Up to 117,000 dead!

[hobbyfarm]

My heart and prayers go out to the people hit with the Tsunami in Asia.
Some of those photos of the tragedy just hit you like a punch in the belly.
Does anyone know if they name Tsunamis?
phil

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue">Does anyone know if they name Tsunamis? </font>
They do not. Tsunami is Japanese for 'wave in port'.

 

[RoyJackson]

this is from a web site, Wikipedia.org, I found defining tsunami:

The term "tsunami" comes from the Japanese meaning tsu (harbor) and nami (wave). The term was created by fishermen who came from fishing and found everything devastated in the harbor though they didn't see or notice the wave in the open water.

They are also mistakenly referred to as tidal waves as they often resemble a tide that keeps rising, rather than cresting waves when they reach shore. However, as they are not actually related to tides the term may be misleading, and its use is discouraged by oceanographers.

 

[johnday]

hobbyfarm; That's an awful lot of people. CNN is saying that it is most likely the lagest loss of life due to natural causes in the history of mankind.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

They are still finding remote island populations that they have not gotten to yet and finding large death counts.

And it is likely to easily exceed 150,000 dead when all the disease related deaths are factored in about a month from now.

Astounding & tragic.

 

[DaveNay]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( hobbyfarm; That's an awful lot of people. CNN is saying that it is most likely the lagest loss of life due to natural causes in the history of mankind. )</font>

More than the bubonic plagues in midievel europe? More than the influenza epidemic in the early 1900's in the US?

Mankind is incredibly resilient, and I think all the aid that is converging on the areas devastated by the tsunami is a very good example.

Dave

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> More than the bubonic plagues in midievel europe? More than the influenza epidemic in the early 1900's in the US? </font>
Perhaps what CNN said was 'natural disasters', e.g., floods, earthquakes, fires, etc.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

<font color="red">
Mankind is incredibly resilient.
</font>


If I recall my history correctly we better be pretty darn resilient.

After all, over the past 5 decades, we've endured Pol Pot (1 million killed), ****** (6 million Jews, another 6 million others), and Lenin & Stalin (roughly 25 million killed). Marcos in the Philipens killed about 75,000 muslims. Indoneasia massacred about 600,000 ethnic Chinese in the early 1960s. Serbia recently killed about 200,000 muslims in Bosnia. In the 80s Ethopia forced starvation on about 1 million of its citizens. Right now its estimated that upwards of 20,000 have been murdered in Darfur. In the past 100 years, it is estimated that NON-war government sponsored murders totalled about 100 Million people (75% by communist regimes), another 38 Million were killed in wars and conflicts

Now that I think about it, we better be very resilient!

 

[Junkman]

I believe that the Iran/Iraq war killed over 150,000 men and boys.... At one point, they were drafting 12 year old children to the front lines.

 

[hobbyfarm]

Howdy Bob,
Wow, that's a lot of blood and death. Although even when man is at his worst, it's nothing like Mother Nature.
I guess this will just be known as the Indian (Asian?) Tsunami of 2004.
Seems like a lot of wrath and death for it to not have a name.
Shoot, we give serial killlers names, and they are nothing compared to this.