Man I still can't believe the news about that tsunami! 23,000 people!

[Lefty Grove]

Death count hit 40,000 this morning.

Cubed, scientists can predict a myriad of things, including earthquakes.

Discovering the cure for AIDS is important, and the amount of people it kills every week is over the amount of people who died from this tragedy. But you don't realize that a cure for AIDS is so much harder to get than predicting an earthquake?

[sabbas]

It's unbelievable how many people have died from this thing. Like mentioned, I'm sure the numbers will rise in the following days/weeks. What I don't get is how some of these people had absolutely no warning. People (read: scientests) knew about the earthquake, and the following tsunami right after it happened, yet failed to warn the people of Indonesia and all the other countries that were effected. I heard of a story of people swimming on the beach, and the tide pulled the water way out, drying the beach; people thought "what the heck?! Cool!" and ran out there on the newly exposed sand. Little did they know that that was the backwash/suction (whatever it's called, I forget the official term) before the Tsunami hit. All of a sudden there were massive waves hitting the coast...they were all devastated.

Regarding earthquake prediction. It's still highly unlikely, and not very feasible with the knowledge we have. It's very similar to volcano eruptions - they're extremely difficult to predict. I've taken several geography/geology courses, and this has been stated many times. It's the tsunami itself that can be predicted IMMEDIATELY following the earthquake, which makes the lack of warning to the surrounding countries very surprising.

[svosen]

Originally posted by Odin
Cube has actually stumbled upon a salient point in this conversation: the lack of microbiologists and organic chemists working on South Asian plate tectonics is something that's been troubling most authorities for rather a long time. The hospitals don't seem to have much trouble keeping staffed with geologists, so I don't understand what the problem is.

[Cubed]

PlayStation fan your right, that was an ass move

EDIT: the only reason I said that is because I dont have any ill feeling toward you.

[Norrec]

60,000+

Oh, sorry, I got back on topic.
I sorta don't care what Cubed says that happens to be retarded and who has to make remarks back to him.
My bad.

[Prime]

They are saying it could double from disease.

This is terrible.

[Cowboy22]

Just a terrible situation all around. I have a friend who's from Indonesia and still has family back there. As far as I know he still hasn't been able to get ahold of them to see if they're okay, I can only hope for the best. I can't even imagine what he's going through emotionally right now.

[PlaystationFan]

My grandparents have friends there that they met when he was stationed there for a while. There pretty torn up as well.

[Norrec]

I have friends in the philippines, but I'm not sure how this affected things there, not sure if it hit or didn't..

[Gabriel013]

One of my work mates is spending Christmas in Thailand at the moment. We're yet to hear from him.