Biggest earthquake in 40 years hits Southeast Asia

[Harry Tuttle]

Christ, this is terrible.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Make it four

Five

[Kuciwalker]

Japan's buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, aren't they? What would've happened if this had hit Japan?

[Nubclear]

If 30 foot tidal waves hit Japan?

[Kuciwalker]

No, if the epicenter was in Japan.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Japan's buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, aren't they? What would've happened if this had hit Japan?

most of the buildings would be fine I would imagine. Though I'm not sure if they can withstand 9.0 earthquakes. I'm not sure what they design them for. And most of that applies to the high rises (although most of the population probably resides in high rises in the cities). But in the towns individual homes would be devastated.

Either way, the tsunami would **** some **** up. The buildings probably would withstand it. But that wouldn't help people on the beaches or standing outside.

[DanS]

Damn.

It Seemed Like a Scene From the Bible

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A01

WELIGAMA, Sri Lanka, Dec. 26 -- Disaster struck with no warning out of a faultlessly clear blue sky.

I was taking my morning swim around the island that my brother Geoffrey, a businessman, had bought on a whim a decade ago and turned into a tropical paradise 200 yards from one of the world's most beautiful beaches.

People look at debris in Madras, India, one of several areas hit by a massive tidal waves that slammed into several countries in Southeast Asia on Sunday. (AP)

I was a quarter way around the island when I heard my brother shouting at me, "Come back! Come back! There's something strange happening with the sea." He was swimming behind me, but closer to the shore.

I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. All seemed peaceful. There was barely a ripple in the sea. My brother's house rests on a rock 60 feet above the level of the sea.

Then I noticed that the water around me was rising, climbing up the rock walls of the island with astonishing speed. The vast circle of golden sand around Weligama Bay was disappearing rapidly, and the water had reached the level of the coastal road, fringed with palm trees.

As I swam to shore, my mind was momentarily befuddled by two conflicting impressions -- the idyllic blue sky and the rapidly rising waters.

In less than a minute, the water level had risen at least 15 feet, but the sea remained calm, with barely a wave in sight.

Within minutes, the beach and the area behind it had become an inland sea that rushed over the road and poured into the flimsy houses on the other side. The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible, a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced.

As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark.

Instead of the ark, I grabbed a wooden catamaran that the local people used as a fishing boat. My brother jumped on the boat next to me. We bobbed up and down on the catamaran as the water rushed past us into the village beyond the road.

After a few minutes, the water stopped rising, and I felt it was safe to swim to the shore. What I did not realize was that the floodwaters would recede as quickly and dramatically as they had risen.

All of a sudden, I found myself being swept out to sea with startling speed. Although I am a fairly strong swimmer, I was unable to withstand the current. The fishing boats around me had been torn from their moorings, and were bobbing up and down furiously.

For the first time, I felt afraid, powerless to prevent myself from being washed out to sea.

I swam in the direction of a loose catamaran, grabbed the hull and pulled myself to safety. My weight must have slowed the boat down, and soon I was stranded on the sand.

As the water rushed out of the bay, I scrambled onto the main road. Screams were coming from the houses beyond the road, many of which were still half full of water that had trapped the inhabitants inside. Villagers were walking, stunned, along the road, unable to comprehend what had taken place.

I was worried about my wife, who was on the beach when I went for my swim. I eventually found her walking along the road, dazed but happy to be alive. She had been trying to wade back to our island when the water carried her across the road and into someone's back yard. At one point she was underwater, struggling for breath. She finally grabbed onto a rope and climbed into a tree, escaping the waters that raged beneath her.

Our children were still asleep when the tsunami struck at 9:15. They woke up to find the bay practically drained of water and their parents walking back across the narrow channel to safety.

The waves raged around the island for the rest of the day, alternately rising and receding.

It took us many hours to realize the scale of the disaster, because we could see only the tiny part in front of us. The road from Weligama to Galle was cut in many places. The coastal road was littered with carcasses of boats, dogs and even a few dead sharks. Helicopters flew overhead and loudspeaker vans warned residents to leave low-lying areas for fear of more tsunamis.

