Tsunami

My heart reaches out to everyone touched by the tragedy surrounding the underwater earthquakes that caused the tsunami's that have taken lives, homes and livelyhoods of millions across 10 countries.

The amateur video footage from the hotels in Thailand is captavating, yet the power of mother nature at her furious worst is not easily captured with a camcorder.

My concerns are for the areas that we have not yet seen images from. An ITV news crew have footage from a plane at some altitude that shows low lying ground that has been simply destroyed as if trees are matchsticks and buildings are boxes made of paper. Even this does not guage the breadth of the tragedy that unfolds on the hour through the 24 hour news programs.

The help being offered by the Americans ($35 Million) and many other countries including Britain ($1.3Million) including the practical help being put in place right now is essential. Yet history will show this as the event that reshaped the crisis procedures for multi-national aid.

It has been reported that France has offered $136,000 in help. In comparison with other first-world countries who are providing assistance calculated in millions, this is a highly inappropriate response. Time may modify there level of help.

I do not profess to being a geologist, but I do understand that the plates surrounding the earth can trigger quakes caused from disturbances elsewhere. Without any evidence to back up a link, I find it something of a coincidence that this earthquake follows another major earthquake only days before that is not widely reported.

The following is from the BBC News dated December 24, 2004

Penguins escape huge earthquake
An earthquake on a remote Antarctic archipelago home to 850,000 King Penguins was the strongest on earth in four years, seismologists say.

The quake hit 400km (250 miles) off the Macquarie Islands on Friday, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale.

Penguins appear to have escaped a major disaster as the quake occurred deep under the sea, far from inhabited land.

There were no tsunamis, or large tidal waves, because the quake moved horizontally rather than vertically.

The tremors were felt in Tasmania, 1000km (600 miles) away, but because the epicentre was 10km underground, few observers noticed the initial quake.

10 BIGGEST QUAKES SINCE 1900 (December 24, 2004)
Chile, 1960: 9.5
Alaska, 1964: 9.2
Alaska, 1957: 9.1
Kamchatka, 1952: 9.0
Near Ecuador, 1906: 8.8
Alaska, 1965: 8.7
Tibet, 1950: 8.6
Kamchatka, 1923: 8.5
Indonesia, 1938: 8.5
Kuril Islands, 1963: 8.5
Source: US Geological Survey

Buildings on the islands shook for 15 seconds, seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said.

"If this had happened underneath a population centre it would probably have destroyed a whole city," he said.

The quake was the biggest anywhere on earth since an 8.4-magnitude tremor off the coast of Peru in June 2001. That killed 74 people.

Friday's earthquake was caused by the collision of two of the major tectonic plates which make up the earth's crust layer, the Indo-Australian and the Pacific plates.

The last quake of a similar magnitude in the Macquarie region was in 1924, Mr Sinadinovski said.

Despite its size, 22 staff of the Australian Antarctic Division slept through the tremors.

"Nobody felt anything," a spokesman said.



Attention must be given to the threat of disease in those areas affected by the tsunamis. The rising waters may have taken the lives of thousands, the effects of disease have the opportunity to do as much if not more again.

The aid agencies are unable to react with speed to everyone concerned, I fear we must pray for those in these areas that help arrives in time to prevent more lives lost.

A couple of days ago, with a little time on my hands I was considering to write a review on the news stories of the year. Yet somehow the news of today overshadows the news of the yesterdays in the past year.