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#21
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"JosephP" wrote in message
news Joseph, I don't take any sides on the fact that a warning system could have saved (many) lives or not, but I want simply to add some points ino this discussion. 1. Many people have died on the roads in Phuket after the first tidal wave when they tried to escape to higher places. Giving a warning that a dangerous situation is going to happen without the proper coordination can cause more harm that good. 2. I was barely a month ago in Phuket, Phi-Phi Island's and Krabi. Nobody can protect himself for a tidal wave like the one occured yesterday, with waves reaching 5 meter in height and a tremendeous force as I have watched today in the news. For instance, take the case of Phi-Phi Island. An island, barely a few miles of superficy, and almost flat with almost no roads to the higher places. Only if people had a shelter to hide into, they were able to protect themselves from the disaster. But most people sleep in their boat or tuk-tuk as they cannot afford more, and Thailand has no shelters to protect them from such disasters. In Thaivisa.com people describes how the sea was taking their children out of their arms. The time between the Earthquake and the tidal moves was too short to start evacuate all this humans. Putting-up a system to prevent from such disasters without setting-up at the same time shelters and other protection systems, is like "putting the chickens in a fox hole to shelter". My deepest sincere feelings goes in the first place to all the people who lost his live in this disaster and the people who lost their only meaning if life. Regards, Carlos |
#22
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Reading the news headlines the tragedy gets worse and worse as the numbers
go from 4000, 8000 ... 15000 and rising, mostly in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka "Yamamoto" wrote in message ... "JosephP" wrote in message news Joseph, I don't take any sides on the fact that a warning system could have saved (many) lives or not, but I want simply to add some points ino this discussion. 1. Many people have died on the roads in Phuket after the first tidal wave when they tried to escape to higher places. Giving a warning that a dangerous situation is going to happen without the proper coordination can cause more harm that good. 2. I was barely a month ago in Phuket, Phi-Phi Island's and Krabi. Nobody can protect himself for a tidal wave like the one occured yesterday, with waves reaching 5 meter in height and a tremendeous force as I have watched today in the news. For instance, take the case of Phi-Phi Island. An island, barely a few miles of superficy, and almost flat with almost no roads to the higher places. Only if people had a shelter to hide into, they were able to protect themselves from the disaster. But most people sleep in their boat or tuk-tuk as they cannot afford more, and Thailand has no shelters to protect them from such disasters. In Thaivisa.com people describes how the sea was taking their children out of their arms. The time between the Earthquake and the tidal moves was too short to start evacuate all this humans. Putting-up a system to prevent from such disasters without setting-up at the same time shelters and other protection systems, is like "putting the chickens in a fox hole to shelter". My deepest sincere feelings goes in the first place to all the people who lost his live in this disaster and the people who lost their only meaning if life. Regards, Carlos |
#23
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Beyond 15,000! Oh my goodness! I know people in Singapore and they were lucky since the waves did not go there... This is such a tradgedy! -- coolman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ coolman's Profile: http://www.journeythere.com/forums/member.php?u=2 View this thread: http://www.journeythere.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=2741 |
#24
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JosephP wrote:
Reading the news headlines the tragedy gets worse and worse as the numbers go from 4000, 8000 ... 15000 and rising, mostly in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka Noone has so far talked about Myanmar (Burma). How is the damage there ? Seen from the map they must have been hit just as hard as Phuket/Phi Phi. knut |
#25
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wrote in message ... JosephP wrote: Reading the news headlines the tragedy gets worse and worse as the numbers go from 4000, 8000 ... 15000 and rising, mostly in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka Noone has so far talked about Myanmar (Burma). How is the damage there ? Seen from the map they must have been hit just as hard as Phuket/Phi Phi. knut ************************************* 20 reported dead in Myanmar this morning on Thai TV. Sandy |
#26
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On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:40:15 +0700, "Sandy Cruden"
wrote: wrote in message ... JosephP wrote: Reading the news headlines the tragedy gets worse and worse as the numbers go from 4000, 8000 ... 15000 and rising, mostly in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka Noone has so far talked about Myanmar (Burma). How is the damage there ? Seen from the map they must have been hit just as hard as Phuket/Phi Phi. knut ************************************* 20 reported dead in Myanmar this morning on Thai TV. Sandy Here an article from Irrawadi online: Tidal Waves Kill Dozen in Southern Burma By Aye Aye Win/AP Writer/Rangoon December 27, 2004 Tidal waves induced by a massive earthquake killed about 12 people when a bridge collapsed on the southern tip of Burma, fishing industry officials said Monday. The deaths made Burma the ninth country to be struck by waves sent thundering across the Bay of Bengal by the most powerful earthquake in 40 years when it hit Sunday off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island. The deaths occurred Sunday at Kawthaung, opposite the city of Ranong in southern Thailand, said the officials, who were linked to the Fishing Trawlers Association and spoke on condition of anonymity. They said the fate of fishing trawlers out at sea at the time of the tidal waves was not yet known. Rigs in the Andman Sea, operated by UNOCAL, Total and Petronas companies, shut down their natural oil pipelines for about three hours after the earthquake “for safety reasons but there is no facility damage to the rigs,” an official from one of the rigs said. Reports in Burma’s state controlled media made no mention of damage or casualties from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 13,300 people along the coastlines of Southeast and South Asia. State-controlled television reports warned that aftershocks were likely to follow for three days and warned the public to take precautionary measures such as not standing under tall buildings. The military-run regime rarely provides details of natural or man-made disasters in the country. |
#27
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On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:40:15 +0700, "Sandy Cruden"
wrote: wrote in message ... JosephP wrote: Reading the news headlines the tragedy gets worse and worse as the numbers go from 4000, 8000 ... 15000 and rising, mostly in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka Noone has so far talked about Myanmar (Burma). How is the damage there ? Seen from the map they must have been hit just as hard as Phuket/Phi Phi. knut ************************************* 20 reported dead in Myanmar this morning on Thai TV. Sandy Here an article from Irrawadi online: Tidal Waves Kill Dozen in Southern Burma By Aye Aye Win/AP Writer/Rangoon December 27, 2004 Tidal waves induced by a massive earthquake killed about 12 people when a bridge collapsed on the southern tip of Burma, fishing industry officials said Monday. The deaths made Burma the ninth country to be struck by waves sent thundering across the Bay of Bengal by the most powerful earthquake in 40 years when it hit Sunday off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island. The deaths occurred Sunday at Kawthaung, opposite the city of Ranong in southern Thailand, said the officials, who were linked to the Fishing Trawlers Association and spoke on condition of anonymity. They said the fate of fishing trawlers out at sea at the time of the tidal waves was not yet known. Rigs in the Andman Sea, operated by UNOCAL, Total and Petronas companies, shut down their natural oil pipelines for about three hours after the earthquake “for safety reasons but there is no facility damage to the rigs,” an official from one of the rigs said. Reports in Burma’s state controlled media made no mention of damage or casualties from the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 13,300 people along the coastlines of Southeast and South Asia. State-controlled television reports warned that aftershocks were likely to follow for three days and warned the public to take precautionary measures such as not standing under tall buildings. The military-run regime rarely provides details of natural or man-made disasters in the country. |
#28
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Does anyone know the situation in Langkawi?
