Take It As Red
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Monday, December 27More Quakes Follow....Please Help The Survivors
The BBC is now reporting over 14,000 dead. This really is a horrible disaster, now upgraded to 9.0 on the Richter scale. when you consider that it is a logarithmic scale, with each full point added meaning it's 10 times higher than the previous point, then a 9.0 is truly horrendous. There is talk from some scientists that it's enough to make the earth's rotation wobble. Tremors were felt as far away as New York's Central Park. I'm an earthquake junkie and am quite excited by such a huge event and the aftershocks, not to mention the next one that's coming as the shock waves travel around the plate perimeters: but I have to keep looking at the casualty reports to remind myself that there are real people on the recieving end of all this. Particularly worrying is the situation in Burma, which has 1300 miles of coastline exposed to the tsunamis - very little is being reported, and no-one seems to know what the situation is there except it's unlikely to be good. 
From the US Geological Survey: "The devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26th, 2004 occurred on the interface of the India and Burma plates and was cause by the release of stresses that develop as the India plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate. The India plate begins its decent into the mantle at the Sunda trench which lies to the west of the earthquake's epicenter. The trench is the surface expression of the India-Burma plate interface.. Anyone reading this, please send what you can manage to the Red Cross/ Red Crescent, or Oxfam, who are responding to the disaster with great dispatch. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched a preliminary appeal for 7.5 million Swiss francs to assist some 500,000 people and bring immediate support to relief operations of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries in the region after the strongest earthquake in 40 years caused massive tidal waves, killing at least 6,000 people, according to local authorities, and leaving more than one million displaced and homeless. 
Quakes and aftershocks are still continuing in the region: latest report is of a 5.6 quake this morning off the Nicobar Islands... Like these poor people haven't suffered enough already. For our common humanity, please help. UPDATE: Bob Harris has a very useful list of links to organisations heping with disaster relief that can be donated to here, including Medecins and Telecoms Sans Frontieres. Go, donate, show the world we're not all Bushes and Blairs. |
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