Earthquake
Dec. 27th, 2004 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helen99Over 13,000 dead. Some sources said it was more like over 19,000 (there are a lot of missing). Luckily, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jolantru was somewhat away from the affected area and so was unharmed. We did a short bit of journeying last night to try to help some across. Many death images have been coming at me for the past week or so - including the "army of the dead" in the Return of the King", a dream my mom had about late friends and relatives, a workshop about the sacred ancestral dead that I attended, the sudden death of two of my mice, a couple of discussions about zombie movies, - and now this.
This earthquake was apparently so powerful (9.2?) it momentarily affected the Earth's rotation, causing us to wonder if shifting magnetics may be involved... In the event that I'm without a body (and I surely will be at some point sooner or later, preferably later, though if this keeps up, who knows...), I hope I can see plate tectonics and magnetic fields and stuff...
jolantru was somewhat away from the affected area and so was unharmed. We did a short bit of journeying last night to try to help some across. Many death images have been coming at me for the past week or so - including the "army of the dead" in the Return of the King", a dream my mom had about late friends and relatives, a workshop about the sacred ancestral dead that I attended, the sudden death of two of my mice, a couple of discussions about zombie movies, - and now this.This earthquake was apparently so powerful (9.2?) it momentarily affected the Earth's rotation, causing us to wonder if shifting magnetics may be involved... In the event that I'm without a body (and I surely will be at some point sooner or later, preferably later, though if this keeps up, who knows...), I hope I can see plate tectonics and magnetic fields and stuff...
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 04:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 04:41 pm (UTC)Surprisingly, Bangladesh is only reporting 2 fatalities so far. Bangladesh has millions of people living in lightweight housing at sea level in the river delta, and they tend to get major casualties whenever the ocean gets angry.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-28 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-29 03:20 pm (UTC)From Washington Post, 12/29:
"Standing among the dead and the rubble along Panglima Polim Street was Emi, 42. She had returned to the neighborhood Tuesday to see if the body of her 9-year-old son, Joanda, was among the bodies. The boy had slipped from his father's hand as they sheltered from the flood in a treetop.
Haggard with unkempt jet-black hair, Emi, who like many Indonesians uses one name, recounted how she and her family had dashed from their home in fright Sunday morning when the earthquake rocked the province, followed quickly by the onslaught of the dark sea.
As the water poured across Panglima Polim Street, many tried to outrun it. But the wall of water came too fast.
"Then people started yelling, 'The water is coming! The water is coming!' " Emi said. "I asked everyone to get into the car."
Her husband, son and two grandchildren clambered into the family's jeep. Emi caught a ride from someone on a motorcycle. The beachfront was more than a mile away, but it took the ocean no time to flatten buildings for blocks in every direction and whisk vehicles off the pavement. Wooden fishing boats up to 75 feet long were heaved ashore, setting down atop houses and against storefronts. Emi's two grandchildren, she said, were drowned instantly.
"The water kept rolling us, rolling us," Emi continued, tugging anxiously on her brown-and-white sarong. "I ended up on a rooftop hanging on. My husband ended up in a tree."
From the branches, he clung desperately to the hand of their son. But the boy slipped away, dropping into the churning waters, vanishing. "So I keep searching and searching," she said."
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-29 10:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-02 06:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-04 03:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-13 04:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 07:34 pm (UTC)*affected the earth's rotation??*
What are the long term effects of *that*?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 09:06 pm (UTC)I had to do a Google search just now, since I had heard about this but hadn't actually seen the article.
I'm not sure if the claim is scientifically accurate or if it amounts to sensational journalism though, so I should probably qualify the statement by saying I haven't seen this anywhere else, and the source I did find just now is, well, this:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/88760F73-3D19-41A9-A762-D0118CC1B8CC.htm
update
Date: 2004-12-27 10:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-29 10:36 pm (UTC)http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/asia.quake/index.html
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 08:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-28 04:02 pm (UTC)It occurs to me that there may be some really noble and wonderful germs out there - germ avatars, so to speak -- germs among germs, germ leaders, shining germ stars. But still, they would all be germs.
Germs are sometimes very good and not disease at all. Disease is defined to be a state in which germs put their own ends before the good of the host. Symbiosis (to me the ideal state) is when germs and host are in a dance of give and take so neither one suffers.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-28 07:56 pm (UTC)This whole mosh pit thing has got to calm down at some point..
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-27 11:50 pm (UTC)(warning, earthsciences geekery ahead, please pardon if I seem overly bookish, but I note this as I'm kinda shocked at this)
Latest estimate of the Big One (yes, I stated that, there's a reason I'll explain) is at a 9.0.
A 9.0 is, I'm sure we can all agree, a Pretty Goddamn Big Fucking Quake. The only two other 9.0+ quakes I know of that were a) shallow quakes and b) hit populated areas were a) the big quakes in Alaska in 1964 (which there is video of Anchorage, Alaska having bits heaving up tens of metres, and parts of Alaska closer to the epicentre actually had lifts/subsidence of nearly a hundred metres) and the series of 9.0+ quakes that hit New Madrid, MO in 1811-1812 (which were so severe they literally created hills from the ground *rolling hundreds of feet up and down*, caused the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to flow *backwards*, and both rivers to change course to the point parts of the original courses of the rivers are "horseshoe lakes" scattered through eastern MO and western KY; in fact, there are parts of KY as close as Henderson (near Evansville, IN) that there are dry channels where the river used to run, where the state line still runs...and then you hit the actual RIVER, and that dry channel was where the Ohio ran before the quakes in 1812).
If New Madrid were to go off like it did in 1812 (comparable to what happened in Indonesia), there'd probably be *millions* dead, both from the quakes and the tsunami upriver.
9.0s are scary, scary quakes indeed...
The thing is, the area isn't quiet at all. Since the big 9.0 quake, pretty much every major faultline in the Indian Ocean basin has been in convulsions (ranging from 5.8s to 7-pointers, even a 7.5 just after the Big One if I recall). Many, if not most of these, are *not* aftershocks (many of the 6 and 7s are hitting in the Andaman Islands, off the coast of India), but did start after the big quake--almost as if the Big One triggered those sister faults to go off as well :P
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.html has a list, including the big Sumatran quake and the big Andaman/Nicobar quakes...
*is worried, worries this may well get worse for all concerned before it gets better...and doesn't doubt it shook the planet a bit in orbit*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-28 06:07 pm (UTC)> Quake.
It sure is... I hope I never see one up close.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-28 03:32 am (UTC)*bows her head in respect for those lost*
Be at peace.