BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Tsumani kills thousands in Asia

I could not ignore these terrible news from Asia where thousands of people died in tsunami. We all need to pray for them, it is still Christmas season, Today it is St. Stephan (Szczepan) day in Poland, the second day of Christmas.

Usually after each earthquake there is the aftermath so lets see where the earthquake would strike now.

Jaga,

Yes, this is a big disaster, and there are a lot of comaptriots among the
victims I think, because a lot of Western tourists are among the dead,
wounded and missing.
I read Haaretz newsletter today, and it said that hundreds of Israeli's are
missing.
The Israeli's send helpteams to Thailand and Sri Lanka. Other
helporganisations like Red Cross and Western countries will send help to. In
Thailand, Sri Lanka and India a lot of tourists were hit by the storm.

I read in the Haaretz article that sunbathers, babies and fishermen (who
often live on beaches in houses made of palms) were draged into the sea by
the huge waves.

It must have been a terrible, frightning and devastating experiance for
survivors.
Seeing your loved ones disappearing in the water or see them dying or dead.
I saw the families mourning next to the dead bodies of their familymemebers.
Yes praining is the best think we can do for these poor fisherman families
and tourist families.

Pieter

The Haaretz article:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/519287.html

Pieter,

thanks so much for the update. I still remember when I was a girl, we went for vacations somewhere near the big water reservoir. Then, I get in my hand the article about tsunami. I could not sleep the half night there thinking that the lake can suddenly produce the big wave and kill us. Of course my fears were pointless but still... this is a big disaster. It seems that at least 15,000 people are dead. The pope also appealed for the help!

My mothyer was caught in a Polish river in swirling water in her youth. Luckily she used the right technique to survive. She let herself been taken down, and then swam upstairs as quickly as she could.
It was a scarry experiance, which could have costed her life. It is one of the few moments in her life that she escaped from death in Poland.

Poland had years back two big waterfloods!
So Poland knows like those people in Asia and in Holland (the Water emergancy disaster of 1953, which
flooded several provinces and costed a few thousand people their lives. Especially in the coastal area where my parents live right now, Sealand).
In the comming century the Netherlands will have a waterproblem again, due to the global heating and the climate changing as a result of that.
Large parts of the country lie under sealevel.

Pieter

I just saw the six 'o clock news, Duch tourists returning from Thailand and other destinations.
One women was caugth by one of the big waves and
buried under rubble. Above the rubbel was the incomming ocean. She said she thought she was dead,
no chance to survive with that amount of things (water and rubble on you). She survived. Mothers with little children saw people dying after the big wave struck. Emotional scenes on Schiphol airpoirt where families were reunited. I hope these people (especially the children) get good medical help, especially mental.
Is there any news about Americans, Poles, Germans
or Russians in the region, Jaga, Skeeterj, Frank, Karl, Carl and Eric?

Pieter

1700 hundred Swedes are missing.
Phuket in Thailand is very popular under Swedes
and other Scandinavians.
The Duch TV said that the amount of victims of the sea
eathquake may rise to 50 thousand.
The situation on the Indonesia Island Sumatra, in Aceh
is desperate. 7.400 bodies were found and taken care for. The danger is that rotting corpses may poison the water supplies for the populations of Aceh, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. Under Duch tourist were already two victims identified, a girl and a women, said an employee of the Duch embassy in Bangkok this morning. 13 other Duch citizens stil missing in Thailand. France confirmed that there were 6 french dead, and 16 missing. 15 Brittons and 10 Germans died. The Swedish ministry of Foreign affairs speaks of many thousands missing Swedes.

Clearing away the corpses is now the most important task of the local authorities and the Rescue organisations (Non Governmental organisations like the Red Cross, Docters without borders and the United Nations organisations), because one has to avoid infectuois viruses and deseases.

Pieter

Absolutely horrifying. The numbers of dead keep increasing on the news. It is so horrifying that I don't know what to say.

Pieter,

thanks for the update. I had no idea about so many Swedes missing, they were just showing one boy who survived.

This is just plain horrible! I am sorry to hear about your mother, I am glad that nothing reallyhappened. The rivers in Poland can be treacherous.
As for floods we do have it in Poland from time to time, I guess, the biggest one was recently at the end of 90-es in the South.

When I was a young girl we went for vacations to the mountains, it was raining for a week and later we could not get out becuase the closest bridge was broken. We had to walk somewhere quite far... imagine, my parents never had a car and this was a small village!

Swedish and German deaths soaring
By Connie Levett, Herald Correspondent in Phuket
December 30, 2004

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More than 1000 Swedes and Germans are missing, feared dead, as the death toll in Thailand continues to mount.

One Swedish tour company, Fritidsresor, has 600 people it cannot account for. Another, MyTravel, has 297 Swedes missing, according to Swedish newspaper reports.

Hundreds of German tourists are also missing.

The devastated Khao Lak area, 90 minutes north of Phuket, had a strong representation of both nationalities.

Many of the resorts were old-style bungalows on the beach that were crushed by the force of the tsunami.

There were no bungalows left standing when the Herald visited the beach on Tuesday.

"We have 10 confirmed dead," said Peter Finger, the press spokesman for the German embassy. "But frankly we believe it will go much higher. We have a hot spot in Khao Lak where we have a lot of Germans missing. It could be anything from 80 to 600. I fear we will have very bad news in the next few days."

There were 4500 Germans holidaying in the affected region when the tsunami struck. There were 10,000 to 15,000 Swedes.

The growing concern about the number of missing came as rumours circulated that Thais had started cremating bodies in the temple morgues close to Khao Lak.

"I do hope not," Mr Finger said. "People have to be identified. If this is happening, it would be a disaster on top of a disaster."

A spokesman for the British embassy said he had also heard the cremation rumours.

"We have been encouraging the Thais not to cremate Western bodies," he said.

The Governor of Phuket, Udomsak Asvarangkool, on Tuesday denied that cremations have taken place.

Forensic teams from Germany arrived yesterday and Swedish teams are due to arrive today.

"I don't think they [the Swedish Government] understood how big it was. At first they said the Government can't do anything. It's the travel agencies' job," said Eva Nordin, who is running a Swedish volunteer support centre at the Pearl Hotel in Phuket town.

The lobby of the hotel is filled with blank Nordic faces, many of whom appear to be still in shock.

More than 100 Swedes are being billeted close to the airport in a newly built villa development owned by a Swedish Thai couple.

In one room there was a man who had lost his wife, her sister and his parents-in-law. Beside him at the table were a couple who had lost both their teenage daughters.

There were also 513 New Zealanders in the region when the wave hit on Sunday and 122 are listed as still missing.

"These are people that we know were in the region affected by the tsunami and we cannot account for," said Sarah Craig, New Zealand's deputy ambassador to Thailand. "Thailand and Malaysia are where the bulk of our tourists come in this region," she said.

Ms Craig stressed that the figures were changing continually and there was still a lot of uncertainty about the final numbers.

The British death toll stood at 11 yesterday but there were thousands of tourists in the area and hundreds remain unaccounted for.

"What worries us is that complete families may have been killed and then there is no one to call," a British embassy spokesman said.

Seven American citizens are already confirmed dead and hundreds are still listed as missing, according to information from the US embassy.

Up to eight Filipinos are believed to have died at resort beaches, Agence France-Presse stated. Many other nations have also lost citizens.