20,000+ people died today (and yesterday)...

[shainhouse]

It just goes to show... you can't do anything when mother nature hits. RIP to all the families involved in this tragedy. 8.9 tsunami/earhtquake... wow...

www.bbc.co.uk for more info

our thoughts and prayers are out to anyone affected by this tragedy. This is an incredible loss of life. Not quite the Happy Holidays this time around...

[mister slippery]

absolutely unbelievable.

numbers will prob still climb.

[bradm]

8.9 hurricane

Correction: it wasn't a hurricane, it was an undersea earthquake, registering 8.9 on the Richter Scale, which caused tsunamis ("tidal waves") that washed into places like Sri Lanka, Southern India, etc.

Aloha,

Brad

[meggo]

so crazy... my friend's little sister is vacationing in phuket (thailand) where tons of people went missing, saying a little prayer for her and all the others over there... yikes...

[hamilton]

It's up to 22,000 now... :(

[Tickler]

very very sad.

Its so surreal to watch such a huge loss of human life on tv, and to then be able to change the channel and go on about our days.

Definitly feel fortunate for what I have.

[SweetMaRiE]

So very sad. You must count your blessings and live every day to the fullest!! My heart definately goes out to all of those people experiencing this huge tradegy..and meggo..I'll keep your friend's little sis' in my prayers.

Marie

[paisley]

animation of the tsunami

a tsunami is a huge tidal wave that can get as big as 40 feet high and up to 1200 kilometres long... the one that hit Sri Lanka and Thailand travelled 750 miles in 100 minutes... many thanks are owed to local fisherman who have been working around the clock of their own volition to rescue survivors as the Indian Coast Guard has been too busy dropping off food and supplies to stranded people

pretty amazing eye witness footage of the waves hitting a hotel note the guy being swept along by the wave near the end

more pictures showing the magnitude of the event

[Vixon]

this is soo unbelievably sad. it seems surreal. thank you for the pics paisley..it is good (and not good) to be more aware of what's going on for those of us without a tv. My thoughts and prayers are with anyone that is effected by this awful tragedy..including your friends sis Meggo, i hope she's ok.

[c-towns]

I hope Didsbury made it...?

[mark tonin]

Can't really add anything to this thread that hasn't already been said ... so sad ... life is fragile and precious ... I'm so fortunate ... lots of good vibes to everyone who has somebody close to them in the region ...

Peace, Mark

[hamilton]

Up to almost 44,000 now...

Also, here's the skinny on the tsunami from The Toronto Star :

Sumatra shifted 30 metres

Massive motion pushed up water Will the `big one' be similar?

THOMAS H. MAUGH II

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off Indonesia moved the entire island of Sumatra about 30 metres to the southwest, pushing up a gigantic mass of water that collapsed into a tsunami and devastated shorelines around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.

The quake was the largest since a magnitude 9.2 temblor struck Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1964 and was one of the biggest ever recorded by scientists.

It triggered the first tsunami in the Indian Ocean since 1883, said Costas Synolakis, a civil engineer at the University of Southern California.

Sunday's temblor, which occurred off Sumatra's northwestern tip in an active geological region, ruptured an estimated 180-kilometre-long stretch of the earth beneath the Indian Ocean.

The quake caused one side of the fault to slide past the other, much like seismologists expect the San Andreas fault to do when the "big one" hits California.

The massive tsunami waves, not ground shaking, caused most of the damage and the huge death toll.

Tsunamis are unlike anything else that occurs in the ocean. They are most often created by earthquakes, but can also be triggered by events including an underwater landslide or a meteor impact.

In Sunday's case, the sudden movement of Sumatra and the undersea acreage southwest of it caused a mass of water to build up well above sea level. As the water collapsed back down to sea level, it created a disturbance that affected water hundreds and thousands of kilometres away.

A normal wave, created mainly by wind, affects the top 10 metres of the ocean, at most, and moves very slowly.

A tsunami, in contrast, affects the entire water column from surface to sea floor and can reach very high speeds.

The deeper the ocean, the faster the tsunami travels.

In the open ocean, the tsunami moves upward of 800 kilometres per hour, with the entire column of water moving up and down. But because the ocean is so deep, initial movement of the surface is very slight. Someone on a boat in the area wouldn't notice it.

This process is very efficient, and the tsunami can travel vast distances.

In 1960, a tsunami created by a magnitude 9.5 earthquake off the central Chilean coast struck shores all around the Pacific, even as far away as Japan, where 200 people were killed by the surge of water.

As the tsunami nears shore and the ocean becomes shallower, friction with the ocean floor causes it to slow down, producing a buildup of water that can reach as much as 30 metres above sea level.

When the water hits the shore, it sweeps inward with massive force, gradually slowing, but continuing inland until the ground level is higher than the wave.

Although a tsunami occasionally appears as a massive wave, more often it is like a fast-moving tide that keeps rising well past the normal high-water level.

Once the water reaches its peak, it recedes rapidly, often causing even more damage.

In some cases, the tsunami can appear as several distinct waves, each creating its own havoc.

Sunday's tsunami began hitting coastlines about two hours after the quake. That would have been long enough to provide warnings to inhabitants if the Indian Ocean had a tsunami warning system like that in the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately it doesn't, because scientists had underestimated the risk of a tsunami there, Synolakis said.

By midafternoon Sunday, the tsunami had run its course, said geophysicist Ken Hudnut of the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena.

Generally, he said, the areas most heavily hit by a tsunami are those closest to the quake. Because Sunday's quake was centred in the Indian Ocean, he added, little of its energy was directed toward the Americas.

Seismologists will use the opportunity to learn a great deal about the earth's structure, Hudnut said.