Sri Lanka got hammered by a tsunami in 2004. Now it seems that another tsunami has hit Japan and there are warnings from Indonesia to Hawaii. Japan is tsunami central, the word itself being Japanese. Unlike Sri Lanka, however, they have a better warning system so I think less lives have been lost. Also unlike Sri Lanka, this time there is video of the tsunami. You can see the water sweeping through farmland and city, boats getting wedged under bridges, debris cast across acres of land. It’s intense.
Sometimes I wonder if there are more natural disasters in the world, or just more media in the world. I think it’s the latter. Apparently there’s an earthquake around 6.0 on the Richter Scale every day, and huge chunks of the earth move up each day, pulled by the gravity of the moon. It’s a tenuous existence out there. Hope everyone around the Pacific Ocean is safe and, well, away from the Pacific Ocean.
You won’t see this headline but it can well be the truth – ‘Better building planning & construction saved millions of lives in Japan’
This is what makes people pray.
@shammi
Pray to the god who caused it.
“Pulled by the gravity of the moon” …. the moon doesn’t have a lot to do with why Earthquakes occur – earthquakes occur due to bits of the earth’s crust moving around and crashing into each other.
You have a point. But what else can a body do?
I hope there is some way our people/government could offer some help. Japan’s always been a good friend to us.
Well I heard the government is donating 1 million dollars to Japan – not that Japan needs any money. I think that there is little that Sri Lanka can really offer Japan in the way of help, unfortunately.
Sri Lanka offers aid to devastated Japan, dispatches rescue teams
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_11/Mar13_1300031149CH.php
Well….
I suppose we can make symbolic gesture and Japanese do appreciate these things quite a bit. Other than that there is very little we can do. Japan’s preparedness for situations like this has served them very well. a NY times article talks about this in depth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12codes.html?_r=3&hp
the slightly more concerning matter right now is the problem with the reactors there is some talk about pressure build up on some of them and emergency cooling being underway hopefully that can be resolved without incident