Mega Disaster

[mishalak]

I've read that a 9.0 Earthquake releases energy equivalent to a 60,000 megaton bomb and is about as large as they can get due to the strength of stone. I imagine not all that gets turned into wave energy. An Indian scientist was quoted as saying that the wave had about 4 megatons of energy. That's a heck of a lot power. It is simply unimaginable, not on a human scale at all. It becomes just a number, like hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless. Ten people dead are a tragedy. This event is a statistic.

I've read that there are some undersea landslide situations that could produce an even larger wave. Scary biscuits. Still this is one of those disasters. The ones that get written about in science fiction novels and no one really thinks about. Disaster movie type. There are nearly none that are bigger.

I'm not donating though. I'm unemployed and I suppose I still could, but I also remember what happened to the 9-11 donations.

Comments

[sraun]

IIRC, one of the other "big tsunami" scenarios happens when the Big Island (Hawaii proper) decides that the third that's sitting on a layer of sand is going to go sliding off. Makes for a big wave hitting California and the rest of the west coast of North & South America. I think it's even pointed in that direction.

That one is going to be scary - it probably happens so fast that anyone on the part of Hawaii that slides off is toast. Fortunately, there will be maximum possible warning for the West Coast - but that's still not much.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Fortunately in ongoing studies following the AD 2000 slip of the south slope of Kilauea found that while it could become unstable it was not yet so unstable that it would be a threat in the predictable future (the next century). This was, of course, not as widely publicized as the findings of others who predicted disaster was neigh. Also the collapse may not generate as large of waves (30 meters on the west coast) as previously predicted. Ongoing attempts are being made to find evidence of the tsunamis generated by the presumed large-scale prehistoric collapses to either confirm or deny the present models.

Of course none of this rules out undiscovered dangers suddenly revealing themselves. All that we can say for sure is there is no recorded tsunami of this scale in human history.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

but I also remember what happened to the 9-11 donations

A brief history, please...

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

In the gigantic 3 billion dollar flood of donations apparently quite a bit got used for other purposes or not used at all. About one third had never been used according to the charities themselves as of 2004.

In the year after September 11th the American Red Cross raised over half a billion. It decided that it was going to use just 100 million for disaster relief and was going to use the rest for other purposes until the public outcry started. They claimed to have spent 270 million by the end of 2002, but I've seen no accounting of what they actually used. The United Methodists raised 20 million and never actually used any of it to help victims.

And it went on and on. I suspect that again the relief money raised will be late in helping, if it gets there at all.

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I hadn't realized you were unemployed at the moment as well. A good reason not to donate.

However, there are groups that I will donate to when I have some 'spare' cash - Doctors without Borders for instance.

Good people, good causes, good work.

*hug*