How many people die in a plane crash? 200 -300. How many die in an earthquake or a tornado+tidal waves? Maybe 10,000. According to the Wikipedia update, the Tsunami wave death toll rises to 68,631 and there are still 85000 people missing. This is all becoming too much to bear for a sane person.
Here are the before and after satellite images, which give some idea about the strength of the tsunami waves. The energy released by the 9.0-magnitude quake as the two sides of the undersea fault slipped against each other made the earth wobble on its axis and may have moved small islands as much as 20m, according to this report.
I hope that the nightmare would be over soon. The biggest ever relief program is underway. People are donating money to funds like never before. As Alan of Worldchanging says:
There is nothing like a common disaster, and continuing common threat, to bring people together, so recovery efforts are also likely to pull India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand into tighter circles of regional economic cooperation.
Lets hope that mankind recuperates from this loss hand-in-hand.
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