"crazy_horse_12002" wrote in message
oups.com

I think the BBC radio presenters should refrain from
making statements to the effect that "it could not have come at a worse
time, when thousands of Europeans are on holiday over there". (heard on
5 live this morning)

Nothing like good old fashioned clonialism to turn back the clock and
focus on the more important things, is there?

The biggest tragedy is that this following could all have been
anticipated -at least in part.

From the OP:

http://olympics.reuters.com/newsArti...toryID=7178847

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A huge earthquake hit southern Asia on Sunday,
setting off a tsunami that drowned hundreds in Sri Lanka and India, sent
Indonesians rushing to high ground and washed away bathers on the Thai
tourist island of Phuket.

The earthquake of magnitude 8.5 as measured by the U.S. Geological
Survey first struck at 7:59 a.m. (0059 GMT) off the coast of the
northern Indonesian island of Sumatra and swung north with multiple
tremors into the Andaman islands in the Indian Ocean.

A wall of water up to 10 meters (30 feet) high set off by the tremor
swept into Indonesia, over the coast of Sri Lanka and India and along
the southern Thai tourist island of Phuket, leaving at least 650 people
feared dead, officials said.

"Nothing like this has ever happened in our country before," said Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The earthquake was the world's biggest since 1965, said Julie Martinez,
geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey. "It is multiple earthquakes
along the same faultline," she said.

The worst-hit area appeared to be the tourist region of Sri Lanka's
south and east and the chairman of the John Keells hotel chain said five
of his hotels had been badly flooded.

At least 500 were feared dead in Sri Lanka, the National Disaster
Management Center said.

"The army and the navy have sent rescue teams, we have deployed over
four choppers and half the navy's eastern fleet to look for survivors,"
said military spokesman Brigadier Daya Ratnayake.

An official in eastern Trincomalee said 3,000 people had been displaced
and six villages destroyed.

Along the southern Indian coast, as many as 74 people were killed and
many injured by a tsunami there, hospital and government officials said.

BIG PARTS OF MALDIVES UNDER WATER Continued ...




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