29 December 2004

Sadly to say… this is really grief-stricken as I look into the daily newspapers and logon to cnn.com to catch up with the latest news. This is really crazy and this natural phenomenon has taken lots of lives and it really pierced my heart to see children becoming orphans and parents became childless.

I can’t imagine..life is just fated in that way.. I can’t believe.. today you manage to see her, tomorrow she is gone by the waves…

Wait…that’s not all…………

The article below was compiled and edited a bit by me..after reading the latest breaking news from all over the net…. This is what I get to update you people as well….

Stricken Indian Ocean nations worked swiftly on Wednesday to bury thousands of bodies as experts warned disease could kill as many people as the 63,000 already dead from the violent crush of Sunday’s tsunamis.

While governments and rescuers tried to cope with the aftermath of possibly the deadliest tsunamis in more than 200 years, the United Nations mobilized what it called the biggest relief operation in its history. A top World Health Organization health expert warned that diseases could double the natural disaster’s death count before the situation can be stabilized.

Authorities in Indonesia added 8,000 fatalities to the death toll there, bringing the total number killed to 27,178. The Health Ministry said in a statement that the figure did not yet include reports from the hard-hit west coast of Sumatra, where 10,000 residents of the the town of Meulaboh were earlier reported to have died.

India, Sri Lanka and Thailand as well as Malaysia also added to their death counts as authorities re-established contact with remote islands and isolated coastal areas, and confirmed their worst fears.

The overall death toll was expected to climb further as emergency workers make their way into inundated and still isolated villages and towns. Indeed, the list of countries tragically affected by the temblor and the ensuing tsunamis expanded to a dozen late Tuesday, when one fatality was reported in Kenya.

Medical supplies, food and water purification systems poured into the region, part of what the United Nations said would be the biggest relief effort the world has ever seen to aid the millions left homeless by the oceanic torrent that battered the countries after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake Sunday off Sumatra.

But the magnitude of the disaster was working against the aid efforts. Bodies, many of them children, still filled beaches and choked hospital morgues, raising fears of disease.

Although there are only 65 reported deaths in Malaysia, there are still lots more who are reported missing. Penang alone is the worst hit area in this country reporting 50 over deaths.

Tsunamis as large as last 26th December (Sunday)’s happen only a few times a century. A tsunami is a series of traveling ocean waves generated by geological disturbances near the ocean floor. With nothing to stop them, the waves can race across the ocean like the crack of a bullwhip, gaining momentum over thousands of miles.

Tsunami, a Japanese word meaning “harbor wave,” is a wave in the ocean or lake created by a geologic event. Often a tsunami is incorrectly referred to as a tidal wave, which, strictly speaking, describes the periodic movement of water associated with the rise and fall of the tides. The term tsunami was adopted for general use in 1963 by an international scientific conference.

Oceanographers call tsunamis seismic seawaves because they are usually caused by earthquakes, landslides or marineslides under or near the ocean. These push the water upward, sideways or downward to create the tsunami waves. Volcanic eruptions can also cause tsunamis. They are more common in the Pacific Ocean.

A tsunami is not a single wave, but a series of waves that can travel across the ocean at speeds of more than 500 miles an hour. In the deep ocean, hundreds of miles can separate wave crests; many people have lost their lives during tsunamis after returning home thinking the waves had stopped.

As the tsunami enters the shallows of coastlines in its path, its velocity slows but its height increases. A tsunami that is just a few centimeters or meters high from trough to crest can rear up to heights of 30 to 50 meters as it hits the shore, striking with devastating force.

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However dear readers, please pray avidly, pray unceasingly for these victims who lost families, lost homes and they need our utmost prayer support as well as those who are capable of donating… do so to the funds available by our very own Malaysian headed by Najib (our deputy Prime Minister)…

Pray for them…. they need our prayer support…. Remember…