A thousand prayers

I received an text from one of my teachers last night asking me (and the others she sent the text to) to light a candle for those affected by the tidal waves in South East Asia. This was the first I had heard of it and when I saw the papers this morning I realised what had happened. For those of you who don’t know what happened, here is an extract from CNN:

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (CNN) — Weeping residents combed through debris and stunned tourists wandered through litter-strewn streets on Monday, a day after tsunamis swept across the Indian Ocean from Thailand to Somalia, killing at least 23,000 people.

The giant waves — caused by the most powerful earthquake on Earth in 40 years — also left thousands injured and missing as well as hundreds of thousands homeless in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The magnitude 9.0 quake struck about 7 a.m. Sunday (7 p.m. ET Saturday) and was centered about 100 miles (160 km) off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island at a depth of about 6.2 miles (10 km).

It was the strongest earthquake on Earth since 1964 and tied a 1952 quake in Kamchatka, Russia as the fourth strongest since such measurements began in 1899.

Based on estimates received by CNN, it looks like over 25 000 people have been reported dead already. The effects of the tsunamis were felt as far away as Somalia in Africa. It also appears that no warnings were given even though Sri Lanka was hit over two hours after the initial quake hit Sumatra. That something like this could happen with no warning is just plain scary. This must certainly be a wake-up call for the whole region. Here is more from that article dealing with the absence of warnings:

The tsunamis struck with no warning to those in coastal areas — particularly Indonesia, so close to the source — as no warning system exists for the Indian Ocean, said Eddie Bernard, director of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine and Environmental Labs in Seattle.

Such tsunamis are much more common around the Pacific Rim than in the Indian Ocean.

“The damage is just phenomenal,” said Jan Egelund, U.N. emergency relief coordinator. “I think we are seeing now one of the worst natural disasters ever.”

There was disagreement over whether the threat was over.

Waverly Person of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) said the tsunamis are “long over” and residents and visitors should not worry about further tsunamis.

Bernard, however, said the aftershocks are strong enough to produce more tsunamis.

The quake represented the energy released from a very large rupture in the earth’s crust more than 600 miles (1,000 km) long, the NEIC said.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit anywhere on Earth since March 1964, when a 9.2 quake struck near Alaska’s Prince William Sound. The strongest recorded earthquake registered 9.5 on May 22, 1960, in Chile.

Sunday’s quake hit a year after the 6.6-magnitude quake in Bam, Iran, which killed more than 30,000 people, injured another 30,000 and destroyed 85 percent of the buildings in the southeastern Iran city.