hmmm...

I get Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /download/tsunamiphuket.wmv on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

I'll try IE


edit - no go in IE either. hmm...

Right-click...Save Target As

OK this time it worked in IE, but not in Firefox. Wierd. Thanks.


edit

Personally, I don't think anything could have really saved people. I saw this video, and I would have reacted the same way. One wave comes in, and you think it's just weird, and you start to calm down, but then you realize something bigger is coming, and well, you're screwed, and making weird facial expressions on the roof of your hut, watching boats pass you by, and fish passing you by, that should be at least 1000 feet from your dwelling.

Abs - I'm sending one to you now.

Looks like we're up to 60,000. Indonesia is saying they may have 50,000 dead just in their country, so this may get up to 100,000 or more by the end of this weak. I'm just hoping we don't have another one in the area while rescue efforts are underway.

P.S. Anyone read Nostradamus?

I saw pictures in a newspaper today of a woman sitting beside several dead children - some of them just babies. Man, it made me grab my toddler and give him a huge hug.

What a horrible thing to happen.

I didn't see if this link was posted or not, but there's like 3 tsunami vids on this site.

http://jlgolson.blogspot.com/2004/12/tsunami-video.html

Here is the video that was taken offline.

Three different links are the same video.

You can also help out by donating through Amazon.com

http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/...868895-6336812

Wow, now it looks like the quake actually moved some islands,


http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science...eut/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- The massive earthquake that devastated parts of Asia permanently moved the tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 98 feet (30 meters), slightly shifting islands near Sumatra an unknown distance, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

A tsunami spawned by the 9.0-magnitude quake off the northern tip of Sumatra killed an estimated 60,000 on Sunday in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and East Africa.

Satellite images showed that the movement of undersea plates off the northern tip of Sumatra moved the Nicobar Islands and Simeulue Island out to sea by an unknown distance, U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut said.

Although the data showed that plates more than 12 miles (20 km) beneath the ocean's surface moved dramatically, scientists will have to use handheld satellite positioning systems at the sites to learn precisely how much the land masses on the surface shifted, Hudnut

MysterX,

Amazon is up to almost $900,000 in donations. Sweet.

Yup. It's getting there.
$873,828.00 as of 10:30PM PST

Yeah I had asked about this earlier in the thread. I think I heard Sumatra was moved 100 feet South after the quake.

The news reported that the guy that taped this tried to rescue the elderly couple (clinging to the railing) that was swept away (at 00:53 mark). He got the husband but the wife is still missing.

Got this instead...

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /download/tsunamiphuket.wmv on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

My video is online.

One of the more ironic photos taken.

CNN says 61,000 death toll now

Channel NewsAsia says death toll past 68,000.

There was footage of this little girl just standing on the side of the street, not sure where her parents are, they are most likely dead, i just burst into tears. There will be lots of stories like this, orphaned children, tragic beyond all imagination.

There is so much to deal with, not just the deaths, now there is the disease issue, rebuilding, looking after the survivors. Hate to say it, but i see many pedophiles making their way to these disaster regions to pray on the vunerable children left behind.

We are looking at 100 000 people plus dead, that is just unimaginable when a family of 4 dying in a car crash usually is headline news.

Some freaky stories are coming out of this. I heard on Good Morning America that there were reports from small children who survived that they were somehow able to breathe underwater. The children couldn't explain it, it was just something they were able to do that helped them survive. Some weird stuff always comes out when you have such massive tragedy and devastation.

Hopefully this is it for awhile. There's alot of legend/mythology involving Krakatoa. Maybe now I'll stop having all those dreams about water.

Saw some really sad stories here as well. This Canadian guy is running around trying to find his missing girlfriend, who is also a Hong Kong resident. It's really heartbreaking when he bursts into tears and said "I love her...I'm not leaving Thailand without her".

At least some places are just burning the bodies, instead of burying them. Burying them is a really bad idea. Disease factor is going to be a serious problem.

Interesting:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/28/tsu...ver/index.html

American diver underwater during catastrophe

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Posted: 7:12 AM EST (1212 GMT)


(CNN) -- An American woman who was scuba diving with her husband in Thailand as one of Sunday's tsunamis roared overhead said she was oblivious to the disaster until after they surfaced, her mother told CNN on Tuesday.

Faye Wachs, 34, was diving with her husband, Eugene Kim, Sunday morning off Ko Phi Phi Island in Thailand when they noticed the water visibility worsened and felt as though they were being sucked downward, Helen Wachs said.

Their dive master signaled to them to surface, "but we still didn't know what happened," Faye wrote in an e-mail to her mother Tuesday.

The enormity of what was happening while they were scuba diving was not immediately apparent after they surfaced, Helen Wachs said her daughter told her.

"She said she saw a lot of trash in the water. The dive master said it was really rude for people to throw trash. Then they saw large bits of debris and thought there might have been a boat crash," Helen Wachs said.

She said her daughter didn't know what had happened until the dive master got a text message from his wife telling him about the catastrophe.

Soon they saw bodies floating past them, Wachs' mother said in an interview from Oakland, California, where she lives.

Once they returned to shore, the couple did what they could to help, Helen Wachs said.

"I can't describe carrying a moaning person who just saw his girlfriend killed down a hill in the middle of the night," the e-mail said. "I saw more bodies than I care to report. The hotel where we were staying is mostly gone. We lost everything, but our lives."

Faye Wachs said she was impressed by the efforts of the Thai government and the International Committee for the Red Cross, but "she was appalled at the treatment they got" from the U.S. government, her mother said.

At the airport in Bangkok, other governments had set up booths to greet nationals who had been affected and to help repatriate them, she said.

That was not the case with the U.S. government, Wachs told her mother. It took the couple three hours, she said, to find the officials from the American consulate, who were in the VIP lounge.

Because they had lost all their possessions, including their documentation, they had to have new passports issued.

But the U.S. officials demanded payment to take the passport pictures, Helen Wachs said.

The couple had managed to hold on to their ATM card, so they paid for the photos and helped other Americans who did not have any money get their pictures taken and buy food, Helen Wachs said.

"She was really very surprised" that the government did so little to ease their ordeal, she said.

Helen Wachs said her daughter told her they would need "some serious counseling" upon their return to Los Angeles.

Once aboard the plane, Wachs told her mother, the biggest thing they noticed was the absence of the stench of raw sewage that had permeated the air.

"She said the clean smell was amazing."

Wachs, who described herself as "shell-shocked but happy to be coming home," is scheduled to arrive Wednesday morning in Los Angeles, her mother said.

She returns acutely aware that many thousands of others don't have that option.

"The tourists are able to get out, but those there are left with utter destruction," Helen Wachs said.