You guys O.K.?

[el_carpo]

I've been watching some of the coverage on this earthquake and tsunami catastrophe and I was worried about you guys. Are Australia and New Zealand being hurt by this too? They were saying it was affecting countries as far away as Etheopia! 20,000 victims! :'( Please be careful. Be safe!

E.C.

[skippa]

EC,

Earthquake hit Phuket area, I believe. Not good for the people over there, but for us here in Queensland, we're ok.

Only saw some brief footage on the late news when I came home from work tonight, poor buggers. Missus says there was some minor flooding in Western Australia.

Cheers,
Tony 8)

[Derek Bullock]

Yes accoerding to the reports there were some swells on the west Aussie coast but only minor damage and some boat damage. Seems we are far enough away not to have got it with any force.

Cheers.


Derek

[adriancorrea]

We were lucky with the one in the tasman sea
Very sad,
My heart goes out to all involved

Tight Lines
Adrian

[ba229]

Hey el carpo, the TV news here is running this story extensively.

ie out of a 30min news program 12 min+ would be on the tragedy.

I was wondering what sort of media attention it was getting in the states. Are you guys hearing much about whats happened?

[adriancorrea]

Its all over cnn

Tight Lines
Adrian

[el_carpo]

Yes, it's front page news here. This is of such magnitude that the whole world is in this. Remember, the U.S. has many people from all over so whenever something big happens, really anywhere, we have a lot of people very interested in the situation. There is a very large Asian population here (Illinois), Wisconsin and in Minnesota (not as much as California or New York) and they are worried about family and friends there. Another example of this is the story of the Ukrain election. We have many Ukranian imigrants who were VERY angry about their candidate being poisoned and the election being stolen. There were big protests and they are voting by absentee ballots.

I think many people think of the U.S. as a big, selfish, uncaring, giant who butts in to other people's business for greedy purposes. That's completely false. You have to understand that there are literally MILLIONS of people from just about every ethnic and cultural background living here. I don't know the exact number but there are something like 50 different languages spoken in our public school system (just here in Chicago). When some event happens somewhere, there is BIG pressure on our government to "DO SOMETHING" from members of these groups. Name any place you want and you'll have a giant, and well organized group that petitions the government (special interest groups). This results in other countries both hating us for "butting in" or "ignoring" them. We can't win. We want to help everyone. We truly do. You only have x amount of resources. Our hands have been bitten by people we've tried to help so often, I fear a movement of isolationism. No one will get help and that will result in even more resentment of us, spurred on by left-leaning news agencies (and the odd terrorist group) who love and live to bash us. Because it is easier and fun for humans to hate rather than understand, they are believed. We can't win. From what I've read here on Ausfish for the past few months, I think you Australians get a lot of the same stuff thrown at you.

It is news here. Soon, us not doing enough to help, or only offering to help to gain influence will surely pop up too. Very frustrating.

Rant over. But that's the way it is.

Back to my origional point though, I am glad you guys aren't in danger and I pray for those who have suffered so much.

God bless.

[ba229]

Just asking ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[el_carpo]

;D ;D ;D Sorry 'bout that ba299. I was in crazy, psycho, paranoid mode this morning and it carried over and led me to misinterpret you. I had a real bad morning. Three fights. One on a train about Iraq that nearly came to blows (he said something very horrible about our troops). The stupid hippie! ;D ;D ;D Another one was with a guy that nearly ran me over. The maniac! The third one was my fault so I won't go into details. ;D ;D ;D By the time I logged on to Ausfish this morning, steam was flying out of my ears and the blood was at full boil. I thought you were "getting cute" and trying your hand at a little America bashing and I wigged out. All day long I was regretting it and figured I got it wrong. I did. It's no excuse but it is the reason. So my stupid temper has made me embarrass myself yet again.

So, my fault. I'm sorry. Humbly beg your forgiveness and promise to count to ten before jumping to conclusions.

Now that my crazy, morning, monkey, madness is explained ;D.....

