Enormous loss of Life

Med School Insiders
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Members do not see this ad.
From Russian site - Tsunami physics (not specific to recent one)

The phenomenon we call a tsunami is a series of extremely long waves with long period. These waves are primarily associated with earthquakes occurred under oceanic bottom or near coast. Volcanic eruptions, landslides, nuclear explosions and even outer space objects impacts can also generate tsunami. In the deep ocean tsunami speed can exceed 1000 km/hr , tsunami length from crest to crest may be a hundred kilometers or more while height may be only a few centimeters so people aboard cannot feel them.

When the tsunami enters the shoal parts of coastline, wave velocity rapidly diminishes and the wave height considerably increases. Just in these shallow waters tsunami becomes dangerous for life and property, its height may be from 30 up to 50 m or even more and tsunami strike becomes devastating. Tsunami is most dangerous for settlements situated inside V-shaped gulfs and bays when open part looks towards the ocean. In Kuril Isls 2-nd Kuril Strait (where Severo-Kurilsk is situated ) is similar to such bay. Great amount of water enters such bay striking coast and flooding rivers up to 2-3 km from coastline.
 
flash said:
the rich are to blame...missed that in my earlier post. Tragic loss of life, but libs so predictably look to blame.
Click to expand...

Haha... I don't think anyone is to blame, and unfortunately, all the tsunami-detecting technology in the world is probably descending upon this region now that it's too late. But they did interview this UN guy on CNN who said that first world nations donate 0.2% of their income for foreign humanitarian aid... that just blew me away. 0.2%?? We can do better than that. 🙁
 
I think its sad that so many people died needlessly. I mean if the tsunami were to go towards the main islands of Japan they would immediately know because of their state of the art technology and would be able to evacuate the area. But in poorer nations everyone is surprised by natural disasters.
 
Sometimes the people in this country really make me mad. If you look at the top AP headlines, it's "44k killed in Asia" and "supermodel killed in tsunami." 44000 people and one quasi celebrity get equal airtime??? errrg.
 
dopaminophile said:
Sometimes the people in this country really make me mad. If you look at the top AP headlines, it's "44k killed in Asia" and "supermodel killed in tsunami." 44000 people and one quasi celebrity get equal airtime??? errrg.
Click to expand...

who died? (by "who", i mean which supermodel).
 
dopaminophile said:
Sometimes the people in this country really make me mad. If you look at the top AP headlines, it's "44k killed in Asia" and "supermodel killed in tsunami." 44000 people and one quasi celebrity get equal airtime??? errrg.
Click to expand...
welcome to the world of mass communications. logic is discarded in favor of sensationalism. news companies have a product to sell, and if they need to be utterly silly to do so, many will comply.

that's just the way things work. its better to ignore it than let it bother you.
 
Didn't Nostradamus predict this would happen?
 
llort said:
Didn't Nostradamus predict this would happen?
Click to expand...
uh oh.. :scared: If the world ends before I can really enjoy life a bit more after med school/residency I will be pissed.
 
This thread would be an excellent way for adcoms to determine who should be a doctor or not. If anybody shows anything less than complete clothes-tearing horror and an immediate willingness to hop the next flight, then they clearly shouldn't be practicing medicine.

(And because this is pre-allo, I now need to state that I'm not serious, before 100% of pre-allo posters take it completely seriously, with 50% agreeing entirely with the above statement and the other 50% yelling at me for being self-righteous. Actually probably more like 70/30.)
 
sacrament said:
This thread would be an excellent way for adcoms to determine who should be a doctor or not. If anybody shows anything less than complete clothes-tearing horror and an immediate willingness to hop the next flight, then they clearly shouldn't be practicing medicine.

