Tsunami

It's a little mind-boggling, the amount of devastation and death the recent earthquake and subsequent tsunamis caused in Asia. 110,000+ dying in one event is a little difficult to comprehend.

I am thankful that I don't have cable, so I don't get to see any graphic images and reporting shoved upon my psyche, although, I can't really escape the news on the Web, blogs and the radio which wakes me up in the morning. I have nothing to add, except that its disgusting to read people post insensitive comments on blogs ranging from "I wish I was there to see it" to "this is nature's way of dealing with overpopulation."

Having experienced a major earthquake in 1990, I'm aware that earthquakes cause tsunamis. There would be a warning to "look out for tsunamis" (if you lived near a beach) every time there's some sort of earthquake in the Philippines. Since Sri Lanka and India did not feel any earthquake, the tsunamis obviously caught them off guard, even if they reached land 2 hours after the earthquake. I am not too sure if Thailand experienced a major jolt to warn them of a possible tidal wave. Indonesia however is a different story since they first had to deal with the actual damage that the earthquake made. The tsunami to them would have been an afterthought. (As an interesting aside, the earthquake in 1990 didn't produce tsunamis, but instead was a harbinger to the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo one year later, which caused far more devastation to the country than the earthquake. Perhaps this earthquake will cause another volcanic eruption somewhere in Indonesia?)