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News: Tsunamis from Quake Kill 12600
Sunday, 2004 December 26 - 10:45 pm
This is one of those news items that will hopefully give people a little perspective.

Twelve thousand six hundred.

That's how many lives were lost due to the 9.0-magnitude undersea earthquake near Indonesia today. That's the largest earthquake in forty years, and the fourth-largest quake in a century.

It was just a bit creepy to wake up hearing about this on NPR this morning, just after I'd watched the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". Imagining the real-life scenario of unwitting sunbathers suddenly getting washed out to sea by an enormous ocean wave... that is ten times more chilling than any of the far-fetched fictional disaster scenes depicted in the movie.

The number of people left homeless could be in the millions.

Here in the U.S., the other top news stories are about post-holiday sales and airline travel mixups. Locally, they're talking a lot about the snow we got today, and the win by the Carolina Panthers against Tampa Bay. Here we have an international tragedy that claimed four times more lives than 9/11, and it barely registers on our national psyche.

I don't know what that says about us. It just seems like we should be a bit more concerned.
Permalink  2 Comment   Bookmark and Share
Posted by Ken in: commentary

Comments

Comment #1 from Ken (realkato)
2004 Dec 27 - 6:57 pm : #
Update: Death toll estimate is now 22000.
Comment #2 from Ken (realkato)
2004 Dec 28 - 1:42 pm : #
Now up to around FIFTY THOUSAND. Aieee.

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