(And because this is pre-allo, I now need to state that I'm not serious, before 100% of pre-allo posters take it completely seriously, with 50% agreeing entirely with the above statement and the other 50% yelling at me for being self-righteous. Actually probably more like 70/30.)
Click to expand...

i dont understand your icon, can you please explain?? :meanie:
 
cooldreams said:
i dont understand your icon, can you please explain?? :meanie:
Click to expand...

Uhhh... that downward facing arrow on sacrament's avatar looks awfully wilted, does it not? And the caption reads, "useless to a woman"... Do you get it now? 😉
 
flash said:
uh oh.. :scared: If the world ends before I can really enjoy life a bit more after med school/residency I will be pissed.
Click to expand...

It seems as if these are signs towards the end of the world as we know it.
 
leechy said:
Uhhh... that downward facing arrow on sacrament's avatar looks awfully wilted, does it not? And the caption reads, "useless to a woman"... Do you get it now? 😉
Click to expand...

no not at all, gee, i am so naive... :meanie:
 
flash said:
uh oh.. :scared: If the world ends before I can really enjoy life a bit more after med school/residency I will be pissed.
Click to expand...

and that is what it is all about isnt it? 🙄

meanwhile, 60000 people's world has ended......
 
flash said:
uh oh.. :scared: If the world ends before I can really enjoy life a bit more after med school/residency I will be pissed.
Click to expand...

In all honesty I must admit back when I was a paranoid young religious zealot this thought terrified me....and then I felt guilty for having the thought -- lovely circle.
 
MedicineBird said:
In all honesty I must admit back when I was a paranoid young religious zealot this thought terrified me....and then I felt guilty for having the thought -- lovely circle.
Click to expand...


if you truely were, the pattern of thought would have been,

"i was a young religious zealot, and this thought about the world ending was the coolest thing, and i never worried because i knew i was going to heaven"

😀
 
cooldreams said:
if you truely were, the pattern of thought would have been,

"i was a young religious zealot, and this thought about the world ending was the coolest thing, and i never worried because i knew i was going to heaven"

😀
Click to expand...

I felt that way before I started having goals for my life -- then the paranoia---then the guilt -- then the relief when I finally truly realized that there is nothing I can do but live life the best I can and to its fullest. This realization is made even more poigniant by the recent events in S. Asia. You never know when your number is going to be called. Reasonless guilt and paranoia serve only to stifle and paralyze preventing us from reaching the full potential instilled in us.
 
whoever made the comment about this being insignificant - did you feel sad at all about 9/11? 3000 people died then, about the same as due to heart attacks according to you. so this is like 7 or 8 9/11's happening in 1 day. still feel nonchalant about it?

it's so wierd - i just finished reading "state of fear" by crichton, and it deals with something very similar to this, something very sinister...it's so surreal that it happened when it did...
 
CaptainJack02 said:
whoever made the comment about this being insignificant - did you feel sad at all about 9/11? 3000 people died then, about the same as due to heart attacks according to you. so this is like 7 or 8 9/11's happening in 1 day. still feel nonchalant about it?
Click to expand...

Every day approximately 150,000 people die in the world. Some days more, some days less. Some of them die of cancer, some are murdered, some fall off a ladder, some are killed in a tsunami. This event was merely a concentration of the misery and demise that is constantly occuring in every corner of the world, in every imaginable way. A case could be made that it was a horrible tragedy. Another case could be made that it is the cold omnipresent reality of human existence.
 
Hey INDO...it's 52,000 now. Among them are injured and homeless. I'm a fourth year med student who wanted to give some tips, hence my appearance on this forum. Here's one...you can't become a cardiologist or CT surgeon unless you have a brain to comprehend tragedy beyond the normal daily death rates......Good luck in med school, it's painful for people who don't give a damn about humans.
 
sacrament said:
Every day approximately 150,000 people die in the world. Some days more, some days less. Some of them die of cancer, some are murdered, some fall off a ladder, some are killed in a tsunami. This event was merely a concentration of the misery and demise that is constantly occuring in every corner of the world, in every imaginable way. A case could be made that it was a horrible tragedy. Another case could be made that it is the cold omnipresent reality of human existence.
Click to expand...