I 've found from the news reports that Pantai Cenang was badly affected. We have many friends along that beach area. Specifically Irish Bar, Sunset Bar and AB Motel area. I'm just hoping everyone is ok Jan |
#29
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Local TV reported 45 deaths in Malaysia, between Penang and Langkawi. It
would appear that both were spared mercifully. "Jan" glsD ... Does anyone know the situation in Langkawi? I 've found from the news reports that Pantai Cenang was badly affected. We have many friends along that beach area. Specifically Irish Bar, Sunset Bar and AB Motel area. I'm just hoping everyone is ok Jan |
#30
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"On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 12:55:02 -0000, "Jan" wrote:
" Does anyone know the situation in Langkawi? I 've found from the news reports that Pantai Cenang was badly affected. We have many friends along that beach area. Specifically Irish Bar, Sunset Bar and AB Motel area. I'm just hoping everyone is ok Jan here and the whole ****load from the other places and some latests: Dec 27, 2004 Tourists rescued from trees in Langkawi By Reme Ahmad Malaysia Bureau Chief KUALA LUMPUR - ONE moment the holidaymakers were relaxing by a beautiful Langkawi beach. The next, they found themselves stuck on trees 50m away, carried there by giant waves. Brute force: The waves which hit Penang pushed this car over a concrete barrier. At least 42 died in Malaysia as the tsunami struck. -- AFP Some two dozen tourists got the shock of their lives at the Berjaya Langkawi Beach & Spa Resort yesterday in an incident that quickly became a centrepiece of the believe-it-or-not lore arising from the massive earthquake that shook South-east Asia. 'The wave pushed the guests into the jungle. We had to rescue them, including those who were stuck on trees at the back of the beach,' Mr Addie Chang, operations manager at the resort, told The Straits Times. Of the 25 injured guests, four who suffered severe cuts were sent to hospital, he said. Several people were also reported to have gone missing in Langkawi. A 70-year-old man confined to a wheelchair drowned in his home when it flooded and he could not escape, AFP reported. At least 42 people died after Malaysia was hit by one of the biggest tremors it had ever experienced in its history. About 200 others were injured. That the earthquake happened on a Sunday, a day after Christmas, was something of a blessing: a bigger panic was averted as most Malaysian offices were closed and roads empty. But it also meant that many were holidaying by the beach. Worried that other waves might hit Malaysian shores in the coming days, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak called for the evacuation of coastal areas in Penang and Kedah, which also includes Langkawi island. 'This is a disaster that our country has never faced before in history,' he told a hastily-called news conference at his home. 'I have ordered precautionary measures to shift people to safer areas. It is possible there might be more tidal waves. We should be ready if there is another round,' he said. Experts say a major earthquake could trigger more seismic activity over the next few days, making it likely that other tidal waves might be created. 'We advise people in Kedah, Perlis and Penang to be cautious as aftershocks may cause high waves in the next few days,' Mr Low Kong Chiew, a director at the Malaysian Meteorological Service, told reporters. Looking at the numbers, it would be easy to say that Malaysia was lucky compared to India and Sri Lanka, where several thousand died. But that was no consolation to the hundreds of local picnickers at Balikpulau on Penang island, where a happy family outing turned to horror as waves crashed onto the beach, killing more than a dozen people. TV news showed family members grieving over loved ones being brought down from the back of an army truck, one wrapped in a mat more often used for picnics. The famed Jalan Batu Ferringhi, the winding road that houses dozens of beach hotels in Penang, was closed. Sea water had flooded parts of the road and the authorities feared other giant waves might follow. Two fishing boats sat incongruously in the middle of the road, while one car was smashed into a house, TV footage showed. Consumer activist Jacob George, who was holidaying on Ferringhi beach, told the station TV3: 'We saw the tall wave at about 1.30pm for about three minutes. And then the wave hit the beach hard and waters flowed right into the lobbies of hotels.' In Gurney Drive, Penang's famous tourist street, cars were hit by the huge wave and parked motorcycles were swept away. There were reports that a jet skier had been hit by waves and had landed in a coffee shop. In Kuah town, the capital of Langkawi, the waves swept into restaurants and shops near the beach, bringing with them a thick layer of mud. In Kedah, 1,000 houses in Kuala Muda were destroyed, while the coastal road was caked in mud. Seven people, including a seven-month-old boy, drowned. One of the houses flattened was being used to host a wedding, according to a guest who had left the feast just three hours previous. Hundreds of fishermen's boats in Penang and Kedah sank or were damaged. The death toll will probably climb over the next few days, as there were fishermen who went out to sea and have not yet returned. 'Three fishing boats went out and have not returned. And we are now bracing for another wave,' said a Kedah state assemblyman, Datuk Azmi Abdul Hamid. A total of nine out of 13 states in Malaysia felt tremors, the biggest number of states ever affected by a single earthquake. Even Kelantan and Terengganu were hit, a rarity as earthquakes normally affect only west coast states such as Johor and Penang. Panic ensued in some areas as condominiums, hospitals and offices were evacuated from Johor to Kuala Lumpur to Perlis at around 9am. Patients at major hospitals in Selangor, Terengganu and Kelantan were evacuated after the tremors were felt. But authorities later declared the buildings safe. Said Mr Osman Sadikin who lives in a Putrajaya apartment: 'I was putting on a shirt when I felt that I was swaying. Then I heard my neighbour shouting: 'The block is about to collapse!' I quickly ran down.' He will join thousands of others on full alert over the next few days, praying that the worst is over, even as rescue teams carry out the grim task of looking for those missing from the day that the seas went on a rampage. ======================================= Dec 27, 6.30 pm (Singapore time) TIDAL WAVES DISASTER Dec 27, 2004 MALAYSIA: Rescuers search for more than 100 missing PENANG - Rescuers scoured Malaysian beach resorts and towns on Monday for about 100 vacationers, fishermen and villagers missing after tidal waves killed at least 52 people and injured more than 220 others. About 100 people remained missing in Penang, said the state's civil defence director, Mr Mohamad Johari Mohamad Taufik. 'I pray that there will not be another round of tidal waves,' Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in a televised statement. Many victims drowned while swimming or riding jet skis near crowded beaches on Sunday afternoon, swept away by waves as high as five metre that were triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake near Indonesia's Sumatra island. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak on Monday toured several villages where more than 1,000 homes were destroyed and fishermen lost millions of ringgit worth of property and equipment. Petronas Twin Towers checked for safety Engineers were inspecting Kuala Lumpur's world-famous 452-m Petronas Twin Towers, the world's second-tallest buildings, to rule out any structural danger caused by tremors. Initial checks showed no damage, but a skybridge linking the towers was closed to the public as a precaution, the building management said. Tens of thousands of people were temporarily evacuated on Sunday from high-rise hotels and apartments throughout peninsular Malaysia due to tremors from the quake. The devastation shocked a country that - due to its geographical location - has virtually no experience with the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes or other natural disasters that plague its South-east Asian neighbours. A narrow strait separates peninsular Malaysia's western coast from Sumatra. -- AP =========================================== Dec 27, 9.12 am (Singapore time) TIDAL WAVES DISASTER Dec 27, 2004 India and Sri Lanka didn't have wave warning system DENVER - The catastrophic death toll in Asia caused by a massive tsunami might have been reduced had India and Sri Lanka been part of an international warning system designed to warn coastal communities about potentially deadly waves, scientists say. Some 5,300 people in India and Sri Lanka were among the more than 11,000 people killed after being hit by walls of water triggered by a tremendous earthquake early on Sunday off Sumatra. The warning system is designed to alert nations that potentially destructive waves may hit their coastlines within three to 14 hours. Scientists said seismic networks recorded Sunday's massive earthquake, but without wave sensors in the region, there was no way to determine the direction a tsunami would travel. A single wave station south of the earthquake's epicentre registered tsunami activity less than 0.6m high heading south toward Australia, researchers said. The waves also struck resort beaches on the west coast of the Thailand's south peninsula, killing hundreds. Although Thailand belongs to the international tsunami warning network, its west coast does not have the system's wave sensors mounted on ocean buoys. 'They had no tidal gauges and they had no warning,' said Ms Waverly Person, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado, which monitors seismic activity worldwide. 'There are no buoys in the Indian Ocean and that's where this tsunami occurred.' The international warning system was started in 1965, the year after tsunamis associated with a magnitude 9.2 temblor struck Alaska in 1964. It is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Member states include all the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America, was well as the Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand. It also includes France, which has sovereignty over some Pacific islands, and Russia. However, India and Sri Lanka are not members. 'That's because tsunamis are much less frequent in the Indian Ocean,' Mr McCreary said. -- AP ============================================ Dec 27, 2004 Giant waves kill thousands in Asia Bodies line beaches and homes are obliterated following strongest earthquake in 40 years MORE than 10,000 people are feared dead or missing and millions displaced as the strongest earthquake in the world in 40 years unleashed flash floods and giant waves on South and South-east Asia. Washout: Houses and cars get washed away after giant waves hit Marina beach in Chenai. The Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh were the worst hit. -- AFP Terrifying walls of water, or tsunamis, some as high as four storeys, crashed at breakneck speed into coastal areas in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Maldives on Sunday morning. Tourists, fishermen, hotels, homes and cars were swept away in an arc of massive destruction stretching more than 2,000km, from Aceh to the Andaman Sea, from Malaysia to the Maldives, from Indonesia to India. The worst is not over as fears grow of more aftershocks. These often follow such a massive quake, which happened underwater off Indonesia on Sunday morning. 