Aid
for Tsunami victims $350 million
Bush Inaugural $45 million
The U.S. gives $15,139,178
per day to the Israeli government
Cost for one day of Iraq war
$233 million
A Tsunami is one
or a series of waves that occur after an earthquake,
seaquake, volcanic activity, slumps, or asteroid impacts
in or near the sea. A mega tsunami is
simply a larger occurance of the phenomena. The energy of a tsunami is
constant, a function of its height and speed.
Latest news from the
Indonesia Earthquake & Tsunamis.
CLAIM:
'400,000 DEAD' IN INDONESIA ALONE (UNCONFIRMED)
souce : Drudge
Report The death
toll in Acheh, the region worst hit by last Sunday's tsunami, may
exceed 400,000 as many affected areas could still not be reached for
search and rescue operations, Indonesia's Ambassador to Malaysia Drs H.
Rusdihardjo said Thursday.
The death toll from the Indian Ocean
disaster rose dramatically today to 123,000 after Indonesia raised its
number of victims by more than 30,000. The Indonesian government estimated the
country's death toll at 79,940, with officials warning that the body
count is still far from complete. Unicef said that close to a million
Indonesian children were in need. Indonesia's Aceh province on the island
of Sumatra - the landmass closest to the epicentre of Sunday's seismic
activity - bore the brunt of both the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and the
subsequent tsunamis.
Aid workers
arriving in region have encountered devastation - entire towns and
villages razed, and countless people - some of them with cuts and
broken bones - searching desperately for clean water and food on
streets covered in debris and dead bodies. Emergency workers and soldiers have come
across countless bloated bodies, many of them young children, strewn on
the streets and floating in the rivers of Banda Aceh, the provincial
capital.
Some survivors
have not eaten since Sunday and now risk infections and diseases such
as elephantiasis, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, bronchitis, pneumonia,
malaria, meningitis and haemorrhagic fever.
Fights have
reportedly have broken out in the streets of Banda Aceh over packets of
noodles dropped from military vehicles.
Unicef, the
international children's agency, estimated that 60% of Banda Aceh has
been destroyed, along with severe damage across the north-west coast. Government institutions have stopped
functioning and basic supplies have almost run out, forcing even
ambulances to ration fuel. Military helicopter pilots struggled to drop
food into isolated villages surrounded by cliffs along the coast of
Sumatra, as shortages and the fear of disease spread.
"Everything here
has collapsed," said Brig Gen Achmad, surgeon general of Indonesia's
armed forces. "Even the government has collapsed. The hospitals,
medical services are in disarray.
WHO
Scrambles To Curb Outbreaks Disease continues to threaten tsunami-hit
areas, even though no outbreaks have been reported so far. WHO is
seeking $60 million to restore basic needs to as many as 150,000
at-risk people to further stem the spread of infectious diseases.
Five million people in 11 countries lack
the basic requirements for life
The death toll from the south Asian tsunami is likely to surpass
120,000, aid agencies warned yesterday as the first consignments from
the biggest relief operation in history began to arrive to help
survivors in the devastated region. The United Nations said at least
£1bn in emergency aid was needed
after it calculated that the Boxing Day disaster left up to five
million people across 11 countries without access to the basic
requirements for life - water, food and sanitation. Other aid agencies
said that four days after the earthquake deep under
the Indian Ocean, it was clear that the international community must
now cope with death on a vast scale.
Millions of survivors at risk
As the death toll from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the
Indian Ocean continues to mount, relief officials are scrambling to
provide critical aid to millions of survivors who lack basic
necessities.
Tsunami: Why America's Coast Would Be Toast
It sounds like the plot of a fanciful Hollywood disaster movie. A
dangerous volcano in the Canary Islands erupts, sends a giant tsunami
travelling faster than a jet aircraft into the major population centres
of America's east coast, killing tens of millions and wiping out New
York and Washington DC. But unlike the eruption in the 1997 film
Volcano (which threatened in its tagline that 'the coast is toast')
scientists believe the threat from the volcano of Cumbre Vieja on the
island of La Palma is real, and that it could send a massive slab of
rock twice the size of the Isle of Man crashing into the Atlantic.
Quake's
Power: 1 Million A-Bombs The earthquake
that spawned the deadly tidal waves that devastated the
coasts of Asia started as an earthquake 6 miles beneath the ocean
floor. One scientist says likened the quake's power to detonating a
million atomic bombs.
Quake may have made Earth wobble
The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the
Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and
caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said Tuesday.
Thousands
of soldiers searched Asia's
shorelines Monday for survivors of devastating tidal waves that
devistated seaside towns in nine countries, killing at least 140,500 people, and
possibly
going as high as 175,000. Aid
poured
into the region, and parents in India mourned as hundreds of children
were buried in mass graves.
As I read, the
death toll began climbing sharply right after Sunday morning's
9.0-magnitude quake that struck deep beneath the Indian Ocean off the
shoreline of Indonesia, the most powerful temblor in four
decades. The initial reports were bad... what we have learned
since then is even worse...
The waves jolted
away from the epicenter at over 400
mph before crashing into the
surrounding shorelines without any kind of warning, sweeping people off
the beaches, and taking entire villages out to sea. Millions were
displaced from their homes and thousands are still missing.
There is also a
new risk, and many have warned that disease
outbreaks
were possible.
What
other kind of
damage can earthquakes cause? The method
for measuring the shaking effect
and damage is what
is known as the Richter Scale. The Richter magnitude scale is a
mathematical technique used to quantify the size of earthquakes.
Developed in 1935 by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno
Gutenberg, both of the California Institute of Technology, the Richter
scale assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake.
Here's what the scale looks like.
Less than
2.0 - Microearthquakes, not felt.- About 8,000 per year
2.0-2.9 -
Generally not felt, but recorded - No damages - About 1,000 per year
3.0-3.9 -
Often felt, but rarely causes damage.- 49,000 per year (estimated)
4.0-4.9 -
Noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises. Significant damage
unlikely. - 6,200 per year(estimated)
5.0-5.9 -
Can cause major damage to
poorly constructed buildings over small regions. At most slight damage
to well-designed buildings.- 800 per year
6.0-6.9 -
Can be destructive in areas up to about 100 miles across in populated
areas.- 120 per year
7.0-7.9 -
Can cause serious damage over larger areas. Skyscrapers as risk. 18 per
year
8.0 or
greater - Can cause serious
damage in areas several hundred miles across. Building structures
collapse - skyscrapers as SERIOUS risk. Average 1-2 / per year
I have also
read The magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Indonesia moved the island of
Sumatra about 100 feet to the southwest, the Los Angeles Times reported
Monday. - Washington
Times
