Looks like the Indonesian earthquake with a magintude of 8.7 has also triggered a Tsunami alert.for contries surrounding it. The Indian Home Ministry has alerted the coastal states including Tamil Nadu and Andaman Islands.
A prayer more than a hope that the Tsunami doesn't get in the way anymore.No way !!
This isn't a spoof of CRY[Child Relief and You] but just a similar naming which flashed me while I was driving to office this morning.
If you appreciate this TRY[Tsunami Relief and You] and would love to use this name for you Tsunami Relief fund, go ahead. Pay me a $100 which I would donate back to TRY itself. Howzaaaat ?
Thendral, the first daily internet tamil radio in the US is conducting a Special Non-Stop 12 hour Live Program in Thendral.com, tomorrow [Sunday, January 2nd]. This program is a fundraising song request program to raise funds towards relief operations of Tsunami victims. Check out Thendral for more.
Sudarshan, who belongs to AID-US is co-ordinating the Tsunami relief operations. He is sending out a call for or volunteers from AID-Chennai. There's still a HUGE need for volunteers for different teams. There's also a similar need of volunteers who can spend a few days in Pondicherry / Cuddalore/ Naagai / Kanyakumari. Preferably those who can speak tamil.
If there are any volunteers for the areas mentioned above, please contact the aid-india office or the telephone numbers given below.
Contact :
The main AID help line is 044-2835 0403, 044 5561 5629.
Chennai : 20, Ratheenam St, Gopalaupuram, Chennai-600086
Cuddalore: Balaji - 94440 61033, K.P.Narayan 04142-229108 and
Damu - 94442 41918
Nagapattinam: Jagadish - 98403 79889 and Ranganathan - 94440 18590
Pondicherry: 0413- 2290733
I've had friends/relatives calling up if everything is safe because of the emrgency alerts flying red on the televisions. My friend who lives in Triplicane had informed that a portion of Radhakrishnan salai is blocked because it leads directly to the sea and their are divertions in that place.
Another friend panickly called up and said that people are leaving to their homes and the electric trains are already running full houses.
Update - Two hours after the previous para was written, the televisions are announcing that Tsunami alert in Chennai may be reduced. Looks like the Port Trust of Chennai will start functioning from evening.
There's panic here as Chennai is put on highalert for Tsunami attack again. The news and rumors are all twined together making people more panicked.
It remains a question as to how many lives are pending to go before 2004 ends. God Bless !!
NDTV reports that the sea waves are seen to be rising near Chennai. Chennai Port Trust is put on highalert and starts evacuating people from there.
[Click thumbnail to read the poem]
Vairamuthu's tribute to the Tsunami victims was in a form of a poem. A worthy read. This was the same poem which he quoted in Sun News Channel, a couple of days back.
The guys at Google have done a wonderful job by giving a link to Tsunami relief sites on the home page. The websearch main page looks like the image above. By giving the link on the homepage they are spreading the news of relief operations faster.
The linked Tsunami Relief page displays lists of donation sites and information sites. The information site also lists the Tsunami help blog.
The following tribute to Tsunami victims is written in Tamil.
- by Latha
Pirandha Pin Ninaitha Aayiram Aasaigal,
Arivu Thelindha Pin Artham Atru Pogalaam,
Arivu Mazhungi Aadai Inri Mannil Maraiyum Naal,
Aasaigal Artham Ketta Kelvigal Arthamaai Thonralaam
Vaazhvin Artham Edhil Dhaan Irukkiradhu
Annayin Paasathila, Iyarkayin Seetrathila
Illai Vaazhaikai Mudiyum Nodigalil Thonrum Seiyalatra Peedhiyila
Artham Atra Manidhanaai Vaazhavadhai Vida
Artham Thedi Alaiyum Aanmavai Iruppadhe Uyarvo?
This article, Bloggers step in to help tsunami victims, in Sify written by Catherine Hours of AFP talks about the Bloggers are getting into the relief efforts of the recent Tsunami attack.
