20 years since the Asian Tsunami

It happened on December 26.

Oh sorry, 19 years and 11 months...

This thread is a failure.

Footage which shows the actual impact. Scary.

And that interior designer Oprah loves boyfriend was swept right out of their hotel room. Awful.

Now I'm blanking on the names of the reality TV famous gay guy and his boyfriend, who were the subject of dozens of DL threads after the tragedy. I recall the boyfriend drowned and the C-list famous gay guy went on TV afterward talking about it.

r6 Nate Berkus

Can you imagine the feeling of realizing - holy shit - that's not a normal wave!

And it just keeps coming.

I recall seeing video of cars trying to out run it but failed.

The bes…um worst thing that ever happened to my career…um me.

R5 Nate named his son, Oskar. Middle name of partner lost in tsunami.

One of the more cynical stories from this dreadful event was the "Sophie's Choice of the Tsunami," the Australian woman (a.k.a. "Tsunami Mum") who had to choose which one of her kids to save from the monster wave (spoiler alert: they both lived).

While obviously a relief that the kids lived, and probably not the first/only time people have been forced to think fast in a bad situation with unknowable consequences, who the hell would willingly put a story like that out there?

"BTW, Junior, faced with a choice of whether to save you or your brother--guess who I picked?"

This was beyond imagining. The number of dead and injured really was staggering.

The film "The Impossible" depicts this tragic event. Naomi Watts looking gorgeous but beaten up. Tom Holland playing one of her sons. It's fierce.

i remember that movie. it was good but rough to watch.

Nate's BF came across like an insta whore anyway. If it wasn't the Tsunami would have been Covid or Monkeypox. Either way Nate would have profited from it.

Just started watching the Netflix series on the Tsunami with new video and interviews with survivors. I can;t believe people went through that

R18, I just watched it. National Geographic produced it and it's both heart-wrenching and uplifting.

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary

I’ve always heard it referred to as the Boxing Day Tsunami rather than the Asian Tsunami that racist OP refers to it as.

Why does the phrase 'Supermodels in trees' come to mind?

An English schoolgirl saw the water and recognized it as described in a school lesson about tsunamis. She told her family she was headed for higher ground. A Japanese vacationer who spoke English overheard the word tsunami and concurred, saying there'd been an earthquake. The people at that beach survived without major injury.

Is this the one where Nate Berkus was able to offload his beau for a new one?

Me love you long time r21. Sucky fucky sucky fucky!

R24, yes.

Apparently the corrugated metal so common in Thai roofs/structures became a true weapon of destruction.

I can’t believe in all the videos you never see a body floating by.

R28, I believe that a lot of photos and footage have been scrubbed from the internet.

This documentary has footage I've never seen before, including video from inside the actual Galle train which would go on to be the worst rail disaster in history.

what netflix documentary R18?

R30, if R18 is referring to "Tsunami: Race Against Time," it's available on Hulu, not Netflix.

The first episode is also available on Youtube.

R28, some of the flooding is so fast and violent that you’d have to look very closely to see bodies

Thanks for that link r31.

I remember leaving work a few days after this event, walking out with my semi-new, narcissistic boss. Trying to make non-controversial conversation, I commented on the current death count and how tragic the whole situation was. She replied: “Yes, Larry (her husband) and I were planning on going snorkeling in Phuket but now we won’t be able to go.”

True story. I $h!t you not.

R34, had the Indian Ocean Tsunami happened to the U.S., we would never hear the end of it.

I'm glad phones with HD cams weren't around then yet. Imagine thousands of horrific images and videos we'd see if they were.

I've watched a lot of videos from the Japan 2011 tsunami and never saw a body.

If you're trapped in that wave you're probably not bobbing around on "top" of the wave. Unless you're a strong swimmer, you're pretty quickly sucked under.

R37, whenever one of the cameras inadvertently captured people struggling in water or about to be inundated, the Japanese cameramen quickly panned away. I think it's cultural for them.

Some societies are truly civil, R38. In the US, citizens would rather get the footage and post it first than help save a drowning person.

The tsunami was caused by a 9.1 earthquake. People in Indonesia said elephants were running away before people felt it.

This is a visual that shows how it's difficult to detect a tsunami since the waves only become large near the coast. (Click for full image)

In this tsunami, the majority of victims were women and children; in Japan, it was elderly.

[quote] in Japan, it was elderly.

Yeah, that shocked me, I don't know why.

Japan is old as shit. That's what happens when you have 0% immigration.

iNews (Indonesian News Station) has released the following footage of the earthquake and tsunami, in real time, as it happened. WARNING: difficult to watch, but this really drives home how quickly things went from normal to total calamity.

The water was so black that day.

[quote] Japan is old as shit. That's what happens when you have 0% immigration.

Tsunamis?

There's about a 25% chance of this happening to the Pacific NW within the next 50 years.

WA state is planning accordingly.

Not really, r48. Unless things have changed drastically in the 9 1/2 years since this was written.

[quote]Japan is old as shit. That's what happens when you have 0% immigration.

No, that's what happens when your population eats healthy. In Japan, the elderly are revered by their families. In the US, the elderly run for office.

R49, I was basing those numbers off this AMA (Ask Me Anything) of Pacific NW U.S. earthquake experts. This information is also 2 years-old. Not sure if any info has changed since then. BTW, that entire thread is actually enlightening and frightening but should be required reading for anybody in that region.

[quote] We are well aware that this is a major hazard for the entire Pacific Northwest, and you need to be aware of it. The understanding that if you live in this area, even if you're on the far eastern side of WA, OR, or British Columbia, an earthquake and tsunami on the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ)would dramatically change your life, just in terms of damage to infrastructure (Power systems, roads, water/wastewater, supply chains ... everything).

[quote] The Earthquake itself, and the following tsunami will be extremely dangerous. But the message we really want to emphasize - you CAN survive these events. Everything you do now to get prepared for them significantly increases those odds though.

[quote] Knowing how to protect yourself during 5 minutes+ of intense earthquake shaking is critical. ...consider that you'll need to know this for months of (smaller, but still dangerous) aftershocks, too.

[quote] Knowing whether you're in a tsunami inundation zone, and how you'll get to high ground - absolutely vital.

[quote] A potential earthquake on the CSZ is just a reality of living here. There's a 15-25% chance it will happen in the next 50 years. There's also a chance it won't happen in our lifetimes. But if there's a 25% chance of rain... packing a raincoat is the smart thing to do.

The reddit thread it's from:

[quote] Japan is old as shit.

R44, true. And many of the countries affected in 2004 have some crazy % of their population being 18 and under.