Mindnumbing numbers coming from SE Asia
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Mindnumbing numbers coming from SE Asia
| Wed, 12-29-2004 - 8:50pm |
I have to talk about this because it's so huge.
| Wed, 12-29-2004 - 8:50pm |
I have to talk about this because it's so huge.
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At first I thought I was broke, then I thought, I'm sitting in my cushy house, whining about being broke, and millions of people have lost everything.
I donated $50 to the Canadian Red Cross.
Good for you!
Those people are definitly in my prayers. This tragedy really puts things in perspective. I think I am bad off because I didn't get a white christmas, how shallow am I!
Paula
i was just watching a special on it on ABC. it really is overwhelming, the actual event was horrendous enough, but it's mindblowing how difficult the aftermath is and is going to continue to be. there are still some places no one has been able to reach yet. it's incomprehensible. i was trying to picture how that many people can be dead so quickly. 100,000 people is like 20% of the entire population of DC.
i have to admit, part of what really gets me about this is that i can really identify with the horror of it. i know it's really terrible, but people always seem to be more affected by tragedy when it seems like something that they can imagine happening to them. i love beaches and wanted to go to phi phi someday (still do i guess?). i can totally picture what it must of been like being on the beach and how shocking it must be for this to happen so suddenly... then it was so random who lived and who died. families were sitting on the beach together and some lived and others were washed out to sea. children saw their parents swept away, and parents saw their children swept away. they showed video on ABC of people struggling to hold on to some rubble and some stayed on and others were pulled off. it was more horrifying than any horror movie.
someone said on a program i was watching about avalanches, that most humans see things in human terms, not on nature's terms. they look for meaning and reasons and a logical progression of events, and think there is a solution to every problem, but that's not how nature works, nature's terms are huge and random and everything can change in an instant and humans are an insignificant speck in the face of nature's power. this was certainly a demonstration of that on an enormous scale.
i hadn't written about it before, because i guess there isn't anything really to say about it, except it's really sad, and really horrifying, and really humbling.
Good for you--especially coming off a vacation.
Definitely--things like this always make me realize how lucky we are.
I didn't say anything before either, other than in passing for the same reason. But, then I thought if I posted how we could help and if it spurred even one person to donate, then that's one more person who gets drinking water or food or more.
This affects my work since I am an editor for a travel health company... I was really stressed yesterday and working late to get all the health-related tsunami precautions into our product, when I realized that if the only after-effect of the tsunamis for me is that I have to work an extra 5 hours, I should consider myself extremely blessed. I can't imagine how horrible it would be to experience this sort of natural disaster. Even if you survive, then begins the process of finding out if your loved ones lived, and then rebuilding your life from square 1.
i only watched about the first 15-20 minutes of the abc show. i thought it was pretty well done. they had footage i hadn't seen before, and first-hand accounts, both from westerners and from locals.
one thing that's come out of this, and it's pitiful, but true - i'm sure i'm not the only one who got a crash course education about what countries are where and which people live where in SE asia.
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