cost of the disaster will have little bearing on corporate bottom lines. The overwhelming majority of the victims will have had no insurance: according to estimates from India, only one-quarter of those affected there were wealthy enough to afford insurance, and only one-quarter of that group at most will have taken out policies. Indonesia is likely to have even lower take-up rates. And where insurance certainly is in place - in, for example, the many tourist complexes affected - the costs will be borne in far-away corners of the global reinsurance market, rather than landing locally.

http://www.waxy.org/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/in_depth/world/2004/tsunami_strikes/nb_rm_default.stm#

...which, if the link works, will call up four video reports assembled mostly from footage on camera as it happened and afterwards. The first is all, I think, anyone would 'need' -- it's humbling and sad.

That's better.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/entertainment/4140133.stm

I hope he ends up doing it in the one the Cosmic Couriers used to record Galactic Supermarket in quadrophonic sound...

...as if enough pain and suffering hadn't been inflicted already...

"It's a natural home for it because people kept saying to me, 'it's such a good song', but it's such a sad song," Read said.

This makes me want to hit something. Preferably Read. With an axe.

(Also, does this mean Boy George has been on more charity singles than anyone now?)

This is like saying grief's never out of style -- it's the little black dress of emotion.

"India's dwindling aboriginal population in the remote Andaman and Nicobar islands is safe as most lived in jungles, far away from the coast hit by a devastating tsunami, a coast guard official said on Thursday.

Experts had feared that some Stone Age tribal people, who have been living on the far-flung archipelago for thousands of years, could be on the verge of extinction after the killer waves that have killed more than 120,000 people across Asia.

"There have been several media reports talking about a threat to the aborigines, indigenous people and tribals of the islands," Vice Admiral Arun Kumar Singh, director-general of the Coast Guard, which is involved in rescue operations, told reporters.

"I have personally verified the extent of this claim and let me tell you that it is absolutely rubbish."

The Andaman and Nicobar group is a cluster of more than 550 islands, of which only about three dozen are inhabited.

The island chain is home to about six tribes of Mongoloid and Negrito origin. Many of the indigenous people are semi-nomadic and subsist on hunting with spears, bows and arrows as well as fishing and gathering fruit and roots. They still cover themselves with tree bark or leaves.

Singh said the Nicobarese, the largest tribal group that lives on Car Nicobar and adjoining islands, bore the brunt of the waves, but the exact death toll was not known.

Coast Guard surveys showed the rest of the tribes such as the Shompen, the Jarawa and the Sentinelese had escaped either because they lived in the jungles far from the coast or because their islands were barely touched by the waves.

"In the Middle Andaman the Jarawa tribes are there and there has not been a single report of casualty. The Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island, which some reports say have been completely wiped out, are all very much there," Singh said.

More than 13,000 people are dead or are feared to have died in India from the tsunami, but rescuers are still struggling to assess the toll in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Officials said more than 6,000 people were feared dead in the island chain alone, which is closer to Myanmar and Indonesia than the Indian mainland and is home to more than 350,000 people.

Around 30,000 of the islands' total population is tribal, the majority Nicobarese.

The rest are smaller groups. Some like the Great Andamanese are already down to 30 people while others like the Shompen number between 200-250.

The number of the Onge, one of the most primitive tribes, has fallen in past decades to about 100. There are about 200 Sentinelese, probably one of the world's only surviving palaeolithic people, who are generally hostile to outsiders.

"Our helicopter pilot who flew over the island told me that he has seen several groups of Sentinelese on the beach and that when he dropped food packets they threw stones at the helicopter."

This alone has made me smile....

I hate Bush. But...I think I am justified in expecting the leader of my country to return to the White House and make a public statement from D.C as soon as he knew of a tragedy of this proportion.

Given the war in iraq, there's no reason he should have been relaxing in Crawford anyway - and certainly not after this.
The Bush inaugural is going to cost $40 million dollars.
Wouldn't it have been nice to see him make a some statement, or, perhaps, agree to pledge MORE than his coronation costs?

Shame, shame,shame,shame on him.

"The carnage is of a scale that defies comprehension," said Bush, who announced that $15 million of U.S. aid has now been disbursed to relief organizations in the area.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) and the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, were due to leave for the tsunami-devastated region on Sunday as part of a delegation assigned to assess the need for further U.S. assistance.

Bush created the delegation and dramatically increased the U.S. relief contribution after criticism over the size and scale of his initial response to the catastrophe that struck 13 countries from Malaysia to East Africa six days ago.
Critics have noted that the government authorized $13.6 billion in aid for hurricane-battered U.S. states, mainly Florida, before last November's election.
An administration official who requested anonymity said on Saturday the $350 million contribution would come from the government's main disaster and famine assistance accoun

The account, managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, received $384.9 million in funding for relief projects for the current fiscal year.
Japan eclipsed the U.S. contribution on Saturday by pledging $500 million in aid.
The United States sees itself as leader of an international coalition including Japan, India and Australia that has pledged about $900 million in relief, or nearly half the $1.9 billion in contributions from country donors and official sources such as the World Bank (news - web sites).
In a White House proclamation issued in Crawford, Texas, where Bush is vacationing on his ranch, the president ordered the flag to be flown at half-staff from Monday to Friday next week at all U.S. public facilities and military installations, including embassies and naval vessels.

He said the gesture was meant as a mark of respect for tsunami victims.

Bush said Americans were making important private donations to the relief effort but urged further contributions through the Web site of the federal government's volunteer program, USA Freedom Corps, at www.usafreedomcorps.gov.

"Donor and fund-raiser alike represent the best of our country and offer an example to the world," he said.

And the Bush family, who are millionaires, might lead this new found generosity by giving a percentage of Their wealth...but no, it's about poor people helping poor people while the rich decide what we shall do.

I'm extra very excited about the flag lowering thing...I'm sure that will be of great comfort here and elsewhere.

I'm so sick and tired of it all - the false patriotism, the strange patriotism, and the isolationism...this should be an opportunty for the world to be as one, but my country makes sure it is divisive.

Peace, out. Sorry to be so succinct, have not much net time. Peace to Marcello and Anna and everyone we love.

I mean I know there are religious/political issues here but does anyone really think that the starving homeless survivors care right now?

Aid workers in Indonesia's Aceh province have been discovering the full horror of the devastation wreaked by the Indian Ocean tsunami last week ago.

They have found villages where as many as 80% of the population were killed, and survivors are living on coconuts.

Indonesia accounts for some 94,000 of the 140,000 deaths from the disaster.

Aid is now flowing into Aceh's sole airport in the capital, Banda Aceh, after the runway was blocked for 15 hours by a damaged plane.

About 40,000 died in and around the Aceh town of Meulaboh alone, where local aid workers said "tens of thousands" need immediate assistance.

"The casualty rates in Meulaboh defy imagination," said Aitor Lacomba, Indonesian director of aid group International Rescue Committee.

The BBC's Andrew North reports there is barely a building left standing in many neighbourhoods near the coast.

It is almost impossible to take in the scale of the devastation, our correspondent says.

The wreckage is still dotted with hundreds of flags marking places where bodies have been found, waiting to be collected, and the air reeks of decay.

Indonesia has banned the transfer of children under the age of 16 out of Aceh amid United Nations concern over possible human trafficking for illegal adoption.

http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tsunami/2.html

Dear god, you know, I mean what can you say?