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Scientists are
telling us that the December 26th earthquake in the waters south the Andaman Islands and
West of Sumatra made the Earth wobble in its orbit around the Sun and changed the shape of
Asia: some islands off the coast of Sumatra moved up to 60 feet, and the northern
portion of Sumatra itself, the world's sixth largest island, moved over 100 feet. The Agence
France Press, in an interview with experts at the US Geological Survey, discussed
Sunday's quake in some detail.
The devastation and
destruction from the quake and the tsunamis that followed it cannot be measured in loss of
life alone. Walls of water up to 35 feet high and moving at up to 500 miles per hour swept
coastal areas in over half a dozen countries Sunday morning, one day after Christmas. At
last report almost 50,000 people were dead and literally million homeless. The tidal wave,
or tsunami, was caused by a powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean exactly one year after
the quake that killed over 30,000 people in Bam, Iran.
News sources are now
placing the death toll in the region at over 40,000 lives. The quake measured 9.0 in
magnitude on the Richter Scale, making it the 4th most powerful quake in the last 100
years, the most powerful in the last 40 years. It occurred near the Andaman Islands, an
Indian possession off the coast of Myanmar. A second quake measuring 7.3 also struck near
the north tip of Sumatra.
As communication
links are restored it is becoming clear that Indonesia suffered greatly from the quake.
Over 80,000 deaths occurred there. Western parts of Sumatra could not be reached on Sunday
to assess damage there. But reports on December 27th began to make clear the extent of the
destruction in Sumatra. Sumatra now is clearly the location that suffered the most from
the quake.
Sunday's tidal wave
will probably go down in history as the deadliest tsunami ever, replacing the tsunami
cause by the 1883 volcanic eruption at Krakatoa (near Southern Sumatra). That tsunami in
the 19th century killed about 36,000 people.
Every major news
agency has reported on the event and it is clear than the death toll is still being
calculated in most countries. This much is clear, however:
- Thailand has reported
over 1,400 deaths; at least 700 foreign tourists there are dead. Thailand's beach resorts
of Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands have been hard hit. Over 200 people died in Phuket and
one entire resort has been washed away in the Phi Phi Islands.
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