Experts Fear Burma Was Battered

[Chicago Democrat]

Experts Fear Burma Was Battered
Restricted Access, Reclusive Rulers Hamper Assessments in South

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 3, 2005; Page A08

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Jan. 2 -- The tsunami last week probably killed more people in the southernmost area of Burma than were reported dead by the country's ruling military junta, but the region has not been independently surveyed because of tightly restricted access, experts say.

A team from Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross hopes this week to tour the islands off the country's southern coast in the Andaman Sea, where damage is believed to be great. A U.N. team also is trying to survey southern Burma. "I think it's very reasonable to assume that there's been quite significant death and destruction caused by the tsunami in Burma, just as it has elsewhere," said Tony Banbury, the World Food Program's regional director in Asia.

Burmese officials have reported that 53 people were killed across the country, which has 1,650 miles of coast on the Indian Ocean. In comparison, two of Burma's neighbors, Thailand and India, each lost thousands. And in Indonesia, 94,081 are confirmed dead.

Steven N. Ward, a geophysicist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, created a computer model of the earthquake that triggered the tsunami. According to the model, southern Burma "should have been hit equally" as hard as southern Thailand, he said.

rest at....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43018-2005Jan2.html

[Chicago Democrat]

1. An opportunity to hold the illegal Burma regime to intl standards is being

lost.

AGAIN!

FREE BURMA!

[MisterP]

10. Chimp is torn between invading a country that can provide cheap labor

and playing footsies with Than Shwe

[Chicago Democrat]

12. I favor military invasion of Burma! That regime is illegal and immoral

and engaging in daily horrors against the Karin minority.

Now there is a country that really desires democracy.

[MaineDem]

2. Has anyone heard anything about Bangladesh?

I can't imagine they didn't get any damage but I haven't heard anything.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. No because the main waves went east-west not north-south

which is why the wave generally spared Burma.
Look at the computer models....

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2004/12/26/international/20041227_QUAKE_FEATURE.html

[MaineDem]

5. Great simulation

Apparently, the force had subsided substantially when it reach the northern limits of the Bay of Bengal.

Lucky for them.

[davidinalameda]

4. they were spared

usually they get the worst of everything that Mother Nature sends that way

[MaineDem]

6. Exactly (nt)

[mitchtv]

7. what about the Seychelles and Maldives?

are they in a "deepwater" situation that spared them?

[MaineDem]

8. At least 70 dead in the Maldives

Not sure of the Seychelles but they had damage.

[davhill]

9. Any reports from Diego Garcia the island US Navy base?

[bemildred]

11. I saw a report that said DG was OK. nt

[bin.dare]

13. they had advanced warning ...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_3-1-2005_pg7_37

US had advance warning of tsunami: Canadian professor
By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A Canadian expert has claimed that the US Military and the State Department were given advance tsunami warning and America’s Navy base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean was notified but the information was not passed on to the countries that bore the brunt of the disaster.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa asks in an analysis produced for the Venus Project why fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand were not provided with the same warnings as the US Navy and the US State Department. He wants to know why the US State Department remained mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe. With a modern communications system, why did the information not get out? By email, telephone, fax, satellite TV, he asks, as it could have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
...

[lovuian]

14. I'm surprised the Burmese govt didn't say We are fine Move Along

These Asian governments are really great examples of government which does nothing!!!