Word: tsunami
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Like no other natural disaster in living memory, the Asian tsunami induced a planetary torrent of sorrow, followed by a massive outpouring of money and supplies from public and private sources that at times overwhelmed the relief workers and government agencies trying to deliver water, food and medicine to those in greatest danger. The Bush Administration pledged an initial sum of $15 million and was promptly pilloried for offering aid inadequate to the scale of the disaster. (In the initial count, 15 Americans were reported dead.) Stung by criticism of the U.S.'s perceived parsimony, the Administration increased the contribution...
...that time China was a closed society, a place that did not willingly present the face of its tragedies to the outside world. Few places are like that today. What made last week's disaster so extraordinary was the way in which it was a truly global event. The tsunami placed a girdle of death around half the earth. In Sri Lanka and Thailand, tens of thousands of tourists fleeing the northern hemisphere's winter were enjoying Christmas vacations, some in swank hotels, many more in cheap rooms for rent along the beaches. According to the Swedish Foreign Ministry...
...touch with their loved ones. And by some miracle of technology for which many were grateful, even when mobile circuits were overloaded, text messages got through. Sam Nicols, an engineer who researches nanotechnology at a Swedish university, was on a rock-climbing expedition in Tonsai, Thailand, when the tsunami hit, and he promptly used his Swedish cell phone to message his father John, a professor at the University of Oregon. "Just had a big tidal wave hit," read the first message. "I am not injured but lost some climbing gear, my camera and [my Thai] mobile phone. Please tell family...
...water had disappeared. He called his boss, Bill O'Leary, an Australian in charge of the Amanpuri boatyard, who was at sea with clients. O'Leary knew the signs. He told Neustfisten to get everyone off the beach and called friends at other hotels to tell them a tsunami was coming. The Amanpuri beach was cleared. About five minutes later, the waves started rolling in. Seppanen, a few miles away, saw the horizon rise and a wall of water approach, bringing with it small boats with anchors dangling. "At first I thought, It's O.K. Nothing bad is going...
...didn't die. Seppanen was tumbled past shop fronts until two Ecuadoreans hauled her to safety into a hotel--but thousands of others did. Did so many need to? After all, the relationship between earthquakes and tsunamis is hardly an unknown science. And there were warnings that went unheeded. Fifteen minutes after the earthquake, Stuart Weinstein, the geophysicist on duty at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Honolulu dispatched a bulletin to countries around the Pacific Rim, including Indonesia and Thailand. After describing the size of the shock, Weinstein wrote: "Evaluation: This earthquake is located outside the Pacific...