10:22 p.m. - 2004-12-27
Deepest Sympathies
an undersea earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 that occured in the Indian Ocean caused massive tidal waves to strike several countries around the Bay of Bengal, and as far as Somalia, Seychelles and the eastern coast of Africa.
over 24,000 people are dead across the 8 countries directly affected, 11,000 of them from Sri Lanka, where i lived for 19 years. these figures are expected to rise since there are thousands more still missing.
God granted me a miracle by sparing my neighborhood. see, we live like 5 mins away from the sea.. things could have easily gone bad, after all the neighboring towns on either side have been quite badly affected. so thank you God for protecting my home, family and friends...
but there are still others i am worried about. Shiyana's folks live in the Maldives, another friend has family in Sri Lanka where the waves hit.
i truly hope this will be a sort of wake up call for all those warring countries to put aside their war-mongering agendas and work together to help all those affected by this... because no matter how much people try to kill each other with this gadget or another, they will never be as strong as the forces of nature
after all, it took only one surge of water to sweep away entire communities of people...
i know new years eve is coming.. and i know alot of people will be partying and enjoying themselves, but please people.. think of all those in mourning, the victims, their families, those missing, those homeless... please people.. it'll only cost you about 5 minutes to say a small prayer to whatever God(s) you pray to, to give all these people comfort and peace and to keep them safe from further harm.
what you see and here on the news is only a small part of the chaos.. seeing it on the tv or newspapers doesnt do it justice... all those villages and resorts in Sri Lanka that are now gone, i've been to them several times. i know first-hand exactly what is lost...poor fishing and farming communities.
those of you in first-world countries, please appeal to your heads of state or whatever to send help, not only to Sri Lanka, but to all those countries affected... they're all third world countries whose people have never been through anything like this before. these people dont even know what insurance is... their homes are destroyed...
the bodies of their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters are washing up on the shores everyday - if they are lucky. the bodies of little children line the beaches... and for those who are lucky to be alive, they have nothing, not even clean drinking water...
my mom works at the airport and she comes home with the stories of survivors, some of whome have seen their loved ones swept away by the waves... its not pretty, its not pleasant.
there's alot of pain and suffering in this part of the world right now... please dont forget that as you get ready to party
