You're right! That's the biggest earthquake on earth since 1964, when a 9.2 hit Alaska.
CNN has a full article on it now. Thousands dead.
Posted on 12/26/2004 1:30:15 AM PST by Truth666
However, the government said two thirds of the capital was under about four feet (1.2 meters) of water in some areas. About a third of the country’s 330,000 population live in the highly congested capital island.
Maldives is a cluster of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered some 800 kilometres (500 miles) across the equator and is vulnerable to any rise in sea levels.
The fate of tens of thousands of tourists in the Maldives was not immediately known.
ping!
Maldives flooded after tidal waves, reports of casualties but no figures..(correct headline).
(AFP)
I assume you have never had to try to get information on a relative after a great natural disaster..Lack of knowledge and accurate information, difficulty in assessing numbers is the norm.
Actually there are dozens of articles about the Maldives and it's been mentioned in each CNN report live...(CNN International).
Communication has largely been cut off to the hardest hit areas (which has been WIDELY reported in the articles about the region) and I think that's the real cause of lack of specifics...for the Maldives and anywhere else.
Many of these places have communication problems due to smaller things than this...
There have been some brief reports about the Maldives in Australian online news services.
I will listen to BBC at the top of the hour and post what I hear...they usually have the latest in these areas, such as that last terror bombing over there that targeted the Aussies.
Took CNN three days to report Bali
Do not change a title...If you wish to editorialize, put it in parentheses.
There are thousands of germans in the Maldives. Check what the german mass media says about them (blackout):
http://www.spiegel.de/
Not one word about the Maldives in the TV news, just like in the TV site (first channel, german state television)
http://ard.de/
Oddly enough they are actually reporting (or did for 40 minutes on CNN international starting at 1 am your/our time Pacific time)...crazy they are actually the ones up on this one!
This is your take on it..It was not the headline..
My family was in a tornado in Wichita Falls...we followed lines of utility co trucks, telephone co trucks, and ambulances in the middle of the night through storms to find out their fate..It took hours of personal search to find them after we arrived...No telephone communication..overload on existing lines.
The city of Darwin in northern Australia was more or less flattened by a cyclone that night. This was a city in a modern western country. It was so effectively cut off by the disaster that communications for hours basically consisted of morse transmissions to and from a vessel in the harbour.
I think a lot of people seriously underestimate precisely how cut off a disaster can leave places and how hard it can be to get accurate information out.
Exactly..
Your headline sucks. Don't change the headlines.
I just saw a Deutsche Welle report that (my German being very crappy) seemed to address this issue.
I gave above links to illustrate that there is a blackout about what might have happened to the tourists.
And, again, both these facts are the news :
- there are tens of thousands of european tourists there
- there is a blackout about this fact
You must not change the titles.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/26/quake.maldives/index.html
FYI, CNN Int'l quoting Foreign Minister of Maldives as saying communication is cut off to outlying islands and death toll hasn't been assessed. Obviously it's not a German news source, but this is what the FM is saying and it's being reported many other places. I'm sure details will start coming as soon as they can...and I'm afraid they won't be good :-(
Maldives islands covered by water
From Journalist Iqbal Athas in Colombo, Sri Lanka
Sunday, December 26, 2004 Posted: 0829 GMT (1629 HKT)
(CNN) -- Massive waves triggered by a powerful earthquake temporarily covered several inhabited islands in the low-lying Maldives archipelago, south of India, according to the country's Foreign Minister Fathulla Jamil.
At least three children were killed in the high waters on an island north of the capital, Male. However an accurate death toll has not been assessed because communications to the outlying islands have been cut off, Jamil said.
Jamil said the islands north of the capital were the worst hit
DO NOT CHANGE HEADLINES..Editorialize in parentheses..or clarify your position in your first post to your article.
Do you consider the fact communications have been cut off because of damage a blackout?
The BBC guy said 500 dead in Maldives....but a lot un accounted for....
I didnt hear the whole report.
Not knowing isn't censorship. Lack of information isn't censorship.
It's feared hundreds may have died after an earthquake struck southern and eastern Asia. Most of the deaths have occurred as a result of huge waves that followed the quake. High waves along the east coast of Sri Lanka killed at least 1000 people, local officials say. While massive tides striking India's coast are said to have killed at least 500. Deaths have also been reported in coastal Thailand and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, believed to be near the centre of the powerful earthquake, which the US Geological Survey measured at 8.9 magnitude.
I guess you are the only person in the know.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308556/posts
Not knowing the magnitude of losses isn't censorship. Lack of information about who was killed isn't censorship...
May God comfort those who mourn..
http://www.nbr.co.nz/home/column_article.asp?id=10995&cid=8&cname=News
(snip)
The waves caused deaths and serious damage in Indonesia, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and the Maldives, among other countries.
Because of the season, beach resorts throughout the affected region were jammed with holiday tourists, many in dwellings on or very near the beach.
Eyewitness reports say that in most places, the tsunamis struck without warning.
Indeed. This event almost defies superlatives. God help them all.
I have the news on now..nothing yet to speak of. I wonder if there is a rescue op in the works? US military? or maybe a debate in the UN so this can all be blamed on Bush/USA?
Diego Garcia, Chagos Islands, Indian Ocean..wonder how our base fared?
CNN Int'l hadn't mentioned the Maldives for about an hour and they just did briefly...(basically with the quote from the foreign minister also above in one of the articles posted about halfway down)...I've not even seen much beyond a one minute or so 'summary' on the other stations I can get (on TV)...