Then perhaps it is a reflection on us and how little we consider others and what we could do to help personally and scientifically to improve the human condition. Or then again perhaps we should get rid of the medical profession altogether and live as all of the other animals do with survival of the fittest and natural selection as our supreme laws.

I have heard it said that events like this and diseases like AIDS are part of a sort of planetary immune system. Thoughts?
 
Daniella said:
Hey INDO...it's 52,000 now. Among them are injured and homeless. I'm a fourth year med student who wanted to give some tips, hence my appearance on this forum. Here's one...you can't become a cardiologist or CT surgeon unless you have a brain to comprehend tragedy beyond the normal daily death rates......Good luck in med school, it's painful for people who don't give a damn about humans.
Click to expand...

Actually it's probably less painful.
 
Daniella said:
Hey INDO...it's 52,000 now. Among them are injured and homeless. I'm a fourth year med student who wanted to give some tips, hence my appearance on this forum. Here's one...you can't become a cardiologist or CT surgeon unless you have a brain to comprehend tragedy beyond the normal daily death rates......Good luck in med school, it's painful for people who don't give a damn about humans.
Click to expand...

Perhaps he'd like a career as a medical examiner?
 
sacrament said:
This thread would be an excellent way for adcoms to determine who should be a doctor or not. If anybody shows anything less than complete clothes-tearing horror and an immediate willingness to hop the next flight, then they clearly shouldn't be practicing medicine.

(And because this is pre-allo, I now need to state that I'm not serious, before 100% of pre-allo posters take it completely seriously, with 50% agreeing entirely with the above statement and the other 50% yelling at me for being self-righteous. Actually probably more like 70/30.)
Click to expand...
👍
 
In some ways, I relate to what some posters have said and been ridiculed for. We are all going to die in some way, shape, or form. How then, is this loss of life any more tragic?

But in a sense, it is tragic. It is tragic in that somewhere, a child has lost his parents. Or a mother has lost her baby. Those objects--no beings of our own flesh and products of our own love--to which we had given so much of ourself to, to which we had entrusted with so much, are now gone.

So many times I hear people ask what I perceive as the wrong question: how could this have happened?

And yet our very existence is a gift. I doubt any of us would choose to have never been born. And there will come a day when each of us will no longer receive the gift of another day.

I think this sort of an event is a call to our purpose in life: to give ourselves, to embrace others, and to find happiness in each day, even realizing our own frailty. Out of this wreckage will emerge stories of love enduring. Families will reconvene, will begin anew. Hope will be restored, and yet the losses will not be forgetten, simply because we have loved.

We have been given much. All of it can be taken away in an instant, all but the remnants of our love, our hopes, and our faith. And until that day, events such as these are reminders of what we are called into this earth to be, to do, and what truly matters.

Sappy? Yes. But in my eyes, true.
 
freaker said:
In some ways, I relate to what some posters have said and been ridiculed for. We are all going to die in some way, shape, or form. How then, is this loss of life any more tragic?

But in a sense, it is tragic. It is tragic in that somewhere, a child has lost his parents. Or a mother has lost her baby. Those objects--no beings of our own flesh and products of our own love--to which we had given so much of ourself to, to which we had entrusted with so much, are now gone.
Click to expand...

It's a collection of commonplace tragedy all collected in one place, at one time, so we can see it more clearly. It should be a reminder of the tragedy inherent in every ugly day rather than a transient focus on a single event.

So many times I hear people ask what I perceive as the wrong question: how could this have happened?

And yet our very existence is a gift. I doubt any of us would choose to have never been born. And there will come a day when each of us will no longer receive the gift of another day.

