| I have to admit that the tsunami has gripped my attention. I haven't really been able to pay attention to much else since it happened. As far as I'm concerned, this makes 9/11 look like a bad mugging. How could you not think that? One report says that 125,282 people (so far) are dead. 5 million others are without basic needs, such as drinking water, food or shelter. That's simply unfathomable. Here's a photo that I retrieved from DigitalGlobe. It shows the shoreline of Banda Aceh in Indonesia. The first picture is from June 23, 2004 and the second is from December 28, 2004, two days after the tsunami. This is a small part of a province in Indonesia. There are estimates that 400,000 could have died in this single province. Whole cities have been wiped from existence. No one's been able to get there to tell for sure, but some flights over towns/villages/cities and the like have, in some instances, shown no signs of life. You can understand how that's possible, thanks to a before and after image like this:
I apologize to those that still have a dial-up connection because that's a relatively big image, but I thought that any less detail than that would be taking away from the images. What's most amazing about those images to me is that there are whole sections of that island just flat-out missing. Can you imagine half of your block just going away? Of course, if estimates are correct, there's no one left to care or notice that their homes are gone.One of the most bizarre things I've heard about this is that they haven't really found scores of dead animals. The general consensus is that the animals fled to higher ground beforehand. I don't remember anyone questioning God after 9/11, but I have after this. How could God allow something like this to happen? What did we do to upset Him? Like I said, 9/11 was a bad mugging in comparison. I wish you all a very safe and Happy New Year. |