Not only people from Chennai are helping in Tsunami relief but there are many others around India who are contributing the efforts.
Blogs however should not replace professional journalists, said Robert Thompson, who heads the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in New York state."But they are useful because they can do a lot of important work, they are very good at getting lots of information rapidly," he said.
The big news media organisations keep offices in large cities "but they can't be everywhere. The world of blogs means you get correspondents everywhere," he said.
The Tsunami that swept over the coastal parts of India has left behind scars that would never heal. Apart from the fear of epidemics caused due to de-composition of bodies floating in water and buried in sand, there are many unheard issues cropping. This incident reported in dailythanti was specially heartrending.
A family from Chennai had been to the Velankanni Church near Nagapattinam. And when the Tsunami swept the shores, this boy along with his parents was washed away. After the Tsunami attack, he was lying with other deadbodies in an unconscious state. By mistake he was supposed to be taken for mass burial with other deadbodies. Miraculously at that right moment, Praveen became conscious and blinked at the whole scene.
While this makes one think about the rescue operation's alertness, we also have to agree that the rescue workers are also working round the clock without food and sleep and it gets tough after sometime. With bodies coming up as they keep digging, it becomes a routine and strenuous. It's only a hope that such cases don't happen in the coming days.
Also rescue workers face the wrath of rain and deadly creatures floating on the water. Snakes and scorpions are said to be floating in the waters near Nagapattinam scaring the rescue workers and the public.
If you are in India now, you probably would be donating stuff for Tsunami hit areas of Tamil Nadu and other countries through your corporate houses or your apartment buildings.
Making Tsunami donations to one common place can do all the good for the simple reason, the controlling body will make sure the money and the other donations recieved are shared across with victims uniformly. Hence, I personally believe that all donations collected by smaller organisations should be diverted to the PM or CM Relief Fund which will act as the controlling body in distribution of relief funds to the victims.
Just in case, you are outside India and wish to donate money to the Tsunami victims, see the PM's National Relief Fund page for more details.
Rupya, a blog on stocks is accepting donations that originate from USA through Paypal.
Association for India's Development, Inc. (AID), a US-based voluntary non-profit development organization is also collecting donations for Tsunami victims. Donate
The Hindu is also collecting donations online called The Hindu Relief Fund, which can be paid by credit cards. Donate.
A blog has been setup for the Tsunami relief called The SEA-EAT blog. It's an effort to consolidate news and information about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts. [Via Kribs].
Update [31st Dec 2004] - Some more links to tsunami donation sites are added here.
Indian Red Cross Society. Indian Red Cross Society, National Head Quarters. Tele: 011-23716424 Fax: 011-23717454. Donate
American Red Cross Disaster Relief through Amazon.com. Donate.
Children account for one third of tsunami dead. UNICEF responds to disaster that struck Asia. Donate.
World Food Program. Donate.
[Click the picture for a bigger image]
NY Times Photo-essay on the Tsunami that hit Chennai and the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu. Images of heartrending pain.
Apocalypse visits Chennai. I hate to believe it happened. This one is a consolidated article on all the updates by New Indian Express on the coastal calamity.
A timely editorial on Tsunami from Hindu - Death from the sea.
Chronology : Tsunamis at Guardian.
BBC Reports - South India struck by quake waves.
22,000 and the count keeps increasing. Diaster Toll - Sri Lanka:11,000 dead, Indonesia: 4,500 dead, India: 3,500 dead, Thailand: 839 dead, Malaysia: 44 dead, Maldives: 32 dead, Burma: 30 dead, Bangladesh: 2 dead.
[Sea water flowing in Chennai roads. Pic: hindu.com]
So it happened and it happened just after all the newspapers and weeklies have bragged about the year that was. The most devastating incident happened during the last week of the year making people denounce new year celebration.
