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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Tsunami death toll jumps over 125,000

2004-12-31

The death toll in the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster has soared above 125,000 as millions scrambled for food and fresh water and thousands more fled in panic to high ground on rumours of new waves. Aid agencies warned many more, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka, could die in epidemics if shattered communications and transport hampered what may prove history's biggest relief operation. Rescue workers pressed on into isolated villages shattered by a disaster that could yet eclipse a cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi called for an emergency meeting of the Group of Eight so that the rich nations club could discuss aid and possible debt reduction following "the worst cataclysm of the modern era".

The total toll had shot up more than 50 per cent in a day with still no clear picture of conditions in some isolated islands and villages around India and Indonesia. While villagers and fishermen suffered devastation, losses among foreign tourists, essential to local economies, mounted. Prime Minister Goran Persson said more than 1,000 Swedes may have been killed in the disaster. Indonesian Health Ministry sources told Reuters just under 80,000 had died in the northern Aceh province that was close to the undersea quake, some 28,000 more than previously announced. Two sources said the toll would be officially announced soon.

Posted by:God Save The World

#16 Ah, the contrast between the ungrateful, the devastated, and the thankful.

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Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.

Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 6:53:52 PM

#15 Ah, the contrast between the ungrateful, the devastated, and the thankful.

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Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 6:53:52 PM

#14 Ah, the contrast between the ungrateful, the devastated, and the thankful.

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Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 6:52:43 PM

#13 Ah, the contrast between the ungrateful, the devastated, and the thankful.

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Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 6:52:43 PM

#12 Cingold, no one's "holding aid hostage." I'm concerned with solving the problem. You argue that the governments involved made the wrong "call" based on good faith. But your link-- which discusses only the Thai and not the Indonesian or Sri Lankan government's decision processes, btw-- contains this crucial quote:

We finally decided not to do anything because the tourist season was in full swing.

Mere human frailty? Or corruption? Put it another way: can you imagine any reasonably open, democratic, transparent government concerned with its citizens' welfare behaving this way?

Posted by: lex 2004-12-31 7:20:16 PM

#11 This just in.....corpse count falls to 110,919 and then jumps up again to over one zillion. Reporting is soooo easy.

Now let's count the returning US military coffins. Whoopeee

Posted by: Capt America 2004-12-31 7:14:35 PM

#10 The corrupt and incompetent governments of the region are to blame here. It's long past time that the west stopeed turning a blind eye to third world kleptocracy and massive government incompetence.

To save on bandwidth, prior thread about whether aid should be held hostage is here.

Prior thread showing that it was âa callâ regarding the tsunami, and not corruption, that led to failures to warn is here.

Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 7:05:09 PM

#9 Ah, the contrast between the ungrateful, the devastated, and the thankful.

Pictures of this are here.

Then, there also are always the REMF. I wonder who will the MSM, and jihadi detractors, focus on to divert us from our mission of mercy? Every ounce of compassion delivered now, every life saved, will pay back multiple dividends of gratitude in the future. For that reason alone the jihadis will attempt to derail those efforts and intentions. The MSM? They just want to sell papers. They'll go after whater riles, inflames, or is otherwise sensationalistic.

Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 6:57:28 PM

#8 After medicine and potable water, the most important gift to the people of the region would be long-lasting, fundamental government reform. The circus that is the relief effort (outside of the war zones where NGOs have long operated) stems from the very same cause of the tragedy: the unpardonable absence of any kind of early warning system for natural disasters in maritime nations where the vast majority live next to the ocean.

The corrupt and incompetent governments of the region are to blame here. It's long past time that the west stopeed turning a blind eye to third world kleptocracy and massive government incompetence.

Posted by: lex 2004-12-31 6:16:29 PM

#7 from Yahoo AP link
"...all around the Indian Ocean there have been reports of local people feeling ignored or insulted by the meager aid that has trickled to them since Sunday."
"In India, survivors complained of feeling insulted by piles of secondhand clothes dumped at roadsides for them."
""We have been insulted so much that we don't want any aid from anybody," said 35-year-old Lakshimi, who goes by only one name. "We are prepared to die.
"They bring food for a few hundred people to a place where thousands of people are sheltered. They bring too few clothes, too little milk, which results in a melee. We have never looked for alms from anybody, now we have been reduced to beggars.""

Posted by: Glenmore 2004-12-31 6:05:27 PM

#6 cingold: For Indonesians, thatâs the equivalent of 4 months wages, on average.

I guess it depends on what you mean by average. The average full-time Indonesian domestic working for an expatriate gets an above-market wage of $100 a month. People in the rural areas of Sumatra (and the outlying islands) that were devastated get paid far less, which is why many head for the urban centers.

The CIA Factbook number is a GDP number that averages the salaries of the billionaire tycoons with the pay of typical Indonesians. It is not representative of actual pay in Indonesia, which tends to be highly rewarding for college-educated professionals and a pittance for blue collar workers, with 20 to 1 ratios being common (i.e. college grads make a grand a month, while blue collar workers make $50 a month).

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-31 11:35:55 AM

#5 If the body count is 100,000, that's $40K for every single person killed

Itâs not the dead who need the money, itâs the living. âUp to five million people were displaced by tsunamis that killed nearly 119,000 people in Asia, officials said, as aftershocks rocked traumatized survivors.â Friday, December 31, 2:14 AM AFP story. With 5 mil homeless, the 4 billion would only give each of them $800. For Indonesians, thatâs the equivalent of 4 months wages, on average. (CIA Factbook.) The real problem, though, is not wage loss, but the decimation of the infrastructure of the effected areas. It takes years to build up infrastructure, and infrastructure is expensive. The best loss adjustment specialists estimate a huge hit from this catastrophe.

Although insurers were likely to suffer limited losses, the head of Munich Re's Geo Risk unit said the total value of damage to buildings and foundations in the regions affected likely would be at least 10 billion euros ($13.6 billion).

From December 28, 2004 AP story, World's Biggest Reinsurer Minich Re Says Its Tsunami Exposure Limited Despite Extensive Damage.

Posted by: cingold 2004-12-31 11:23:41 AM

#4 At last tally, we're looking at $4b* in aid money up for grabs. Any time that money is involved, we are going to get inflated body counts. My feeling is that the final number reported will be some multiple of the actual number of victims. The same kind of thing happened in China during flooding that allegedly killed thousands.

* If the body count is 100,000, that's $40K for every single person killed, or about 40 years worth of salary for much of the population in the region.

Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-12-31 10:05:07 AM

#3 I watched a history channel show last night on the tsunami in 1946 in Hawaii. An amateur camerman caught the wave front as it came in. It took about two seconds to travel from the horizen (sp?) to the shore. This wasn't a 20 foot wave, it was a 20 foot wall of water traveling at 500 mph. They're never going to find all the bodies, or know the death count. Too many of them are miles out to sea. Somebody with some good physics skills can figure out the force of impact. To me the old film looked like the leading edge of an atomic bomb shock wave.

Posted by: Weird Al 2004-12-31 8:56:16 AM

#2 Captasin, I think the final tally is a lot higher than anyone imagines. Not counting disease and factoring in the people who have just vanished, we might be looking at 500,000 - 750,000 dead and missing.

Disease might double that figure. It boggles the mind.

Posted by: Doug De Bono 2004-12-31 2:22:48 AM

#1 Enough with the running count. Just publish the final tally.

Posted by: Capt America 2004-12-31 12:56:13 AM

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