My brothers' little island, called Tapbrobane after the ancient name of Sri Lanka, was largely intact, although a piece of our gate ended up on the seashore half a mile away. The water rose about 20 feet toward the house.

We have no water and no electricity and are cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka. It is impossible to buy food. We are existing on cold ham and turkey sandwiches, leftovers from Christmas dinner.

The holiday that we planned and dreamed about for many months is in ruins. We feel fortunate -- fortunate to be alive.

[Dis]

I'm reading an article right now about lost fisherman.

I always wondered how a boat or ship would handle a tsunami. I spent a lot of time at sea, sometimes I would think of such things. But most of my time was in the Atlantic. Which is seismically peaceful I believe. I spent very little time in the Indian ocean area- only while traversing the red sea to the persian/arabian gulf.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/quake.india.toll.ap/

I would expect most of the fisherman are dead. If not all of them. But I'm curious if there were any naval vessels in the area. Specifically U.S. naval vessels- as they (west coast based ships) have to traverse the area to reach the persian gulf.

[Dis]

and Lonestar was heading that way towards the persian gulf I believe.

But he was in Hawaii just a few days ago, not enough time for him to get past the Singapore area. And they might not be going directly for the gulf.

U.S. navy ships might fare alright during such an event. I'm not sure.

I'm just curious how the larger ships in the region fared.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Azazel
in Sri lanka, over a million wounded and displaced, IIHC.


germanos:

and my brother is on a drilling ship north of Brunei

ships are safe, AFAIK. a tsunami is barely noticed in mid-ocean.

is this true?

I spent years on the ocean, but don't know this .

This is what I was wondering above.

But rogue waves which are different than tsunamis can occur and even sink supertankers.

[Harry Tuttle]

I think Tsumanis really do their worse when they break in rapidly decreasing water depth. The water has no place to go but up and over. Out in the ocean the energy of the wave is dispersed and probably is only a giant swell, something that many ocean going vessels can easily survive.

Rogue waves only really happen in shallow bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. They are usually caused by high winds. A rogue wave sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald, a very large ore freighter.

[Dis]

Originally posted by dejon


Am I the only one who finds it a little strange that the (western?) media always cover these stories with headlines that include how many nationals died? (e.g. "Earthquake kills 11,000, including X Americans/Canadians" ) I think it is disrespectful.

CNN.com isn't doing that (that I can see).

CNN

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Japan's buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, aren't they? What would've happened if this had hit Japan?

Normal residental houses in Japan aren't quake resistant, they are designed to collapse nicely without killing people. Only high rises are built to withstand quakes. IIRC, that is.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dissident
is this true?

I spent years on the ocean, but don't know this .

This is what I was wondering above.

But rogue waves which are different than tsunamis can occur and even sink supertankers.

That's true. Tunami waves are very, very long waves out in the ocean, hence they can travel a huge distance. You don't feel it if you are out there. When it goes near a shore, the sea bottom rises up. As water is almost incompressible the waves themselves will rise rapidly, creating huge walls of water.

A tunami is even more devestating if it goes into a bay, because the energy is funnelled towards a narrow front.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by VJ
I've never heard of the place before... just how can you guys over here remember the exact location of every single place around the globe?

When I was a little kid I wanted to grow up to be a vulcanologist. Sadly, I'm asthmatic, and cannot go anywhere near an active or dormant volcano because the gasses will affect me worse than others. Kraaktoa is a famous vacano whose erruption in the 19th Century killed more than 10,000 people with tsunamis. This one is worse.

Krakatoa explodes catastropically every 150 years or so, and is believed to be responsible for both the world wide economic collapse in 530AD and the Black Death. It's more massive explosions put massive quantities of dust in the air, which cools off the planet and disrupts both crop production and lowers the temperature to the point where the plague bacillus begins to block the gut of the flea, which then gorges itself on rat blood, which passes the disease on to the rat, which kills the rat, sending the flea in seach of new sources of blood, us. We're due for another major explosion in about thirty years.