'We expect the big waves to lash Chennai and parts of Tamil Nadu for the next two days,' said Mr A. K. Shukla, head of the Indian Meteorological Department. The greatest devastation is in Sri Lanka, the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh, and Indonesia, where the conflict-torn province of Aceh is worst-hit. As the death toll keeps climbing, at least 3,500 people are dead in Sri Lanka and about 2,400 in India, from the 8.9-magnitude quake, the fifth-strongest since 1900. The strongest recorded was 9.5 on May 22, 1960, in Chile. In Indonesia, more than 4,200 are reportedly dead, most in northern Sumatra, the island nearest the quake's epicentre, with witnesses saying entire villages of fishing huts in Aceh were obliterated. Three countries have declared a state of emergency: Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives. In Thailand, more than 300 people, including foreigners, have been killed, most of them at the tourist hotspots of Phi Phi island and Phuket, which are crammed with holidaymakers during this, the peak tourist season. No Singaporeans have been reported among them, and more than 100 Singaporeans in Phuket and its surrounding islands have contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reports have also been made by Singaporeans in the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India, it added. Singaporean Wilson Khoo, 29, an senior bank executive, said in an SMS interview with The Straits Times from the Seaview hotel at Patong beach in Phuket: 'Wave came in at 9.20am, carrying cars, lorry, and crashing into the hotel on the second floor. Furniture, TV, luggage and people were swept out. Screams and cries. Many hurt. Within seconds Patong is destroyed. All buildings. No water, electricity. Blackout.' As the floodwaters recede, harrowing reports of people caught in the devastation and dramatic tales of escape are emerging from around the region, which coincidentally is being struck a year to the day after an earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam killed more than 30,000 people. Bodies lined beaches and were caught in treetops in Sri Lanka, where the military is leading rescue work and where relief supplies will arrive from Japan today, following President Chandrika Kumaratunga's call for international aid. Mr Gemunu Amarasinghe, a photographer who was in south Colombo, counted '24 bodies in a stretch of 6km'. He saw the bodies of children entangled in wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. 'There were rows and rows of women and men standing on the road and asking if anyone had seen their family members,' he added. In India, authorities struggled to control the mayhem, especially in Tamil Nadu, where about 1,700 are reportedly dead and scores of villages swallowed by tsunamis. Hospital morgues are overflowing with bodies, among them a group of schoolchildren who were playing cricket on the beach when a giant wave swept them out to sea. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured 'all possible central government support and assistance in the relief and rehabilitation efforts' to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala and Pondicherry. In Indonesia, a huge relief operation is underway for Aceh, a region closed to foreign media and aid agencies owing to a separatist conflict. But unconfirmed reports say more than 1,500 bodies lined the coastline near the capital, Banda Aceh. In Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak wants an evacuation of coastal areas in Penang and Kedah, including Langkawi island, amid fears that further waves may hit. In an outpouring of sympathy and aid for the region, the European Union has promised an initial 3 million euros (S$6.6 million) in aid. Pope John Paul appealed for swift international help while Queen Elizabeth II said she was 'deeply saddened to learn of the dreadful situation'. In Singapore, tremors were felt in Beach Road, Siglap Road, Pine Close, Meyer Road and Toa Payoh, among others, with more than 10 calls made to the police. However, Singapore, sheltered by the region's land masses, is safe, said university don Wong Poh Poh. 'When an earthquake occurs, it causes a ripple effect. In this case, the waves hit the western side of the peninsula like Phuket and Penang and lowland areas like India and Sri Lanka. Eventually, the effects may be felt further, in Mauritius, the Seychelles and places in East Africa. 'Geographically, Singapore is very safe,' he said. -- NEWS AGENCIES, BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION ======================================= Dec 27, 2004 Calm at sea, havoc along the coast Tsunamis born of undersea quakes can cause massive damage far from their origin HONG KONG - TSUNAMIS like those that wreaked havoc across Asia yesterday, leaving thousands dead, are massive waves that are usually caused by earthquakes deep under the ocean floor and can travel vast distances. Born of strong seismic shocks, tsunamis can reach huge heights and speeds, picking up strength as they cross the ocean - often with disastrous results thousands of kilometres from their origin. Despite their strength, they can be barely noticeable out at sea. 'If you are on a boat, you might not even feel a tsunami,' said Mr Wong Wing Tak, senior scientific officer at the Hong Kong Observatory. 'It becomes powerful only when it is near the shore and reaches shallow water, which then can push waves over 10 times higher than the sea water level.' While they can also be caused by landslides and volcanic eruptions, the most common cause is an undersea earthquake, especially in areas such as the Pacific where there is significant movement of the Earth's tectonic plates. 'Tidal waves are not a common phenomenon as usually only an earthquake that's over 7.7 on the Richter scale is capable of causing tidal waves,' Mr Wong said. 'Tsunamis travel outward in all directions from the epicentre of an earthquake and can savagely attack coastlines. It can easily roll people out to the sea. 'It causes flooding and devastates property damage,' he said. He added that the speed of the waves is linked to the depth of the water. 'It can travel at speeds of several hundred kilometres per hour,' he noted. In 1960 a huge tidal wave travelling at 750kmh smashed into Japan, having been caused by a series of quakes in Chile on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Hundreds were left dead. In September 1992, a tsunami destroyed the homes of some 13 million people on the Nicaraguan coast. Two months later, villagers in Bali, Indonesia, were swept by a series of giant waves that left thousands dead. On July 17, 1998, two quakes that measured 7 on the Richter scale caused tidal waves of 10m high that ravaged a 30km stretch of the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. Seven villages were destroyed, and the official death toll was 2,123. Alert to the destructive capacity of tsunamis, Pacific Rim countries coordinate and share their observations of the ocean. A tsunami alert centre in Hawaii collects information about possible tidal waves. Smaller tidal waves can also be caused by weather phenomenon, notably extreme thermal changes which can lead to depressions that cause strong winds. The massive earthquake that struck Sumatra, Indonesia, yesterday is an extremely rare event not seen for at least four decades, another expert said. 'An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.9 is an extremely rare event. Such a tremor hasn't been recorded for at least 40 years,' said Mr Enzo Boschi, the director of the National Institute of Geophysics in Rome. 'One of the worst quakes was that which hit Chile in 1960 which had a magnitude of more than 9 on the Richter scale,' he added. -- AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ========================================= Dec 27, 2004 Fears for thousands of tourists on islands Catastrophe strikes during peak holiday season in the region PARIS - THOUSANDS of tourists vacationing across Asia have been affected by the massive tidal waves yesterday as reports began to emerge of the huge numbers of dead and missing in the disaster. Devastation in Chennai: Residents survey the aftermath of the tidal waves that hit the city's Marina beach after dawn yesterday, leaving it littered with vehicles, boats and debris. -- AFP The French, German and Dutch foreign ministries have set up crisis cells to deal with the catastrophe, which struck during the busy Christmas and New Year travel season, with European tourists flocking to South and South-east Asia. A spokesman for Patong Hospital, close to the western side of the popular Thai resort island of Phuket, said they had more than 50 bodies at the hospital and were treating around 400 people, many of them foreigners. Up to 10,000 British tourists could have been affected by the disaster, a British travel agency representative said in London. Death in Phuket: Thai rescue workers carry the body of a victim at Patong beach. Several Russians are believed to be among those killed in Phuket. -- AP Mr Keith Betton of the Association of British Travel Agents said his organisation was in the process of assessing whom to fly home, and cancelling some holidays of people about to go. French tour operators said they had no figure on the number of French tourists in the affected areas, though one company, Nouvelles Frontieres, said around 1,000 French tourists were in the Maldives, which was hard hit by the tidal waves. More than 5,000 Italian travellers were in the region, most of them in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Italian travel agencies said. 