[nagi] water, water everywhere & not a drop to drink

met chris baines for a pint on monday evening and by then, the death toll had crossed 3000 each in india and sri lanka, 1500 in indonesia and 200 in thailand. 24 hours later, all these counts have been reworked many times – and i am sure we do not have the final word. as of this morning, we have 70,000 dead in total and still counting. entire provinces in sumatra have been wiped out. andaman and nicobar islands, part of india, are home to 7 indigenous tribes and it is feared entire tribes have been dealt with by this tsunami. there are 500 odd islands in the andaman & nicobar archipelago – 250 if you count during high tide. before the Tsunami hits the coast, water recedes rapidly building up what is called the wall. when this wall hit maldives, the report says, they were on average 7 feet high. bear in mind the maldives are about 3000 kms away. imagine what it would have been when it hit the andaman islands just 500 kms away? luckily for malaysia, if you see an atlas map, sumatra is its natural shield as sumatra took the brunt of what would have expanded to the east.

only the poorest of the poor suffer, as luck would have it. i read this report on rediff.com about the UN teams having reached thailand, sri Lanka, indonesia and the maldives – but none to india as india has not sought any assistance. read the article [here]. this is fair enough. india these days are a "limited" aid donor though the country is still poor. we are mostly self-sufficient and are able to handle most of what can happen. india has sent a few shiploads of food and medicinal drugs to sri Lanka and the maldives. it is what a neighbour must do although we are a poor nation. please recall that india itself has suffered from this natural calamity. so, it is not that india is proud these days to accept aid, it is just that there are several others who need it more than india would at this point. a fair point made.

we see oodles of charity organisations, CAFOD, Oxfam, Red Cross, Unicef etc. etc. pleading with people to give generously. EU, japan and the USA, usual donors, and others like china, india, iran, and qatar apportioning generous amounts to victims all around.

in deep water, the tsunamis are no more than ½ a feet tall and no ship on its way would distinguish it. seismometers register the event and clever bits of software perform calculations based on depth of the ocean, temperature and the intensity of the quake. with these parameters, we can determine the speed of the tsunami and with the knowledge that a ripple expands equally in all directions in a circular format; we can sketch and ascertain who and what will be at risk. i will be donating some money to CAFOD this weekend. i received a lot of calls from my friends all around the world enquiring if our kith and kin in the affected areas are fine. i am very pleased really to hear their concerns and even more pleased to confirm that everyone close to monica & i are safe. in addition to this, fazal telephoned from maldives saying he & and his family are keeping well thus putting my concerns to rest.

happy new year for all our readers.

two more weeks before delivery. things are looking up. work is going good. i have frozen my first set of codes after module testing. still loads more work to do, but manageable really. i and monica have decided a name for the baby. we will, ofcourse, let you know in a couple of weeks :-)