I just heard some really horrible news about this quake. They're saying 60,000 victims now. Somalia got wiped out. I hope there won't be any really bad aftershocks. This is brutal.

[subzero]

One would have to wonder if this is the one and only "Great" quake for the region for a while.
Found this list of recent activity worldwide and the amount of significant sized quakes in the region is quite astounding before and still happening after.

Has the pressure from these 2 plates been released when they moved an entire Country 40 metres away or are these just a precursor to something even worse? PERISH THE THOUGHT

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/

I was also surprised to see on one of their other pages these details with regards to how many died officialy and how many died estimated by Western agencys

1976 Jul 27 China, Tangshan
39.6 N 118.0 E
255,000 (official) Estimated death toll as high as 655,000. Magnitude 7.5

Check out these pages if you have the time as it is very interesting.
http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/eqsmajr.html
Regards Lloyd

[ba229]

lol El Carpo,

I wasn't having a go and I wasn't upset by your post :-).

Funny cause about 2 hours after reading your post i heard on the radio that the USA had been called stingy with its money by some UN person.

You predicted it correctly :-)

Any tips on what horse will win a race this weekend? :-)

[Dug]

In the early 70's I was lucky enough to fly over Karkatoa island it is on the same fault line as the recent earthquake. The tidal wave / Tsunami from that is estimated to have killed over a million people. It was a sobering thought that this could happen again at any time.


Krakatau erupted in 1883, in one of the largest eruptions in recent time. Krakatau is an island volcano along the Indonesian arc, between the much larger islands of Sumatra and Java

Here are some highlights from their summary of effects:

1. The explosions were heard on Rodriguez Island, 4653 km distant across the Indian Ocean, and over 1/13th of the earth's surface.

2. Ash fell on Singapore 840 km to the N, Cocos (Keeling) Island 1155 km to the SW, and ships as far as 6076 km WNW. Darkness covered the Sunda Straits from 11 a.m. onthe 27th until dawn the next day.

3. Giant waves reached heights of 40 m above sea level, devastating everything in their path and hurling ashore coral blocks weighing as much as 600 tons.

4. At least 36,417 people were killed, most by the giant sea waves, and 165 coastal villages were destroyed.

5. When the eruption ended only 1/3 of Krakatau, formerly 5x9 km, remained above sea level, and new islands of steaming pumice and ash lay to the north where the sea had been 36 m deep.

6. Every recording barograph in the world documented the passage of the airwave, some as many as 7 times as the wave bounced back and forth between the eruption site and its antipodes for 5 days after the explosion.

7. Tide gauges also recorded the sea wave's passage far from Krakatau. The wave "reached Aden in 12 hours, a distance of 3800 nautical miles, usually traversed by a good steamer in 12 days".

8. Blue and green suns were observed as fine ash and aerosol, erupted perhaps 50 km into the stratosphere, circled the equator in 13 days.

9. Three months after the eruption these products had spread to higher latitudes causing such vivid red sunset afterglows that fire engines were called out in New York, Poughkeepsie, and New Haven to quench the apparent conflagration. Unusual sunsets continued for 3 years.

10. Rafts of floating pumice-locally thick enough to support men, trees, and no doubt other biological passengers-crossed the indian Ocean in 10 months. Others reached Melanesia, and were still afloat two years after the eruption.

11. The volcanic dust veil that created such spectacular atmospheric effects also acted as a solar radiation filter, lowering global temperatures as much as 1.2 degree C in the year after the eruption. Temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.



Many people are killed by even small Tsunamis because the water level falls rapidly leaving dry land and stranded fish on the beachfront. The temptation is to go out and investigate this.

Rule one if the water level fall suddenly RUN AWAY REAL FAST

[smiley=stunned.gif]


This is from todays newspaper. Imagine having the presence of mind to take a photo, I'm a professional photographer and I think I would have been running, climbing or just saying SH!T.

[Dug]

The track of the Tsunami and why Australia was missed.

[ba229]

How good is that photo?

Really brings home how easily people were swept to the deaths.