Mother Nature
December 28th, 2004 at 6:21 pm by David FarrarEvery so often Mother Nature reminds us that despite all our achievements, the forces of nature are incredible with their power. The Asian tsunami is now thought to have killed 23,000 people and has around two million homeless. The extent of human misery it has caused can not be calculated with mere statistics.
If people want to help make a difference, can I recommend you consider donating to the Red Cross. I worked for NZ Red Cross for four years and can testify what amazing things they can do, with not much money. Just one sanitation engineer can provide water for 50,000 water.
The nice thing about the Red Cross, unlike many other charities, is they do not deduct any of their administration costs from tagged donations. Not even the cost of doing a bank draft to Geneva. Everey single cent gets sent to the International Red Cross, and they also have seperate funding for their administrative costs, so they again spend every cent of your money actually in the field of the country you have donated to.
You can donate $20 by ringing 0900 31 100.
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December 28th, 2004 at 7:37 pm
Truly awful.
I haven’t heard much about this, but surely the question has to be asked, howcome places like Sri Lanka weren’t warned? How come the biggest quake in 40 years went off and there (although I am not totally sure) was no evacuation effort?
Vote:December 28th, 2004 at 8:05 pm
I understand that there are no early detection systems in place because unlike the ‘Pacific’, there are relatively few quakes and comparably fewer fault lines, negating the need to have early detection systems in place.
That’s what they say, though.
Vote:December 28th, 2004 at 8:41 pm
According to the Washington Post, US officials wanted to warn of the tsunami but “there was no mechanism for doing so.”
It was two hours between the quake being detected and the ground zero where the biggest death tolls occured. Thousands of lives could have been saved if people had moved inland or to high ground.
If you are a subscriber, the Washington Post article can be seen at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27552-2004Dec26.html.
Slate also has a good article at http://slate.msn.com/id/2111424/.
Vote:December 29th, 2004 at 7:14 am
The Americans operate an early warning system for the Pacific which I assume NZ is part of as it was set up in the days when NZ was an ally of America.
Vote:December 29th, 2004 at 9:44 am
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/28/opinion/28tue2.html?th
According to the NY Times, Indonesia and Thailand were warned, but it was just in time for the waves to already be smashing against their shores. Sri Lanka wasn’t hit for another two hours, and India for another three.
Thats enough time, with an effective Civil service, to get people onto higher, less endangered ground.
Vote:December 29th, 2004 at 2:11 pm
The problem is those countries don’t have the internal systems available for a civil defence type evacuation to have occured.
Vote:Is this another ploy by the anti american “progressives” to try top blame the US for the extent of this disaster? Why don’t you do something useful and call the 0900 number, or better still do a sweep of the ministy office for donations toward the aid effort. (I already have).
December 29th, 2004 at 4:44 pm
Of course, the most urgent matter is to start appointing blame. No doubt it is somehow all the US’s fault. Wait for it, Bush will have had intelligence reports on his desk for weeks warning that an earthquake was possible, it could possibly cause a tsunami which could possibly cause extensive carnage but he covered it up to allow his Saudi mates to sell bodybags. Bah.
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