'The situation is very confused,' Mr Fracensco Granese of Assotravel told reporters. Club Med said three of its holiday villages in Thailand and the Maldives had been affected by the quake and floods, but no one was missing, a spokesman for the group said. Western Thailand, where Phuket is located, is the most popular tourist area in the country, attracting five million foreign travellers each year. Germany's TUI, Europe's top travel agency, said it was in the process of gathering information on how many German tourists were in the area, but a spokesman said the communication was 'extremely difficult'. The tidal waves originated in a huge undersea quake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, hurtling across the ocean to strike a string of countries. Battered beach: Tourists walking along Kata beach assessing the damage done by the tidal wave that hit Phuket. -- AP Along the way, the tsunamis devastated several tourist destinations that are considered the jewels of the Indian Ocean, attracting tourists from the world over to their warm beaches and diving spots. The lush tropical island of Phuket off southern Thailand is one of the most popular resorts in Asia. It is dotted with luxury spas and resorts catering to wealthy Westerners looking for sunshine, palm-fringed beaches and warm water. Forty-five minutes away is the tiny idyllic tourist island of Phi Phi off the western Andaman coast, where up to 50 people were killed, chosen as the location for the Hollywood film The Beach and is popular for snorkelling and diving. Nearby Krabi, which also suffered casualties, is on Thailand's southern mainland and touts some of the most beautiful scenery in Asia with white sandy beaches surrounded by limestone cliffs and crystal water. Thailand is South-east Asia's most popular tourist destination with more than 10 million foreign visitors per year, with the peak period during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Washed asho Fishing boats lying on a street in Penang after strong waves carried them up from the sea. -- REUTERS Penang and Langkawi in Malaysia were also hit by the tsunamis. Several deaths in Penang occurred at the popular Batu Ferringhi beach, which is lined by upscale tourist hotels. India's Andaman islands, where some 100 people were hurt, are also top diving destinations. And the tiny nation of the Maldives, where a British tourist died from a heart attack, is a luxury destination best known for its tiny coral islands, sandy white beaches and shallow lagoons. The low-lying nation of 1,192 coral islands is visited by some 500,000 tourists each year - nearly twice the country's population. -- AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ====================================== Dec 27, 2004 IN SINGAPORE Some tremors prompt calls, but no injuries By Maria Almenoar SINGAPORE, sheltered by other land masses in the region, escaped the devastating effects of yesterday morning's earthquake. Most Singaporeans were undisturbed by the tremors that were felt here. The police said they received more than 10 calls from concerned residents yesterday but there were no reported injuries. Areas affected included Beach Road, Siglap Road, Pine Close, Meyer Road and Toa Payoh. Said Ms Elvie Banbong, 27, a Filipino maid who lives along Meyer Road: 'I've experienced tremors back home so I wasn't worried. It lasted about five minutes but didn't cause any damage.' The Singapore Civil Defence Force said it had not received any calls as of yesterday afternoon. Singapore escaped the effects of yesterday's quake as it is sheltered by other land masses in the region, explained Associate Professor Wong Poh Poh from the National University of Singapore's department of geography. He said: 'When an earthquake occurs, it causes a ripple effect. In this case, tidal waves hit the western side of the peninsula like Phuket and Penang, and lowland areas like India and Sri Lanka. Eventually, the effects may be felt farther in Mauritius, Seychelles and places in East Africa. 'Geographically, Singapore is very safe.' The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said yesterday that its overseas missions in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Bangladesh are in touch with local authorities and will render consular assistance to Singaporeans affected. More than a hundred Singaporeans in Phuket and surrounding islands have contacted the MFA, and reports have been made by Singaporeans in Maldives, Sri Lanka and India. Travellers checking in at Changi Airport yesterday were also affected as flights were cancelled or delayed. Said a worried Mr Yanick Alvarez, a resident of Patong Beach, Thailand: 'I've been trying to get through to my friends who live there but I can't.' The MFA advises Singaporeans residing or travelling within the region to continue to monitor developments and register themselves with the nearest Singapore embassy or through the MFA website at www.mfa.gov.sg Relatives or friends of Singaporeans who are in the affected areas can call the MFA duty office on 6332-0000 to register their contact details. -- ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NG BAO YING, CHANNEL i NEWS ======================================== Dec 27, 2004 IN SRI LANKA 'The sea is coming inland!' Over 2,500 dead and a million affected; main road to Colombo is blocked by debris By Robert Go For The Straits Times COLOMBO - WHEN massive waves triggered by earthquakes crashed into countless villages along the Sri Lankan coast yesterday, Mr Waruna Premachandra saw people running and he heard the panicked scream: 'The sea is coming inland!' In ruins: The coastal railway line in the southern Sri Lankan town of Lunawa was wrecked by the tidal waves yesterday. -- AFP The first wave swept in at a low level, but shortly afterwards the television cameraman heard a huge roar as another wave pummelled his home, forcing him to clamber onto his roof as his belongings were soaked downstairs. 'I saw houses and trees uprooted and being swept inland,' he said. Over 2,500 people were killed in Sri Lanka as the waves hit from the north-east near the holiday resort town of Trincomalee and swept downwards and west around the island shaped like a tear drop, hitting coastal towns including Paiyagala. Sri Lanka's worst tsunami in living memory has disrupted the lives of over one million people, the government said yesterday. Sri Lanka's main route back to the capital was impassable, blocked by debris from damaged houses and buildings, trees, and vehicles, some overturned and piled atop each other, that were swept away by the powerful surging water. Several hundred metres inland, fishing boats were left marooned along with mounds of sand from the beaches when the swirling waters receded. Sections of the railway tracks connecting Sri Lanka's south to the capital Colombo were a tangle of metal or entirely swept away and will need extensive repairs. At the railway station at Paiyagala, like many other buildings in the country, only two walls were left standing. The manager of the four-star Tangerine Beach Hotel, 40km south of Colombo, said looters were taking out television sets and furniture from his flooded hotel. 'There is a lot of looting going on, but there is very little we can do to stop it. It seems to be a free-for-all,' said Mr Lakal Jayasinghe. As many as 2,000 members of the Sri Lankan armed forces were searching last night for survivors, but it was mainly a case of gathering corpses from the ocean surface and beach areas. Mr Jehan Silva Wijeyeratne, head of the Jetwing Eco Tours that runs 12 hotels in the country, said the damage at his facilities ranged from flooding to fallen walls. He told The Straits Times: 'The coastal areas are densely populated and the death toll must be very high. For the tourism industry, this has happened at the worst time, at the peak season and just as it was getting back on its feet after 20 years of civil war.' Other hotel operators said the waves simply flattened their resorts, leaving behind nothing more than foundation stones and debris. More worrying reports are coming out of vast stretches of eastern Sri Lanka, where the tidal waves uprooted and disseminated uncleared landmines, a legacy of the conflict between government troops and separatist Tamil rebels. An aid worker in Batticaloa district to the east said families in his region are reporting such explosive devices being left behind in their yards by the receding water. The death toll could be higher. Mr Lalith Weerathunga, secretary to the prime minister, told Associated Press the government had no information on what has happened in coastal areas in the north-east controlled by Tamil Tiger rebels. ========================================== Dec 27, 2004 IN INDONESIA Killer waves came without warning By Salim Osman Indonesia Correspondent JAKARTA - PEOPLE were washed out to sea, bodies got wedged in trees and children were torn from their parents' arms yesterday when the tsunami triggered by a huge earthquake swept across Aceh province and islands elsewhere off the coast of Sumatra. Wave of destruction: A tourist surveying the damage caused by the tsunami in Phuket. -- AFP At least one Indonesian coastal village, Lancuk, was nearly destroyed, witnesses said. 'Waves as high as two or three meters suddenly rose up in the sea,' said a fisherman in Lancuk who identified himself as Marzuki. 'The weather was fine with no clouds, there was no warning and suddenly the sea water just hit the city. In some parts the water was up to chest level,' said Mr Bustami, a resident in the Aceh city of Lhokseumawe. 'People are panicking now. Some of us are walking by foot and others are on military trucks going to higher ground.' Mr Sadli, an official at Lhokseumawe's Cut Meutia hospital, said that many of the dead in the city were children under the age of 10. 'Maybe they were being carried by their parents but they fell over in the water and could not hold on to their children. All the dead children drowned,' said Mr Sadli. Stranded: Tourists waiting at Bangkok airport after all flights to Phuket were cancelled. -- AFP President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who was visiting refugees of an earlier earthquake that hit Nabire in Papua, declared the area a natural disaster and ordered the authorities to make immediate emergency measures. Hundreds of houses were swept away by the force of 5-m waves across Aceh, which lies on the northern tip of Sumatra island. On Nias island off North Sumatra province, directly south of Aceh, officials said 75 people had died. 'We have never seen anything like this. The waves just kept coming. We have fled to high areas for safety,' Mr Kibaret Sarumaha, a resident on Nias, told Metro TV. More than 2,400 people were confirmed dead from the quake and tsunamis in Aceh and North Sumatra, and the number of dead was expected to rise significantly, said a government official. More then 10 hours after the quake hit, a military spokesman said all communications remained cut off to several large seaside towns facing the epicentre of the 8.9 magnitude tremor off the west coast of the island. Thousands of people abandoned their homes and were headed for higher ground after the earthquake. At least 98 people died in northern Bireun district as a result of flooding and dozens more were missing, said district head Mustofa Glanggang. Most of the bodies were found on the beach. More than 500km to the south-east of Banda Aceh, four fishermen drowned when high waves hit their boat in a river close to the coastal town of Deli Serdang, said a police spokesman. Hampering relief efforts were the lack of telephone contact and the closure of the region's main airport in Banda Aceh due to a damaged control tower and flooded runway. Police in neighbouring districts said they had yet to hear word from the city. The state Antara news agency said shops under construction in the Beurawe area of Banda Aceh collapsed and search teams were hunting for possible victims - construction workers who might have been in the buildings. A witness from the town of Sigli in Aceh said that the quake caused the dome of the main mosque there to collapse. He said there were no reports of casualties. ========================================== Dec 27, 2004 Giant waves kill thousands in Asia Bodies line beaches and homes are obliterated following strongest earthquake in 40 years MORE than 10,000 people are feared dead or missing and millions displaced as the strongest earthquake in the world in 40 years unleashed flash floods and giant waves on South and South-east Asia. Washout: Houses and cars get washed away after giant waves hit Marina beach in Chenai. The Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh were the worst hit. -- AFP Terrifying walls of water, or tsunamis, some as high as four storeys, crashed at breakneck speed into coastal areas in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Maldives on Sunday morning. Tourists, fishermen, hotels, homes and cars were swept away in an arc of massive destruction stretching more than 2,000km, from Aceh to the Andaman Sea, from Malaysia to the Maldives, from Indonesia to India. The worst is not over as fears grow of more aftershocks. These often follow such a massive quake, which happened underwater off Indonesia on Sunday morning. 