At 7:30 am on the Sun TV, it was officially announced that there was an earth quake at Chennai. From then on it was a roller coaster ride. People were seen on the streets talking and talking about the Chennai's second trembling earthquake. I switched to the sunday channel programs as usual. It was at 9:50 am when I recieved an SMS from my friend who said the sea water was flowing into the city and I thought it was just overstatement. And only when the Flash News started to roll, I believed. The first thing that stuck was the summer flick, The day after tomorrow.
At 10:30 am when I drafted the previous post, I had no clue that there will be such a huge impact. A reporter said Tsunami hits chennai on the NDTV news channel. Tsunami, what?. And Tsunami became the most used word of the year atleast here in Chennai/Tamil Nadu. I initally thought they had just a named the tremor attack like naming tornados in the US. I was completely wrong.
At 3:00 pm when I was at the Besant Nagar beach, there were around 3,000 people standing in the shores and watching the sea. The Earthquake and Tsunami at Chennai had taken thousands of lifes into the sea and it looked as peaceful as ever.
Over the Adayar bridge the water level has doubled, a sight that I have never personally seen before on that bridge. When I pulled my bike over the bridge, I could see a batches of huts that were half submerged in the water flow.
This is probably the most ravaging incident that hit Chennai and Tamil Nadu in the whole in my lifetime and as said in the previous post, this incident would be talked, blogged and narrated a thousand times in the years to come.
Intestingly Writer Sujatha's short story called Nagar Vallam[City Round-up] talks about a group of people visiting Chennai Triplicane on a boat because part of Chennai city is submerged over by the tidal waves. The come there by a boat to see the places where their fore-fathers lived. The story appeared on the Sci-Fi series written by Sujatha in Kalki weekly.
Here's is what wiki says about the Killer Tsunami
A tsunami (from Japanese ?? meaning wave in port) is one or a series of ocean surface waves that occur after a large earthquake (having a vertical component of movement), seaquake, volcanic activity, slumps, or meteorite impacts in or near the sea.In deep water, the energy of a tsunami is constant, a function of its height and speed. Thus, as the wave approaches land, its height increases while its speed decreases. A tsunami has a very long wave length (in the order of 100 km), which makes it act as a shallow-water wave. While in deep water a person at the surface of the water would probably not notice, the wave can increase to a height of 30 m and more as it approaches the coastline.
Tsunami prediction remains an imperfect science. Although the epicenter of a large underwater quake and the probable tsunami arrival times can be quickly calculated, it is almost always impossible to know whether massive underwater ground shifts have occurred, resulting in tsunami waves.
Here is more on 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.
The ground beneath my feet trembled. The place was shaking all over. My comp fell down from the table. The wall clock just slipped down to hit my head straight. It had 6:45 am on it's hands and it stopped. I just realised it was a earthquake and quickly opened the door and ran faster and faster. It shook and I rolled down the stairs. Down and Down. Rolling.
Well, that was just a an exaggeration. I could possibly have a nightmare of sorts today just like this one. But truly it trembled. Just a little.
One unassuming december sunday morning was going to be an unforgettable one, specially for the ones who lived in Chennai. As I was about to wake up, this morning it was a feeling that someone was just playing with the cot. There was a thin shake and it stayed for a while. Even before I realised it was a earthquake it was over. It lasted just for a minute before it died down taking away so many lives all over Asia alongwith it.
Was in Adyar today and took a stroll after the quake to see if I was the one who was insane to think it was a earthquake. I understood I wasn't alone. However, I didn't comprehend the loss until it was announced in the televisions. Had been to the Besant Nagar beach now to see what had happened to the Chennai's proud asset. The beach memorial where Chennai Blogger meets are held is just so close to the sea. The original shores aren't too be seen and the beaches(Marina, Besant Nagar, Santhome and Thiruvanmiyur) have become museum pieces. People are coming in hundreds to watch the sea take over the shores.
This title doesn't hold a connection to the day after tomorrow movie but the day before tomorrow(it's today...come on) will be remembered down the memory lane. Sometimes Headline News happens just beneath you without you realising it is one.