I think this sort of an event is a call to our purpose in life: to give ourselves, to embrace others, and to find happiness in each day, even realizing our own frailty. Out of this wreckage will emerge stories of love enduring. Families will reconvene, will begin anew. Hope will be restored, and yet the losses will not be forgetten, simply because we have loved.

We have been given much. All of it can be taken away in an instant, all but the remnants of our love, our hopes, and our faith. And until that day, events such as these are reminders of what we are called into this earth to be, to do, and what truly matters.

Sappy? Yes. But in my eyes, true.
Click to expand...

I agree with your post.
 
just an update: as of Tuesday night the death toll is at 68,000 and some countries have stopped counting.
 
MedicineBird said:
I felt that way before I started having goals for my life -- then the paranoia---then the guilt -- then the relief when I finally truly realized that there is nothing I can do but live life the best I can and to its fullest. This realization is made even more poigniant by the recent events in S. Asia. You never know when your number is going to be called. Reasonless guilt and paranoia serve only to stifle and paralyze preventing us from reaching the full potential instilled in us.
Click to expand...

perhaps, but as a "zealot" you would entrust God with your life, and your selffish goals always come second to honoring God. 😀

why would you have guilt as a zealot? you live by God's will. you may end up sinning and such, but you are a zealot and are therefore repentant. you have nothing to worry about.
 
MedicineBird said:
I felt that way before I started having goals for my life -- then the paranoia---then the guilt -- then the relief when I finally truly realized that there is nothing I can do but live life the best I can and to its fullest. This realization is made even more poigniant by the recent events in S. Asia. You never know when your number is going to be called. Reasonless guilt and paranoia serve only to stifle and paralyze preventing us from reaching the full potential instilled in us.
Click to expand...

good post 👍
 
freaker said:
In some ways, I relate to what some posters have said and been ridiculed for. We are all going to die in some way, shape, or form. How then, is this loss of life any more tragic?

But in a sense, it is tragic. It is tragic in that somewhere, a child has lost his parents. Or a mother has lost her baby. Those objects--no beings of our own flesh and products of our own love--to which we had given so much of ourself to, to which we had entrusted with so much, are now gone.

So many times I hear people ask what I perceive as the wrong question: how could this have happened?

And yet our very existence is a gift. I doubt any of us would choose to have never been born. And there will come a day when each of us will no longer receive the gift of another day.

I think this sort of an event is a call to our purpose in life: to give ourselves, to embrace others, and to find happiness in each day, even realizing our own frailty. Out of this wreckage will emerge stories of love enduring. Families will reconvene, will begin anew. Hope will be restored, and yet the losses will not be forgetten, simply because we have loved.

We have been given much. All of it can be taken away in an instant, all but the remnants of our love, our hopes, and our faith. And until that day, events such as these are reminders of what we are called into this earth to be, to do, and what truly matters.

Sappy? Yes. But in my eyes, true.
Click to expand...

wow, what a poignant, compassionate post; I totally agree, but you said it so well 👍
 
sacrament said:
It's a collection of commonplace tragedy all collected in one place, at one time, so we can see it more clearly. It should be a reminder of the tragedy inherent in every ugly day rather than a transient focus on a single event.
Click to expand...
I agree with this entirely... it's a matter of quantity and concentration that makes it stand out to us. Tragedy is an integral part of existence.
 
cooldreams said:
perhaps, but as a "zealot" you would entrust God with your life, and your selffish goals always come second to honoring God. 😀

why would you have guilt as a zealot? you live by God's will. you may end up sinning and such, but you are a zealot and are therefore repentant. you have nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...

Then perhaps I am a bit more selfish these days. At any rate this is not a discussion about whether or not I am/was a zealot as defined by a dictionary. It is about concern for our fellow man.
 
MedicineBird said:
In all honesty I must admit back when I was a paranoid young religious zealot this thought terrified me....and then I felt guilty for having the thought -- lovely circle.
Click to expand...

