"Greg Mayman" bravely wrote to "Mike Ross" (02 Jan 05  07:14:00)
 --- on the heady topic of "HAPPY NEW YEAR"

 GM> I heard that they got some slightly-larger-than-normal waves on
 GM> the north west coast. But it was quite a way from the epicentre,
 GM> the open seas allowed the waves to disipate.

 GM> Down here, about 3000km further on in a direct line, and matbe
 GM> twice that around the coast, we saw/felt nothing.

It is odd because about as far away as Australia was Africa, it was
hit pretty hard by the tsunami 10 hours after the quake, and causing
hundreds of deaths. I heard it explained that the fault movement
caused energy to spread in an east and west direction rather than
north and south.


 GM> The total cost may yet get as high as the Christmas spending in
 GM> the Western world... excuse my cynicism....

I find that the help is going to be much too little much too late. Let
alone the logistics of getting the help there, what with broken roads
and communications. I think the money people are donating is just
going to make some no scruples bloodsucking vermin even richer. Even
the "official" aid organisations have monsterous bureaucracies that
suck up the lion's share of the public's contributions. I've heard of
cases of victims only receiving at most 30% of the monies that had
been raised. That is pathetic. Some aid groups have claimed 85% will
reach the needy but I think it is just PR spin.

What I find even odder is that mass media didn't communicate the
unfolding disaster to the local populations when eye witness reports
started being phoned into their offices. There seems to be no
explanation why the major geological monitoring centers failed to
report the possibility of tsunami events after such a major quake.
It's as if everyone with such responsibility was off on holidays all
at the same time or something. The scientific community has really
failed us on this one.

 M*i*k*e

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