'We expect the big waves to lash Chennai and parts of Tamil Nadu for the next two days,' said Mr A. K. Shukla, head of the Indian Meteorological Department. The greatest devastation is in Sri Lanka, the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh, and Indonesia, where the conflict-torn province of Aceh is worst-hit. As the death toll keeps climbing, at least 3,500 people are dead in Sri Lanka and about 2,400 in India, from the 8.9-magnitude quake, the fifth-strongest since 1900. The strongest recorded was 9.5 on May 22, 1960, in Chile. In Indonesia, more than 4,200 are reportedly dead, most in northern Sumatra, the island nearest the quake's epicentre, with witnesses saying entire villages of fishing huts in Aceh were obliterated. Three countries have declared a state of emergency: Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives. In Thailand, more than 300 people, including foreigners, have been killed, most of them at the tourist hotspots of Phi Phi island and Phuket, which are crammed with holidaymakers during this, the peak tourist season. No Singaporeans have been reported among them, and more than 100 Singaporeans in Phuket and its surrounding islands have contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reports have also been made by Singaporeans in the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India, it added. Singaporean Wilson Khoo, 29, an senior bank executive, said in an SMS interview with The Straits Times from the Seaview hotel at Patong beach in Phuket: 'Wave came in at 9.20am, carrying cars, lorry, and crashing into the hotel on the second floor. Furniture, TV, luggage and people were swept out. Screams and cries. Many hurt. Within seconds Patong is destroyed. All buildings. No water, electricity. Blackout.' As the floodwaters recede, harrowing reports of people caught in the devastation and dramatic tales of escape are emerging from around the region, which coincidentally is being struck a year to the day after an earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam killed more than 30,000 people. Bodies lined beaches and were caught in treetops in Sri Lanka, where the military is leading rescue work and where relief supplies will arrive from Japan today, following President Chandrika Kumaratunga's call for international aid. Mr Gemunu Amarasinghe, a photographer who was in south Colombo, counted '24 bodies in a stretch of 6km'. He saw the bodies of children entangled in wire mesh used to barricade seaside homes. 'There were rows and rows of women and men standing on the road and asking if anyone had seen their family members,' he added. In India, authorities struggled to control the mayhem, especially in Tamil Nadu, where about 1,700 are reportedly dead and scores of villages swallowed by tsunamis. Hospital morgues are overflowing with bodies, among them a group of schoolchildren who were playing cricket on the beach when a giant wave swept them out to sea. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has assured 'all possible central government support and assistance in the relief and rehabilitation efforts' to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Kerala and Pondicherry. In Indonesia, a huge relief operation is underway for Aceh, a region closed to foreign media and aid agencies owing to a separatist conflict. But unconfirmed reports say more than 1,500 bodies lined the coastline near the capital, Banda Aceh. In Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak wants an evacuation of coastal areas in Penang and Kedah, including Langkawi island, amid fears that further waves may hit. In an outpouring of sympathy and aid for the region, the European Union has promised an initial 3 million euros (S$6.6 million) in aid. Pope John Paul appealed for swift international help while Queen Elizabeth II said she was 'deeply saddened to learn of the dreadful situation'. In Singapore, tremors were felt in Beach Road, Siglap Road, Pine Close, Meyer Road and Toa Payoh, among others, with more than 10 calls made to the police. However, Singapore, sheltered by the region's land masses, is safe, said university don Wong Poh Poh. 'When an earthquake occurs, it causes a ripple effect. In this case, the waves hit the western side of the peninsula like Phuket and Penang and lowland areas like India and Sri Lanka. Eventually, the effects may be felt further, in Mauritius, the Seychelles and places in East Africa. 'Geographically, Singapore is very safe,' he said. -- NEWS AGENCIES, BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION ============================== Dec 27, 2004 IN THAILAND 2 S'poreans in Phuket: their stories by SMS Bank exec witnesses horror and destruction on his first trip to the resort island By Daryl Loo MRS Khoo Cheng Eng has never used SMS, but yesterday it was her only contact with her son, vacationing in tsunami-hit Phuket. Mr Wilson Khoo, 29, an assistant vice-president in a European bank, had landed on the island yesterday morning, right before the tidal waves that destroyed much of the beach, damaged power and phone lines, and disrupted cellular phone calls. The only line of communication open was text messaging, which he sent to elder sister Liling in Singapore. She then telephoned her mother with the news. 'I was really worried as I didn't hear from him until after noon. It's very fortunate that he's okay,' said Mrs Khoo, 55, a teacher. For Mr Khoo, it was his first trip to the island - and a close shave with danger at his hotel, the Seaview at Patong beach. In an SMS interview with The Straits Times - pretty much how he kept in touch with the world outside all day - he wrote: 'Checked into fourth-floor room at 9am. Lucky. Wave came in at 9.20am, carrying cars, lorry and crashing into the hotel on the second floor.' 'Furniture, TV, luggage and people were swept out. Screams and cries. Many hurt. Within seconds Patong is destroyed. All buildings. No water, electricity. Blackout.' Together with other guests, Mr Khoo headed for higher ground. 'Blood stains all over the road as we were fleeing the hotel on a road leading uphill,' he described. He checked into the Andaman Seaview hotel in Karon late last night: 'Will rest well for the night at least.' He is scheduled on a Tiger Airways flight back to Singapore tomorrowat 9am. 'Just glad we are alive and well, items intact,' he wrote. And while his holiday turned out to be anything but enjoyable, he said: 'Trip not totally wasted. Experience of a lifetime. Saw destruction first-hand.' ==================================== Dec 27, 2004 End to holiday a washout for five pals now stuck in evacuation centre By Maria Almenoar FIVE Singaporean friends planned a relaxing end-of-year trip in Phuket, but are now stuck in an evacuation centre. In ruins: Damaged vehicles and debris litter a street in Phuket. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has ordered the military to launch emergency relief operations. -- AP Mr R. Mohammed, 32, a designer, and his friends, who were staying at Sunset Mansions, decided to take a day trip to the nearby South Coral Island. In a mobile phone text message, or SMS, to The Straits Times, he said: 'Was at one of the nearer offshore islands. Were calm but concerned with children as waves came up all the way to shore making us scramble for higher ground.' There were about 15 people in his group, including families with children, who watched as the tide suddenly withdrew from the shore exposing corals on the sand. In just under a minute, he said, the tide rose and washed back to the shore at a height of 2m to 3m. Huddled at the higher parts of the island, the tour group waited till early afternoon when a rescue boat came to save them. 'Boats came for us in unstable choppy water,' he wrote in another message. As they were brought to shore, they watched as broken boats and items from houses bobbed in the surrounding waters, said Mr Mohammed. They were told to move quickly to an evacuation centre that had been set up, as a third wave was on its way. Through SMS he explained: 'I am at the tourist rescue centre. Mostly tourists rescued during day trips. Islands were declared dangerous when waves starting acting up. Not sure what happen to tourist at Patong.' He and his friends were glad to be safe but worried because of the uncertainty, he said later in a short telephone call to The Straits Times. 