[mitac]

Originally posted by aldo_14

I'm sorry if my post appeared to be as such.

To put it bluntly; no-one is giving enough until they have nothing left to give.  This is the worst disaster in our lifetimes (certainly in mine), and we have to keep pushing and pushing politically and socially.  

I wasn't aiming at you or Tiara. In fact, you posted while I still wrote. But I couldn't agree more.

Originally posted by aldo_14

latest death toll is 134,000.

Oh hell.

[vyper]

Now that's a lot.

And Lib, hush child.

[pyro-manic]

Liberator - I thought you didn't want this to get political?

If we're going to get picky, then the US donates proportionally tiny amounts of money to foreign aid.

A great way for countires to drastically increase their contribution would be to cancel something useless and expensive. For the USA, a few F22 fighters. They cost so much money (over $100million each IIRC), and they'll never be used. And it's not like the USAF hasn't got more than enough planes already. The UK should scrap it's ID card scheme and spend the god-knows-how-many billions on useful stuff instead (or turn it into something useful, like amalgamating the passport, driver's licence etc. into one card, thus saving money and not pissing me off). Or cancel some Eurofighters. Waste of money, and there's no way we need 200 of them (or whatever the current order is now). These two things alone would more than pay for all the aid and reconstruction needed for the region.

[Hippo]

Originally posted by Tiara

I'm not bashing the US, I'm just bashing the persons that claim that somehow now, the US is the victim here.

I'm not in any way trying to make the us a victim here. I'm simply stating my observation, that the us (generally, though there are exceptions) usually puts out more aid then it ever receives, and yet its still critecised when it doesn't lend out every penny it can. I'm not saying the us even NEEDS aid 99% of the time, but there's no obligation for the government to give anything at all. I agree, that 30mil or whatever we're sending isn't enough, but saying that its being stingy, and holding back for one reason or another isn't helping any either.

I'm sorry I even stated my opinion now, since i generally value everyone's, and apparently noone valuse a us citezin's at all.

[Singh]

Tiara, pryo, Lib, please, take this outside to Different thread? This isn't exactly about whining or *****ing at the americans, so i'd recommend stopping it.

latest death toll is 134,000.

The very rapid rate of increase is starting to both surprise as well as scare me

Just to confirm, no cases are of disease yet right, and it's still mostly figures from the missing and/or dead from the Tsunami itself, right?

[Corsair]

I'm gonna get a fundraiser together at my school, see if we can't all donate a bit and send a few thousand dollars over.

[Zuljin]

Originally posted by Singh
Tiara, pryo, Lib, please, take this outside to Different thread? This isn't exactly about whining or *****ing at the americans, so i'd recommend stopping it.



The very rapid rate of increase is starting to both surprise as well as scare me

Just to confirm, no cases are of disease yet right, and it's still mostly figures from the missing and/or dead from the Tsunami itself, right?

From what we can find in the news..
No, the diseases haven't begun spreading yet.
Which is kind of scary in itself, considering how extremely high the death toll is already.
The death toll jumped by almost 60.000 in a day..

It won't surprise me if the numbers surpass 200.000 before the diseases starts spreading

[pyro-manic]

Singh: There are reports now of diarrhoea and the like, which usually indicates the onset of water-borne disease.

It's not really surprising that the toll is rising so rapidly. Most of the places hit are very remote or have limited access, so it takes time for news to get out. As time goes by, we're just getting a more and more accurate picture of events. I wouldn't be surprised if the final figure hit something like quarter of a million, probably more once disease really starts to kick in (give it a week).

And just to set things straight, I wasn't trying to bash America. I was making a point that there are a lot of countries (I deliberately included my own) that could be doing a lot more to help these people.

[Singh]

Originally posted by pyro-manic
Singh: There are reports now of diarrhoea and the like, which usually indicates the onset of water-borne disease.

Crap.

Just crap.

[Sandwich]

[size=10]Read this or risk getting banned.[/size]

Yes, the US aid donation is so far relatively small. But it is also merely the sum so-far, so quoting the amount like it's the final donation is stupid - don't do it anymore. As a matter of fact, I will not tolerate any more political ANYTHING in this thread - nothing. No explanations of what you meant before, no complaints, no bashing, no pimping.

Nothing.

The next person to get political in this thread will be banned from posting in the General Discussion forum section for a week.

[Taristin]

So spoketh the hoagie from the mountain.

[pyro-manic]

This was the largest earthquake for 40-odd years, and certainly the most destructive natural disaster for a long time, but what was the biggest EVER? I'm assuming it was Krakatoa (at least in "recent" times), but I could be entirely wrong. I have a vague recollection that there was a round-about-9 on the Richter scale in Alaska back in the 20s or something, but again, I can't remember. I'm certain there weren't anything like this number of casualties though...

[aldo_14]

Biggest recorded was 9.5 (Chile, 1960 apparently).  That cause a tsunami as well,; apparently killed 3000 people.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Singh


Crap.

Just crap.

Literally... they're worried about dysentry, cholera, etc -  I think the symptons of which include diarrhoea  - and the problem will be dehydration as a result.  Worse still, there's no proper sewage system there.

[pyro-manic]

You're right - the 3000 died in Hawaii. That's a long way from Chile.

The 1920s one wasn't in Alaska after all, it was in Honshu in 1923. Killed 140,000 in Tokyo and it's suburbs.

The Tangshan earthquake in 1976 was the most deadly in recent history (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangshan_earthquake ), killing at least 240,000 people. I have a feeling that this one will come close to that.

I'll have to donate some money when I get paid on the weekend...

[Swamp_Thing]

Perhaps one should start considering how the rise of the sea level and the melting of the ice caps has helped this disaster coming to bare. And that in the future stuff like this will get ever more common. A simple rise of 20 cm in sea level is enough to get from a place where coastal towns remained well above and dry, to a situation of cataclismic floods, going inland for several miles...

[Rictor]

wierd, no animals are dead

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20041229/sc_nm/quake_lanka_wildlife_dc

[pyro-manic]

Well, they probably either ran for the hills, or got swept out to sea when the water receded. Strange to find none though...

[Taristin]

No, animals have a strange sixth sense where they can avoid things like this. People need to pay more attention to nature, as much as they do technology.

[Flipside]

This has been said for years, humans can do it too, I know when there is going to be a thunderstorm, for example, lots of people can do that particular trick, but animals have far more trust in their own senses than humans, we lump responsibility onto our governments and our technology expect them to be our senses for us.

E.g. when did you last hear 'Dammit! I'm a rabbit, I ain't gonna run away from some glorified rat!'