There appears to be no particular link between the earthquake on Sumatra and the earthquake-induced tsunami that devastated Samoa and surrounding Pacific islands, except the death and destruction both caused. The Sumatran quake is reported to have killed 1100 people, the Samoan tsunami around 140, with both tolls expected to rise. In both cases, many more people will have lost their homes and livelihoods.
As Quiggin notes, the best way to help at this stage is through cash to the relief agency of your choice. The Red Cross has an appeal for the Samoan tsunami, and will surely have one for the earthquake as well.
It’s hard to know what to say in response to disasters. They tend to leave us speechless and afraid, I suspect, that something awful like this might happen to us, too. Hence the silence – perhaps.
Now there’s another earthquake detected off Tonga. All of them high readings on the Richter scale.
I read somewhere that the stresses at the tectonic plate boundaries can be pushed over the limit by quite small changes like gravitational pull from changes in the phase of the moon. Plotting the time of occurrence against the phase of the moon shows more than random correlation.
Is there any chance that the stresses could be pushed over the limit by a change in water density and thus weight of water on the overriding tectonic plate?
Can climate change be related to changes in water density in this region? Just asking – this isn’t my area of expertise. Does anyone know the answers?
The other thing I read (in the journal “Nature”) is that you get a flurry of earthquakes before a cataclysmic one, or a major volcanic eruption.
The closer the timing of earthquakes, the closer you are to the cataclysmic event. Not scaremongering here. Just reporting what I read.
And please let’s not forget the floods in Manila – I work up there a lot and the devastation there is quite bad.
Manila Flood
Here is an article on earthquakes and high tides:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1022_041022_earthquakes_tides.html
Its difficult to single out which disaster is the worst out of the three of them: Indonesia/Pacific/or the Phillipines. Everyone of them is horrendous.
However, I was appalled to see on Channel 10 News last night that Samoans resident here who want to go home to comfort grieving family members or attend funerals are having to wait up to a week to get a plane home because there are no seats available, such is the demand. While I’m aware having even more people coming into the country at the moment might exacerbate problems of food, water and shelter which at this distance appear grievous, surely this is exactly the moment people really need their families about them to share the grieving and offer support.
I got so worked up about this I left off watching the news, something I rarely do and sent off a high priority e-mail to my local member suggesting if this report on the shortage of plane seats is true, the Government should use the RAAF to get these Australian Samoans home immediately.
And maybe I’ve missed something, but why are we hearing so little about Tonga?