Reuters “Alert Net” - Alerting humanitarians to emergencies

[GordMay]

The death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster soared above 120,000 on Thursday (Dec. 30) as millions scrambled for food and fresh water and thousands more fled in panic to high ground on rumours of new waves.

Reuters “Alert Net” - Alerting humanitarians to emergencies
http://www.alertnet.org/

[Wynand]

Hi GordMay,

I human tradegy indeed.

Us South Africans also lost quite a number of good souls in that tidal wave's destruction.

[delmarrey]

I wonder how the Seychelles fared. The creator of this site, Gisle, keeps his catamaran there, or use to?

Here in the US we are not hearing much of anything that's past of India. But the wave charts are showing it as going as far South as 30º S.

[GordMay]

The Seychelles reports 3 dead: At least three people died in the Seychelles, where a bridge linking the main airport with the capital Victoria was destroyed.

The country is in the Indian Ocean, off east Africa, northeast of Madagascar, and about 2,400 miles (5 - 6 hours) West of the quake’s epicentre.
South Latitude 4̊ 62', East Longitude 55̊ 45'

Seychelles Hotline Telephone: +011 248 321 676

Current Death Toll: 123,998
December 31: Death toll from the Indian Ocean tsunami, according to government and health officials:
East Africa 137* (including Seychelles)
Bangladesh 2
Burma 36
India 10,736
Indonesia 79,940 up to 100,000
Malaysia 72
Maldives 67
Sri Lanka 28,508
Thailand 4,500
Total 123,998

* The tsunami killed people as far away as east Africa. This figure includes Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia and Tanzania.

Some other recent disasters:

The deadliest recent earthquake, by far, was a magnitude 8.0 that struck Tianjin , China, on July 27, 1976. The official casualty figure issued by the Chinese government was 255,000, but unofficial estimates of the death toll were as high as 655,000.

Bangladesh lost 300,000 people in November 1970 and more than 130,000 in April 1991, from cyclone-induced flooding. The massive flooding of the Yangtze River in China in 1931 caused more than 3 million deaths from flooding and starvation.

[Alan Wheeler]

It's a little closer to home for me. I just found out that a freind of mine and his wife are missing. They have not contacted family so far and the family believes they would have tried by now.

We here in NZ were very lucky the day before. We had an 8.2 Earth quake cntred down in our southern Ocean near the Auckland Islands. A 200mm(10") wave was measured at Bluff. How they measured a wave that small in Bluff where Waves are rather large on the best day's beats me. But anyway, seeing as how far that Indonesian wave traveled, we were fortunate ours wasn't much bigger indeed.
It has also been a little sobering for us living around were I do. Here in the Marlborough province, we are on the biggest Fault line in NZ. It extends right through our capitol City. But worse, the a hugely deep canyon sits just off our coastline. A major tremour could develop a wave of seriuose magnitude, that would travel many miles up our low lying valley.
Hmmm, wonder if I should moor the boat at my back door.