2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

[B-Squared]

This is one of the most deadly natural disasters in very recent history. Over 230,000 people killed by the tsunami that resulted from the huge undersea earthquake...I'm sure everyone all remembers. From watching the videos of the event, I often think about how I would NOT be swept away by the water, how I would absolutely cling to or climb onto something to keep me from being inundated. Looking at the vids it almost seemed as though the people were not even trying to escape, like they were in disbelief, like they just gave up and allowed their ends to come....

From Wikipedia:

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_earthquake) megathrust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megathrust) earthquake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake) that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time) on December 26, 2004, with an epicentre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicentre) off the west coast of Sumatra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumatra), Indonesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia). The quake itself is known by the scientific community (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_community) as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami#cite_note-2)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami#cite_note-3) The resulting tsunami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami) is given various names, including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Asian Tsunami, Indonesian Tsunami, and Boxing Day (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxing_Day) Tsunami.

The earthquake was caused by subduction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction) and triggered a series of devastating tsunamis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami) along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean), killing over 230,000 people in fourteen countries, and inundating coastal communities with waves up to 30 meters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre) (100 feet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_%28unit_of_length%29)) high.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami#cite_note-Paulson-4) It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll#Top_10_dea dliest_natural_disasters). Indonesia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesia) was the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lanka), India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India), and Thailand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand).

With a magnitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale) of between 9.1 and 9.3, it is the second largest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitu de) earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismograph). This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.4 inches)[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami#cite_note-5) and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska).[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami#cite_note-6)

[Meatpie]

This is one of the most deadly natural disasters in very recent history. Over 230,000 people killed by the tsunami that resulted from the huge undersea earthquake...I'm sure everyone all remembers. From watching the videos of the event, I often think about how I would NOT be swept away by the water, how I would absolutely cling to or climb onto something to keep me from being inundated. Looking at the vids it almost seemed as though the people were not even trying to escape, like they were in disbelief, like they just gave up and allowed their ends to come....


Great thread man, we should all remember the Boxing Day tsunami.

For the people on the beaches it probably looked like the the end of the world. The reason why so many died is not because they didn't want to fight or cling to trees - the water was too much and too powerful - it just washed away everything in its path.

Imagine a water column with the power to lift cars, how can a human of 80 kilos withstand it?

Even if you hold tight it will snap you in two.

The waves lifted cars, trucks, trains massive ships were tossed like toys.

It must have looked like the end of the world for this people.

On some islands the waves were 30 metres or higher, no human can survive.

[B-Squared]

I still think I would have survived...I know we cannot test this, but I have a strong felling I would still be around.

I used to have many of the pictures of the victims from the tsunami, can't find 'em right now, they're in my files somewhere...anyway, all the victims looked the same:

Bloated face, bulging eyes, swollen tongue sticking out of the mouth, and big pus-filled blisters on their dead skin...grotesque but fascinating none the less....

[Meatpie]

You will have drowned like a rat and will be just one of the nearly 230,000 corpses bloating in hot sun.

Or maybe you are superman?

:flex: