[Dexsal]

officials who detected a massive earthquake off Asia's coast on Saturday tried frantically to warn the deadly wall of water was coming, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Sunday.

But there was no official alert system in the region because such catastrophes only happen there about once every 700 years, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.

"We tried to do what we could," McCreery said. "We don't have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world."

Within moments of detecting the quake, McCreery and his staff were on the phone to Australia, then to U.S. Naval officials, various U.S. embassies and finally the U.S. State Department.

They were unable to reach the thousands in the countries most severely affected--including India, Thailand and Sri Lanka--because none had a tsunami warning mechanism or tidal gauges to alert people, he said.

Read More ZDnet

[TJ-]

imagine if america or australia had a tsunami on the coast, noone is prepared !!!!!

[kemet64]

You almost cant prepare for that...I mean, nothing practical.

[Dom]

With earthquakes of that magnitude tsunamis are common. A warning system could have indeed saved many. The tsunami occurred two hours after the quake. There are now over 22,000 dead.

[Drakon]

it's very unfortunate...

[BWX]

I saw that on the news over the weekend, what a tragedy!

[Senor_Mota]

It's Mother Earth letting us know that our time is getting shorter.

[Dexsal]

Asia tsunami warning system feasible!

The major obstacles to creating an early-warning system that could have saved many victims of Asia's massive tsunami are not money and technology, but poverty and political and cultural division besetting the region it hit, experts and officials said Monday.

Read more News.com

[MIG-31]

Quake death toll above 38,000

very sad indeed.

[Vikingod]

11 nations and now more than 44,000 dead, and this is just the beginning. My heart and thoughts go to those involved. What a terrible thing.

[mike2h]

Originally Posted by battleaxe187

imagine if america or australia had a tsunami on the coast, noone is prepared !!!!!

america has a sytem on the west coast, not sure about the east coast.
australia is in talks with other countries about setting a system up in the indian ocean & parts of the pacific basin.

death toll is up to 40,000 & rising.

[Matth]

The lack of a detection and tracking system is understandable - unless this represents a significant period of activity for the fault, there will be bigger problems by the time anything like this happens again.

The lack of any channel to pass a warning through at all, is ludicrous - if nothing else, some warning could surely have been given to the tourist areas.

Not much could be done to reduce the damage with only hours warning, but people could have been moved back from the most dangerous areas, or stayed in the more robust buildings.

[MIG-31]

now 50,000 +. but is expecting atleast 57,000+ dead.

[kemet64]

The toll is just going to rise and rise. It is quite sad. Hopefully some type of system will come from this.

[Ev!L-aLphA]

wow how sad that kids and families were enjoying a nice vacation on the beach and all of a sudden a huge wave just swallowed them and they had no clue about it... and parkinglots swarmed with water and bodies

[Dom]

When the water receded from the shore (as occurs before a tsunami hits) little kids went to collect the fish as they flopped on the sand.

[Falstaff]

Living in Japan I saw the devastation of Tsunami at the museum in Yokohama, literally millions of people have died as a result of this activity and even entire eskimo villages were erased off the map. At sea, you dont feel it because the energy is beneath the surface, waves can travel up to 500 km per hour and break at the 60 fathoms. Even corals dont stand a chance. Siesmic activity of 7.0 on the richter scale can play havoc with wildlife as well. if we could locate the magnetic flucuations accurately enough we could predict where on the ocean floor or shoreline it would occur. The technology we used to find soviet or chinese submarines could detect the changes in the magnetic signature of the sea floor enough to accurately predict a forthcoming change. When tectonic activity is recorded it is rarely analyzed because it is so common and frequent, but patters emerge from this data, however it is too late to forcast the inevitable shift in the plates between australia and india or north of Africa. Where plates collide it is easy to predict changes..but not in areas where the crust is spreading apart.

[Robert McClelland]

Ya very sad I'll feel bad for those lost those loves ones out there. My thoughts and prays goes out to them all of them.

[Razgriz]

Just some things quotes that almost brought a tear to my eye:

"Is this the fate that we had planned for? My darling, you were the only hope for me," a young man cried for one of the train victims — his university sweetheart

"The sea was full of bodies," said one refugee, Sukardi Kasdi, who sailed a small boat to Banda Aceh to seek help for his family in Surang.

"People are looting, but not because they are evil, but they are hungry," said Red Cross official Irman Rachmat in Banda Aceh.

"I saw many kids perish. I saw parents trying to hold them but it was impossible. It was hell," said Karl Kalteka of Munich, Germany, who lost his girlfriend in the torrent.

"It's not hard to find the bodies. You just have to follow the smell," said 43-year-old French rescue volunteer, Serge Barros.

Wallop Jirasiriwatana, 39, said his emergency medical team felt helpless despite arriving on nearby Phuket Island hours after tsunamis hit the area on Sunday.



"My job is to rescue injured people but that's not what we're doing. We're just finding bodies," he said.


"We have nothing. There is nothing left but what we are wearing. I have this much money in the world," he said pulling out 2,000 baht ($51) from his pocket.

"But my wife is OK, my nine-year-old daughter is OK. That's all I care about. I'm lucky." said Let Munkhunkoncowriap


------------------------------------------------------------------------

And finally something that got me to thinking:

Whole battalions of soldiers and police are among the dead and missing. Separatist rebels have announced a cease-fire while people search for loved ones

Even though you are fighting against enemy forces, remember that they still have a heart. They have fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, sister, dogs, cats. They arent inhuman. They are just fighting for what they believe in. Is that wrong?

Source: www.yahoo.com

[Anubis-Xp-]

Man, you know what really got me thinking about world disasters? The movie Day After Tomorrow...I thought about that movie when I heard about what happened in Asia...I hope no more die.

[Dom]

58,000+ dead now.

[Drakon]

that's mother nature for ya... it's unfortunate, but it's part of this world

[BiGBrOwNPimpsta]

i hope ppls families/friends are safe

i have a lot of tamil friends ive only talked to one, and lot of them are from colombo and have their homes there that they left due to the civil war. im from india but not south, calcutta (just like apu) but i wasnt born there. indonesia seem to get the worst of it, thankfully their great mosque is still intact

[Dexsal]

throughout Asia is already more than 68,000. estimated the economic cost of the devastation at more than $13 billion.

[CDsDontBurn]

very sad indeed .

[Nicky-chan]

God, im having a hard life my self and when i hear about stuff like this happening i cant stop crying and thinking what a waist.

My heart goes out to all those involved. I know what it feels like to loose your entire family.. "Lost mine just this year from causes id rather not speek of"

=(

[MythicaL]

60 something thousand dead now... Watching the news now...

[MIG-31]

68,000 @ this time.. including at least 50 ukers.

[Chaos]

yes this is a terrible disaster, I am waiting on news if I lost a close friend in this one. He was in Thailand and has not been heard from since, he was a beach lover so my hopes are not all that high

[kemet64]

Toll is just rising, at 80,000 now. Good to know that many countries are pledging tens of millions of dollars, including the US who expects to put 1 billion in.
And we were 'stingy' lol