MedicineBird said:
Then perhaps I am a bit more selfish these days. At any rate this is not a discussion about whether or not I am/was a zealot as defined by a dictionary. It is about concern for our fellow man.
Click to expand...

oh... ok so are you trying to say "ignore what i said about my being a zealot because it doesnt hold up to scrutiny" or ... what? 😀 :meanie:
 
cooldreams said:
oh... ok so are you trying to say "ignore what i said about my being a zealot because it doesnt hold up to scrutiny" or ... what? 😀 :meanie:
Click to expand...

Cooldreams- ENOUGH! note the words "BACK WHEN I WAS....". You are neither my judge nor my jury. Leave it alone. I thank you for your concern for my soul. Now keep it to yourself.
 
MedicineBird said:
Cooldreams- ENOUGH! note the words "BACK WHEN I WAS....". You are neither my judge nor my jury. Leave it alone. I thank you for your concern for my soul. Now keep it to yourself.
Click to expand...

touchy touchy 😱 ... im just trying to be helpful 😉 😀
 
What's a zealot?
 
Khenon said:
What's a zealot?
Click to expand...

I always thought it was a sort of religious extremist. For instance a zealot might say: "those 70,000 were killed because, as Hindus and Muslims, they believe in a heathen god. They had it coming to them. This is God's vengence. So glad I have my chartered chariot to heaven." etc. I dunno
 
Khenon said:
What's a zealot?
Click to expand...

the term zealot began with jews who were fighting against the roman empire occupation of their people, and they themselves typically died in this pursuit. it has basically come to be known as a person who appears to be extremist in their beliefs and actions in religion, as compared to secular people.

it could also mean a person who is fighting very hard for a cause that most people see as useless....

dictionary.com:

zealot

"n 1: a member of an ancient Jewish sect in Judea in the first century who fought to the death against the Romans and who killed or persecuted Jews who collaborated with the Romans [syn: Zealot] 2: a fervent and even militant proponent of something"
 
acl3623 said:
wow. some of those videos and pictures are incredibly frightening. i cant imagine what people over there must be going through..
Click to expand...

can you imagine waiting to see if the ocean spits the body of your loved one back up on shore?! I saw a lady on the news last night who lost her husband and 4 children. They were sucked out to sea, her littlest swept right out of her arms. She has only found the body of her 4 year old. There was another mother who lost 11 children.
 
MedicineBird said:
There was another mother who lost 11 children.
Click to expand...

Oh my God! I heard another story about someone who had his baby in his arms as he was escaping the waves, only to discover once he reached safety that the baby had slipped through his arms and he was only holding the baby's clothes. There are countless stories just like that one.
🙁
 
evajaclynn said:
Oh my God! I heard another story about someone who had his baby in his arms as he was escaping the waves, only to discover once he reached safety that the baby had slipped through his arms and he was only holding the baby's clothes. There are countless stories just like that one.
🙁
Click to expand...

There are also happy stories though - like the little boy from Sweeden(?) who was washed up on a deserted beach and found after 2 days by 2 American tourists and taken to his grandmother in a hospital. Of course his parents are nowhere to be found.....

EDIT: I saw on this evening's news that his father survived and in in a hospital. They reunited the 2 year old child with his father but his mother is still among the missing.
 
Miracles and tragedies.... 🙁 I hope aid reaches everyone.. especially the people in the remote areas!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

A
"Guaranteed quality of life" and attrition
Replies
7
Views
1K
lioneljohn
L
I
I genuinely, for the life of me, cannot figure out my diversity essay. Please help :(
Replies
3
Views
634
AsclepiusAdvisingLLC
AsclepiusAdvisingLLC
E
SDN Article: The Meaning of Life: Finding Insights in the Humanities
Replies
0
Views
652
Emil Chuck
E
R
Life experiences Perelman
Replies
0
Views
568
ris11
R
E
Questions about Letter of Interest vs. Update Letter
Replies
1
Views
455
Goro
Goro
Top