Other countries (and some impacted) are saying they are sending in military resources (esp. boats it sounds like)...not having heard any real US coverage I've not heard anything said about the response....but now that it's 6 on the east coast maybe we'll start hearing more?
There certainly are a lot of Americans there (for various reasons) I'm sure our news will be talking about evacuating shortly...but I can't imagine that that's not just the beginning of what the US will do (among all the other countries that will inevitably respond in some form). Especially if this grows on the scale it quite possibly can.
I wonder too, hope all is well. Fox news just had a brief alert on this disaster.
From ABC News online http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1272452.htm
Last Update: Sunday, December 26, 2004. 7:33pm (AEDT)
Tsunami floods Maldives
Two-thirds of the Maldives capital was flooded today after a series of tsunami waves triggered by an earthquake swamped the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago, a popular tourist destination.
"The damage is considerable," chief government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed told Reuters.
"The island is only about three feet (one metre) above sea level and a wave of water four feet (1.3 metres) high swept over us."
Male, which is 2 kilometres long and 800 metres wide and home to 75,000 people, is bursting at the seams.
The streets of white-washed houses are heavily built up, living conditions often cramped and areas of communal open space sparse for the country's 300,000 people - most of whom are involved in the tourist industry, the Maldives' economic backbone.
"It is a very bad situation. It is terrible," Mr Shaheed told Reuters by telephone after a tour of the capital.
"As you know it is the peak tourist season. We are trying to get reports from those areas. The whole of the Maldives is a tourist area so we are just hoping and praying."
He said the international airport was unusable, adding that President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom would shortly declare a national disaster and appeal for international assistance.
President Gayoom has spent much of his 26 years in power warning of the dangers that global warming, erosion and shifting weather patterns pose to low-lying island nations like his own.
"We still face the threat of sea level rise," he told Reuters in a recent interview.
"There is encroachment of the sea on many islands, there is erosion of our beaches."
-Reuters
Thanks..It just sounds terrible.
Unbelievably brief! I thought the military issue might finally occur to someone at a news desk here and that they'd be covering the story more for that reason alone (although the international event this is should be reason enough, IMO! This is going to be huge losses...human loss of life with numbers climbing quickly, the property loss, and the economic loss this is to many of these regions that survive on tourism...and that was wiped away due to the above to issues). The US media may go from one minute updates to at least a handful of countries likely in complete states of emergency!
The US not signing the Kyoto Treaty will soon wake up the media..It is only big news if the US is at fault./sarcasm..but true
It does...and it seems like even once they can access places and communication is at least better, that it's still going to be a very long time before we get even halfway accurate numbers (from anywhere) since they keep saying so many people were swallowed up by the water...and others swept to so many other places that just trying to figure out who is where and who is missing and who is injured, etc...I can't even imagine.
Some will never be found.
http://www.spiegel.de/
REKORD-ERDBEBEN IN SÜDOSTASIEN
Monsterwelle reißt mehrere tausend Menschen in den Tod
8.9 Richter scale...that's the largest I've heard about in my lifetime!
Seriously. The media in Europe is NOT a free and independent media as in the US. Germany is the perfect example!
The Germans have DPA (Deutsche Presse Agentur) who feeds the media their news. This is kind of like AP and UPI only with heavy state influence.
The news and MOST TV channels (ARD, ZDF, HR3, SWF, DW...) are run by a state appointed political affiliated (Chef Redaktuer) individuals. Everyone knows how important these guys are and its reflected by how much squabbling you have between the ruling parties when one of these positions gets filled. The parties know it will affect the media slant coming from them.
You have the GEZ which pays for the programming with tax revenue largely. Again, the government even controls the money flow in the media.
The BBC is entirely state controlled and the French are going to bring you a free TV channel all over the US which will have news service too. The French government put out $30,000,000 for a start-up support.
So yes, when the German government chose to be against the war in Iraq, all the media toed the line and more or less acted as an agent of the government perpetuating it's side with no viable alternative being offered. A completely one sided picture was generated.
Today they don’t want to highlight the war on terror nor the threat with Islamists. So Van Gogh’s murder is hardly mentioned and widely already off of any media in Germany. The hijackings of planes in Russia, Beslan, car bombs, Munich Oktoberfest bombing, Madrid bombing are all quickly eliminated from the media press cycle after the mandatory obligatory press release (You can’t not cover it). Harping on the issue would give the US position credibility! So there is no statement from the German government (Which found it necessary to make comments about Abu Gahrib) and the state media quickly forgets issues while focusing a lot of attention on others.
Big movie special the night of the US elections on German State sponsored TV? Fahrenheit 9-11.
Are you really surprised the Germans believe there is a conspiracy in the US media (Rupert Murdock), no real war on terror or threat and that the war in Iraq was purely for oil?
Red6
You're right! That's the biggest earthquake on earth since 1964, when a 9.2 hit Alaska.
CNN has a full article on it now. Thousands dead.
There is no reason for an Information Operation campaign to be conducted here (Maldives).
War on terror
Iraq
Turkish EU membership
Euro adoption
Those are issues where the government WILL use its influence in the media to direct pubilc opinion. And in Germany, France and most of Europe the governments can do this very effectively because of their degree of influence in the media.
Red6
Australia is getting ready to provide aid and assistance (I may be being sent - still waiting for final word), and I would assume other nations will do the same. We have an advantage in Australia over most western nations as for us, this happened on the 26th rather than Christmas day - makes it a little bit easier to get things organised when it's not actually Christmas.
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