Massive Tidal Wave
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...quake_india_dc


death toll to 44,000

:( :( :( :( :( :(

Those things are crazy. They travel at speed up to 500mph!!!!!! :shock: ...and are 50 ft tall. You pretty much don't know they are coming and then they just hit without warning. I can't think of a much more scary experience than to have a wall of water bareling down on me at 500mph. I feel for these people. :(

that is definately sad to hear!! Life is too short and this makes me appreciate life that much more.

That's really sad. It's stuff you can only imagine happening in movies.

If you belive in prayer, now is a great time to.

I heard this may have affected the earth's rotation and we're goin to have a few unpredictable seasons to come due to it? ( I don't know how it may have affected the rotation.. I can see the climate change due to the ocean water tempreture changing .. meh.. but I guess thats why our meteorologist are gettin paid the big bucks and always so accurate with our local forcast :roll: )

Neh.. according to my GPS the lat/ lon is exactly the same. Now a change in ocean currents leading to temperary climate change is more logical.

It wasnt really a tidal wave, its called a tsunami. Tidal waves refer to gravity, tidal patterns and weather systems (ie wind)

A tsunami occurs when an earthquake happens in the ocean and a ripple effect of the water takes place from the epicentre of the quake. From there the underwave shockwave travels relatively undetected due to the immense depth of the ocean. As the shockwave approaches a continental plate (ie land) the shockwaves have nowhere left to travel so they increase the water level dramatically resulting in massive coastal flooding of low lying coastal regions.

This quake on Dec 25th registered at 9.0 on the Richter scale, it had the power to physically move the island of Sumatra and increase the height of high tide in the Pacific Ocean by 10 cm....staggering power. 52 000 people have been confirmed dead so far, with 16 000 of them children and 27 000 in Indonesia alone.

I read that the quake actually stopped the rotation of the Earth briefly :shock:

The quake and those tsunami terms remind me of the movie THE CORE.

Exactly Steve! scary stuff when it happens in real life. Tsumani are considered one of the most deadly natural disasters. Until recently they were totally undetectable due to the massive volume of the Earths oceans. Now the Pacific Ocean and the Ring of Fire (as its aptly termed) is lined with digital buoys that signal to NOAA and various other meterological sources that the water level is rising in distinct patterns to coincide with the Richter scale reading allowing for proper evac time for coastal nations on the Pacific, ie Japan, Canada, Russia, China, United States etc.

The Indian Ocean has yet to receive that techology, nations like Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Burma, Bangledash cannot afford such systems. The relief efforts required will be like nothing we have seen in modern history, its a monumental event in Earths recent history and its impact shouldnt be ignored....nor should the relief efforts of the worlds wealthiest nations.