'We can't understand the news reports because they are all in Thai. We've been told only that we cannot leave and go back to Patong,' he said over the phone. The group had been due to return today. ========================================= Dec 27, 2004 Deadliest quakes in recent decades THE huge earthquake yesterday off Indonesia is among the deadliest in recent years: Others include: Jan 5, 1970 - Yunnan, China: 15,621 killed. Magnitude 7.8 on the Richter scale. July 28, 1976 - China: The industrial town of Tangshan, 200km east of Beijing, is wiped off the map. The official death toll is 242,000 killed but Western experts say it was closer to 700,000 victims. Magnitude locally put at 7.8 on the Richter scale, but US geologists put it at 8.2. June 21, 1990 - North-west Iran: 50,000 killed. Magnitude 7.3 to 7.7. July 16, 1990 - Baguio, Philippines: 1,200 killed. Magnitude 7.8. Sept 30, 1993: Maharashtra, India: 7,601 killed. Magnitude 6.3. Jan 17, 1995 - Kobe, Japan: 6,424 killed. Magnitude 7.2. Aug 17, 1999 - Western Turkey: 17,000 killed. Magnitude 7.4. Jan 26, 2001 - Gujarat, India: More than 20,000 killed. Dec 26, 2003: Bam, Iran: More than 41,000 killed. Magnitude 6.5. -- AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ======================================= Dec 27, 2004 A FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNT Race for the hills saves ST reporter and husband Elaine Young, a reporter for Mind Your Body with The Straits Times, was holidaying in Phuket and sent us this e-mail account of her experience IT WAS a peaceful, sunny morning when my husband and I began our Phi-Phi islands day tour from the Pearl Village resort, Nai Yang Beach. Tour terror: Ms Young says they were saved by luck and quick thinking. We reached the office of Trip Trek Tours at Boat Lagoon Marina in Phuket town at about 8.30am with the rest of the tour group. Rory from Twickenham in South London asked us if we could feel the ground moving. None of us did, so he put it down to too many cocktails after dinner last night. We climbed aboard the speedboat that would take us to two islands before lunch at the Phi Phi Village resort on Phi-Phi island. Another stop was planned after lunch. An hour of choppy waters followed and our guide told us it had been choppier the day before. Our first destination was Monkey Beach, with water so clear, I could see blue striped fish beneath the surface without using a snorkelling mask. An American couple were on the beach with their rented kayak, and a Finnish family with three children were snorkelling. The beach was not crowded. Just as we were being rounded up to get back on the boat, the sea vanished and left the boat stranded on the rocky bed. The startled fish leaped from rock pool to rock pool. The three guides had never seen this before. But as suddenly as the water had vanished, it came rushing back again. Our guides screamed at us to run for the mountainous area behind the beach, and we charged for safety. The water was right behind us, and some of us clung onto trees before managing to scramble up a path through the undergrowth created by the others. We kept climbing as no one knew how far the sea was going to come. We could see it swirling below us. Every time we thought it had subsided, there was another surge and rumble and it came in again, lashing against the bottom of the mountain, Each time it roared in, it brought logs, branches, kayaks and other debris with it. The Finnish mother was higher up the mountain than me, fearful for the safety of her children, and her panic was making everyone else edgy. She wanted us to keep climbing, possibly in hope of air rescue. But the mood gradually calmed along with the sea and after about two hours, our guides went down to the beach and called us down to be rowed in the kayak to the speedboat two at a time. The water began to rise again. Three of us were the last to leave the island, rowing frantically to reach the boat as the waves beat against our progress. Our guides planned to take us on to Phi Phi Village resort and take the Americans and the Finns, whom we had picked up from the beach, to their resorts. The sea was calm during the 20-minute trip to the resort, but abandoned boats and flotsam were clues that all was not well. At Phi Phi island, our boat, as well as half a dozen others, was unable to get to the beach because of the irregular tide. The only way to reach land was to swim or kayak there. Life jackets went on and the strongest swimmers went first. The sea was rising again and it was not safe for us to leave the boat. I am not a strong swimmer, so I went by kayak with one of the guides rowing. I was far more afraid than I had been on the mountain. As we neared the beach the others shouted at us to hurry because another tremor was expected in half an hour. The resort had been damaged, with electricity lost to the beach level cottages. It wasn't until we climbed up to the high points of the resort that we saw the injured, patched up but still bleeding and dazed. The resort staff gave us food and water and we waited for the second hit, which never came. Rumour spread that another tremor was due at 4pm, but by 4.30pm, people staying in the resort were venturing to the lower beach area and into the pool. At 5pm, our party was told we were heading back to Phuket. As we powered away from the island, a helicopter landed on the beach to take the wounded to hospital and the hotel staff had already begun the clear-up. The staff at the Marina knew which resorts were fine and which were not. We all called out where we were staying and were told whether the resort was all right, or whether it had been evacuated. My husband and I learnt that our resort was untouched, bar the electricity going down for a few hours. Only when we spoke to frantic family and friends, who called continuously the minute we got back to our room and switched on our phones, did we realise the extent of the devastation in the region. We were saved by luck and the quick thinking of the local people who got us to safety and didn't take any chances. ============================== Dec 27, 2004 IN INDIA Around 2,400 dead, Tamil Nadu worst hit By Ravi Velloor India Bureau Chief NEW DELHI - WIDOWS beat their chest and mothers wailed yesterday as the bodies of their husbands and children were tossed into trucks in Tamil Nadu. The south-western Indian state bore the brunt of the tsunamis emanating from Indonesia's massive quake. Stranded: Residents in Colombo waving for help after their homes were destroyed by the tsunami that displaced hundreds of thousands. -- AP About 2,400 Indians were dead, the government said. As many as 1,625 might have died in Tamil Nadu, and hundreds more in Andhra Pradesh. Tidal waves from the quake first hit Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman chain of islands on India's easternmost tip, where waves as tall as the tailfins of passenger aircraft crashed into the city. At least 300 people were dead and 700 missing, Agence France-Presse quoted the islands' police chief Samsher Deol as saying. The waves from the quake hit mainland India as fishermen returned with their night's catch. Hundreds of them died. 'We felt the tremors at 6.30am. Two hours later, we suddenly saw the beach was full of water,' said Mr K. Gopalakrishnan, chief executive of pharmaceutical company Fourrts, who lives in the Chennai suburb of Thiruvanmayur. 'Huge waves came in for a few minutes and then started receding. But by then, several of the fishermen's huts were washed away.' TV reports from Port Blair and Chennai, the Tamil Nadu capital, showed small boats smashed on the shore and overturned cars scattered further inland. In Chennai, rising sea water flooded the huts of nearly 2,500 fishermen living in low-lying areas. At least 100 bodies had been brought to morgues in Chennai, said city police commissioner K. Natarajan. The century-old Royapettah Hospital was damaged, eyewitnesses told The Straits Times. 'I am afraid the news is very bad,' said India's Petroleum Minister Mani Shanker Aiyar, whose constituency lies along coastal Tamil Nadu. 'We will know the full magnitude only much later.' Mr Aiyar and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran, also from Tamil Nadu, were despatched to the southern state by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In Andhra Pradesh, about 400 fishermen were feared missing and 200 Hindu devotees who had gone to the beach for a holy dip were feared dead, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Singh said in a special TV broadcast that he had written to government leaders in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and the Maldives offering Indian assistance to tackle the disaster. 'My heart goes out in sympathy to all those families who have lost their dear ones due to this tragedy,' he said in a statement. Smaller tsunamis were seen around the tip of India and its western coast along the Arabian Sea, news reports said. The threat from tsunamis may continue for days to come. 'We expect the big waves to lash parts of the eastern coast for the next two days,' said Mr A.K. Shukla, head of the Indian Meteorological Department. Oil refineries in Chennai and Visakhapatnam were not affected, according to an Oil Ministry spokesman. Visakhapatnam is also the base for India's eastern navy. The Kalpakkam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu was shut down, Mr S.K. Jain, managing director of Nuclear Power, told NDTV. ============================ Dec 27, 6.46 pm (Singapore time) TIDAL WAVES DISASTER Dec 27, 2004 Spread of disease in wave-hit areas a concern GENEVA - The International Red Cross is concerned about the possible spread of waterborne diseases in areas of Asia hit by earthquake-driven tidal waves, a spokesman said on Monday. Ms Marie-Francoise Borel said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was including enough medicine to treat 2,000 cases of diarrheal disease in an initial shipment of relief supplies on Monday from Denmark to Sri Lanka. 'The biggest health challenges we are facing is the spread of waterborne diseases, particularly malaria and diarrhea, as well as respiratory tract infections,' said Mr Hakan Sandbladh, senior health officer at the federation's Geneva headquarters. 'We are particularly concerned about initial reports of destruction of hospitals and other health infrastructure in Sri Lanka,' he added. Ms Borel said the federation was including the diarrheal medicine in a shipment of enough medical supplies to treat a range of problems for 100,000 people. The federation said it was releasing 1 million Swiss francs (US$875,000) from its disaster relief emergency fund to provide immediate assistance. The organisation also is appealing for donations of 7.5 million Swiss francs (US$6.7 million) in cash, relief goods or services for longer-term assistance to the affected areas. -- AP ================================ Dec 27, 6.36 pm (Singapore time) TIDAL WAVES DISASTER Dec 27, 2004 THAILAND: Tourists rush to leave resorts islands BANGKOK - More than 1,000 tourists from around the world flocked to the Phuket City Hall on Monday, after tsunamis caused by Sunday's earthquake completely wiped out the island's beaches causing widespread destruction. Officials from 19 embassies, including those of Canada, Britain and the United States, set up tables at the city hall to issue passports to tourists who lost their documents. Chaos erupted at Phuket's airport as hundreds of tourists, many bandaged and brought to the airport in ambulances, tried to board planes for Bangkok. Officials said free flights would be offered any who wanted to leave in order to lessen pressure on the island's damaged infrastructure and shortage of hotel rooms. A C-130 military aircraft carrying 120 injured people from the south landed at Bangkok airport and patients were transferred to a hospital in the capital. About 80 per cent of the injured were foreigners. Phi Phi, one of the most popular destinations in Thailand for Western and Asian tourists, was swamped by the surging waters. Thai warships steamed towards islands in the area to rescue survivors, at least 200 of whom were evacuated by helicopter from Phi Phi in a dramatic overnight operation. Evacuations by air and sea continued on Monday, as did the search for bodies, said police Major-General Winai Nilasri. Police Major-General Worathep Meetawat said that by mid-afternoon Monday, 1,300 people had been evacuated from Phi Phi, with many among them praising Thai efforts to get them to safety. Aftershocks recorded The Meteorological Department's Seismological Bureau said 14 aftershocks were recorded in the Andaman Sea, eight of them on Monday. They had no impact on Thailand's coast or islands but small boat owners have been warned not to venture out to sea. An official from the Meteorological Department's Seismological Bureau said Thailand lacked an international warning system and proper coordination to get messages of impending disasters sent across the country. General Chaisit Shinawatra, the army chief, said the United States has offered to send troops stationed in Japan's Okinawa island to assist. Thailand was considering the offer. Meanwhile, the National Blood Centre in Bangkok called on people to donate blood, community radio said. -- AP ===================================== Dec 27, 6.30 pm (Singapore time) TIDAL WAVES DISASTER Dec 27, 2004 MALAYSIA: Rescuers search for more than 100 missing PENANG - Rescuers scoured Malaysian beach resorts and towns on Monday for about 100 vacationers, fishermen and villagers missing after tidal waves killed at least 52 people and injured more than 220 others. Thousands of people were being evacuated from usually placid north-western seaside districts hit by flash floods. Authorities expressed fears of more tsunamis. About 100 people remained missing in Penang, said the state's civil defence director, Mr Mohamad Johari Mohamad Taufik. 