[thechat] Tsunami toll: (way higher)

javier velasco lists at mantruc.com
Wed Jan 5 12:54:56 CST 2005


I agree that this was a terrible disaster and nobody deserved it. My 
sincerest condolences to Madhu's country and any fellow evolter who was 
affected.

Many coutries had victims, I believe Chile is one of the few lucky 
countries that has been able to find all of its survivors/victims (just 
because there weren't as many citizens in the area).

Now we're starting to hear amazing stories of how people survived. Like 
that baby atop a roof, or the woman who floated with a palm tree.

One great story I've seen about this, is a tribe that survived because 
they noticed their animals were upset and escaping to the hills, they 
followed the animals uphill and the whole tribe survived... talk about 
sustainable alarm systems!

More people could have survived if we were more aware of nature. I also 
heard about a natural refuge that was hit where all the animals survived.

I also love the story of the little girl who ran the alarm because she 
had recently studied tsunamis in school, education can go a long way.

I'm wondering if there could be a global kind of detection system for 
these kinds of events.

Another shocking story is that of the Prime Minister of Holland, who 
arrived on vacation to the area on the day after, and was apparently 
unmooved by the situation, just asked not to be bothered on his 
vacation. I don't have much info on this piece, if any of you know more 
about this character, I'd be interested in figuring it out, seems 
unbelievable to me.

I"ve also found out that the strongest recorded earthquake was the one 
in Valdivia, Chile in 1960, at 9.5 degrees. The tsunami it generated 
killed people in Hawaii and Japan - across the whole Pacific. I'm sure 
there weren't as many victims then as the area is less densely populated 
and the hills are higher, but there are still boats over the hills 
nowdays, witness of that episode.




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