'I pray that there will not be another round of tidal waves,' Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said in a televised statement. Many victims drowned while swimming or riding jet skis near crowded beaches on Sunday afternoon, swept away by waves as high as five metre that were triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake near Indonesia's Sumatra island. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak on Monday toured several villages where more than 1,000 homes were destroyed and fishermen lost millions of ringgit worth of property and equipment. Petronas Twin Towers checked for safety Engineers were inspecting Kuala Lumpur's world-famous 452-m Petronas Twin Towers, the world's second-tallest buildings, to rule out any structural danger caused by tremors. Initial checks showed no damage, but a skybridge linking the towers was closed to the public as a precaution, the building management said. Tens of thousands of people were temporarily evacuated on Sunday from high-rise hotels and apartments throughout peninsular Malaysia due to tremors from the quake. The devastation shocked a country that - due to its geographical location - has virtually no experience with the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes or other natural disasters that plague its South-east Asian neighbours. A narrow strait separates peninsular Malaysia's western coast from Sumatra. -- AP ========================================= December 27, 2004 Monday RM1,000 Aid For Each Family Of Tsunami Fatalities BUTTERWORTH, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- The families of those who died in the tsunami that hit four west coast states in Malaysia, Sunday will receive RM1,000 each while each injured survivor will receive RM200 and the evacuees, RM500 per family. Updates Man Who Lost Wife And Four Children Accepts Fate SUNGAI PETANI, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- "I do not regret allowing my wife and children to go picnicking because it is beyond my power to change what is predetermined by God," said Hassan Harun who lost his wife and four children to the tidal waves or tsunami which hit the Penang shores, Sunday. PMR Student Swept By Strong Waves Missing MARANG, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- A student of Sekolah Menengah Agama Marang who is waiting for Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) results is still missing after strong waves hit the Gong Balai beach where he and his friends were bathing Sunday evening. Glut Of Fish Before Tsunami Claims Zulkifli's Children PENANG, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- Zulkifli Mohamad Noor did not read anything ominous in the first strong wave that hit the beach at Pasir Panjang in Balik Pulau, Sunday. NGOs Appeal For Urgent Aid In Wake Of Tsunami Tragedy KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- Various non-governmental organisations Monday appealed for urgent aid from the public to enable them to bring help to victims of the tidal waves or tsunami which hit Penang, Kedah, Perlis and Perak, Sunday. Government To Decide Soon On Aid To Fishermen Hit By Tsunami BUTTERWORTH, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- The government will decide soon on the type of assistance to be given to fishermen who suffered losses caused by Sunday's tsunami, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Seri Mohd Shariff Omar said. Miri Authority Reactivates Flood Operations Room MIRI, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- Floods submerged a one kilometre stretch of the Miri-Bintulu road near the office of the Lambir National Park, about 30 km from here, making it impassable to hundreds of vehicles following heavy rain Sunday afternoon. PMR Student Swept By Strong Waves Missing Malaysia Can Develop Its Own Franchise Products Man Who Lost Wife And Four Children Accepts Fate By Kurniawati Kamaruddin and Noor Shamsiah Mohamad KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- On May 22 this year, 38-year-old clerk Chin Wai Fung died when she fought back a snatch thief in Brickfields. Massive rescue efforts as Asian quake and tsunami toll soars near 23,000 AFP Photo COLOMBO (AFP) - Massive rescue operations were scrambled along Asia's devastated coastlines as the death toll from a powerful earthquake and the giant tsunamis it unleashed rose to almost 23,000 and hopes faded for many thousands more still missing. Death toll rises to 4,280 from killer tsunami in southern India AFP Photo CUDDALORE, India, (AFP) - The death toll in southern India from tidal waves that battered much of Asia in the wake of a huge earthquake climbed to nearly 4,280 as many people fled shorelines fearing more killer tsunami. Tourists Being Evacuated From Phi-Phi, Thailand PHUKET, Dec 27 (Bernama) -- Tourist firms in the Phuket Island, Thailand, continue to search for their clients, including Russians. "The issue of integration is a national issue that must be supported by every layer of society of all races and all political beliefs. Unity among the people must be built internally until the feeling of mutual trust, mutual understanding and mutual respect between races take root and grow." -- Raja Muda of Perak Raja Nazrin Shah ========================================= Reporters' log: Asian quake disaster Several countries around the Indian Ocean have been hit by devastating sea surges. The BBC's correspondents report from the affected areas as rescue attempts begin. Monday 27th December Navdip Dhariwal : Galle, Sri Lanka : 1325 GMT The government has deployed ten helicopters to drop rescue teams to the worst affected areas. Over twenty-five thousand soldiers have rushed to the coast, but their efforts appear to be making little difference. With power and communication lines down, it's still difficult to travel around the island or get information. The government is reporting that two hundred foreign tourists are now among those dead. Those left here are anxious to leave, not out of fear of secondary shock waves, but out of concern they will be abandoned without electricity and water. Geeta Pandey : Andaman Islands, Indian Ocean : 1215 GMT I've seen several hundred people staying in a school building which has been turned into a makeshift shelter. A lot of people are complaining that they are not getting enough food. Survivors of the surges have begun to bury their dead And for many of the islanders, a lifetime of savings have disappeared in a few seconds before their eyes. So there's a lot of apprehension and fear about what the future will be like. Medical supplies have been sent out to the islands, and an aerial survey of the situation is being carried out right now. Kylie Morris : Phuket, Thailand : 1155 GMT There's a scene of complete devastation on what was the idyllic Phi Phi island. The deputy governor says it's likely more than a hundred have died there. As many as 800 people remain stranded in hills on the island. Thailand's prime minister has appealed on national television for blood donors and for money. Chris Hogg : Bangkok : 1100 GMT Provincial officials say the priority now is to find those who are still injured and stranded. On Phi Phi island near Phuket, almost everything apart from the major hotels has been destroyed. Officials suggest at least a third of those killed were foreign tourists. Rachel Harvey : Medan, Indonesia : 1045 GMT There's a whole area on the south west coast of Aceh, closest to the epicentre of the earthquake, where there's been no contact at all. Officials are increasingly concerned about the situation there. It's thought there were a million people living in that area. Rachel Harvey : Medan, Indonesia : 1020 GMT Relief supplies are beginning to arrive in the Sumatran city of Medan ready for transport into the affected area, but the Indonesian government has yet to decide whether to allow international aid agencies to operate in Aceh. The priority now is to help the injured and stranded The province has been virtually sealed off for the past eighteen months because of a conflict between Indonesian security forces and separatist rebels. It seems likely that help will in the end be accepted, but time is now critical. Gina Wilkinson : Colombo, Sri Lanka : 0755 GMT The worst hit regions are on the east coast - where tsunamis wiped out entire villages and fishing communities. Land mines laid during the civil war were dislodged by flood waters and are floating off beaches and in lagoons - hampering rescue efforts. Kylie Morris : Phuket, Thailand : 0755 GMT The government has warned it expects the casualty figures will continue to rise as rescue workers reach outlying resorts. The scale of the damage is yet to emerge Among the dead are tourists from as many as 12 nations. Many Thai fishermen are still missing. To compound the sense of tragedy here, local officials have confirmed that a grandson of the country's much loved King is among the victims. Navdip Dhariwal : Galle, Sri Lanka : 0702 GMT In the ancient port town of Galle it's a picture of devastation. Local people here are walking the streets looking dazed and confused. Debris from buildings lies scattered on the streets. Overturned cars and buses and trucks are stacked up on the roadside. Eyewitnesses say two tidal waves struck the town early yesterday morning. The force of the second wave was so strong it threw people and vehicles in its path. Dumeetha Luthra : Colombo, Sri Lanka : 0652 GMT The scale of the tragedy has left Sri Lanka reeling. It has never experienced anything like this before. The south of the island and the north-eastern coast have borne the brunt of the waves, exactly where scores of tourists had travelled for some Christmas sun. It was a record year for Sri Lanka's tourist industry. The majority of hotels along the southern coast were fully booked, filled with local and foreign holidaymakers. Chris Hogg : Bangkok, Thailand : 0534 GMT A clearer picture of the scale of the damage is starting to emerge. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters helicopters and ships from the country's armed forces have been deployed to help evacuate outlying islands. Several thousand tourists and local people were still stranded in the worst affected areas. He said he had asked the military to prepare 1,000 body bags. Reports from Phuket say almost a third of the corpses laid out in a carpark at one of the island's hospitals were tourists. Many were still wearing their swimwear. Matthew Grant : Tamil Nadu, southern India : 0421 GMT In the city of Madras, homeless people who spent the night in shelters were often too scared to sleep as they feared aftershocks and fresh tidal waves. The first reports are also emerging from some of the more remote fishing villages up and down the coast. People reaching them are describing finding scores of bodies left on the beaches. Chris Hogg : Bangkok, Thailand : 0343 GMT Police and volunteers on the Thai island of Phuket are manning barricades to try to prevent looting. Officials have so far provided little information about the nationalities of those who died there but local media suggest a sizeable number of those killed were Western or Asian holidaymakers. Kylie Morris : Phuket, Thailand : 0137 GMT Most of the tourists who had flocked to the main beaches of Phuket for their Christmas holiday have now been removed to safer areas or are trying to leave the island on flights to Bangkok. Many at the airport spoke of traumatic experiences. One Australian tourist told me he'd unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate a Thai boy. The Thai military are helping to evacuate the injured A British woman spoke of seeing children torn from their mother's grip in the surging waters, an Israeli diver of the anxious wait amidst enormous swells out to sea. The Thai government has asked local people not to use their mobile phones in order to reduce congestion. Hospitals are flying in extra doctors to perform surgery on the broken arms and legs of those swept up by the surging waves. Helicopters, naval frigates and fishing boats are expected to resume their attempts to reach some outlying resorts. There's particular concern over the fate of foreign travellers who had ventured to isolated beaches on Phi Phi island and in other remote areas of Krabi. Diplomatic missions are establishing outposts in an attempt to provide consular assistance to tourists. However, they face a difficult task. Many of those who travel to the Andaman coast are in search of a secluded beach holiday. Their isolation will make them all the more difficult to trace. Sunday 26th December Chris Hogg : Bangkok, Thailand : 2335 GMT As rescue efforts continued throughout the hours of darkness, officials in the countries worst affected were still trying to get a more accurate picture of what needs to be done now. The fear is that as communications begin to be re-established and the emergency services reach the more remote communities the true scale of the devastation will prove much worse than they had feared. Matthew Grant : Madras, India : 2007 GMT Many people were out walking or playing cricket on the beaches of Madras when the tidal wave struck. Police have recovered hundreds of bodies from the city and along the coast. Others have been washed ashore. Some were thrown into lorries while others were carried to hospital on carts or in sacks. Locals say they felt the rumble of the earthquake early this morning from its epicentre thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean. Then, just over an hour later came what they describe as the wall of water. It slammed into the coastline. It's now dark in Madras and most of the water's gone back out to sea but along the coast there's still signs of devastation. Many of the roads there are closed and strewn with debris. Some of the shanty towns by the beaches are completely destroyed and out to see hundreds of fishermen are still believed to be missing. Kylie Morris : Phuket, Thailand : 1635 GMT I've just arrived at Phuket's airport where there are chaotic scenes. Hundreds of tourists are trying to leave. Many British people on group holidays are desperate to get off the island and back to Bangkok. Tourists are desperate to leave Phuket and get home Many individual stories of bravery and terror are emerging. One man told me he had tried and failed to resuscitate a young Thai boy. I just met a couple at the airport who were leaving without their passport, without any of their belongings. They had been swept from their hotel room after being given five minutes warning to get out. They couldn't get out in time. The husband tried to hold onto his wife as long as he possibly could. She was swept away. He caught up with her again, but he burnt his hands when he grabbed hold of electrical wires to try and brace himself against the waters. Sanjeev Srivastava : Delhi, India : 1615 GMT There was no warning at all, which makes this tragedy unexplainable in the eyes of many people. This part of the country is used to cyclones. There are a substantial number of people killed every year because of these. Either because they can't move in time, or they are too poor to move. But this tragedy has not differentiated between the rich and poor. In some cases the more well-to-do have suffered more as they were on the beaches, or travelling as tourists. Rachel Harvey : Jakarta, Indonesia : 1510 GMT We've now had a sudden leap in the official casualty figures, which now stand at 1,847 people dead. The worst affected part of Indonesia is Aceh, a province which has been sealed off for the last 18 months because of an ongoing conflict between the government and separatist rebels. But it now seems clear that they're going to have to open up this province in order to allow the relief effort in. Gina Wilkinson : Colombo, Sri Lanka : 1430 GMT In the district of Trincomalee on the east coast, military officials say tsunami waves swept more than two kilometres inland washing away entire villages. The injured are being moved inland amid fears of more tsunamis. President Chandrika Kumaratunga has declared a state of national disaster and is appealing for help from the international community. Sanjeev Srivastava : Delhi, India : 1325 GMT A number of cities have been badly hit. One is the town of Velakanni, a small fishing village in Tamil Nadu which is also a pilgrim town. It is famous for its church. A number of pilgrims were taking a bath in the holy waters there. 400 or maybe 500 of them have drowned in those waters. But the numbers are pure guesswork at the moment. Andrew Harding : Singapore : 1255 GMT Some felt the quake first, others saw the sea sucked away from beaches only to return minutes later as a wall of water up to 30 feet high. The tsunamis have left a ring of devastation around the Indian Ocean, giant ripples travelling at the speed of a jet. There have been more aftershocks but none as big as the original quake. The focus now is on searching for survivors and for bodies, and waiting to see if thousands of fishing boats will ever come home. Navdip Dhariwal : Delhi, India : 1215 GMT Madras's beaches were full when the waves struck The state of Tamil Nadu has been worst hit after tidal waves lashed the south-eastern coast line. Crashing waves rising almost two feet have trapped 500 tourists on a Rock memorial and a nuclear reactor has been forced to close down. The Indian prime minister has put the Army, Navy and Air Force on full alert. Gina Wilkinson : Colombo, Sri Lanka : 1120 GMT A military spokesman says damage from the tsunami wave stretches all the way from Jaffna in the north of Sri Lanka to the popular beaches in the south. More than ten thousand military personnel, backed by naval vessels and helicopters are combing the coastline searching for survivors and pulling bodies from the sea. In the district of Trincolome on the east coast officials say massive waves have dislodged landmines laid during the country's civil war hampering rescue efforts. In the southern town of Maderapu police say more than 100 people died when a tsunami hit a weekend market, washing shoppers and vehicles out to sea. There's also been extensive damage at a string of tourist resorts on the south coast packed with local and foreign holidaymakers. Officials say they expect the death toll to rise, communications problems in some parts of the island are slowing efforts to assess the full scope of the disaster. Sampath Kumar : Madras, India : 1115 GMT Madras has one of the most beautiful beaches in India, stretching more than seven kilometres. Being a Sunday, many people were jogging, walking and exercising on the beach, while some were in the swimming. All of a sudden, huge columns of water surged towards the land without any warning. Most of the people were caught unawares and had to run for their lives. Eyewitnesses say that it appeared as though the entire sea was rushing towards them. The water rose to nearly 200 feet. Fishermen living by the water say enormous columns of water swept their huts, boats and fishing nets. Most of the dead are from fishermen and the worst affected area is in the heart of the city. Matthew Grant : Calcutta, India : 0845 GMT The police chief in Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu, said at least 100 bodies had been recovered from beaches in the city. Most of them were women and children. The waves struck without warning Another hundred people are believed to have lost their lives as a result of the tsunami elsewhere in the state. The impact of the quake was felt right along India's southern and eastern coasts. Many villages have been evacuated and fishermen have been warned not to venture into the sea. Kylie Morris : Bangkok, Thailand : 0800 GMT The worst hit area is the holiday coast of southern and eastern Sri Lanka where the national disaster management centre says five hundred people are feared dead. In southern India officials say hundreds of fishermen are missing. Rescue workers in Thailand say tourists in the resort of Phuket who had begun their Boxing Day with a morning swim were swept out to sea by the surging, towering waves. In Indonesia, the troubled province of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, was closest to the epicentre of the earthquake where a local mayor said more than sixty people had drowned and hundreds of houses were swept away. Roland Buerk : Moratuwa, Sri Lanka: 0750 GMT The tidal wave struck without warning. A surge of water swept through beachfront hotels. There were loud crashes as buildings collapsed. Everything, cars, tables, refrigerators and people were swept along by the current. I grabbed hold of a tree. When that came down I was swimming for my life until I managed to get hold of a pillar. The waters here have now begun to recede slowly. They are leaving behind widespread devastation. People are digging through the ruins looking for loved ones. Bodies are being pulled out and many of the survivors are wandering around in shock. Here, at least, rescuers are yet to arrive. ============================== --------------- cheers pluto |
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