magdalena-memorial article1

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050512/ai_n14623648

magdalena-memorial article1

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050512/ai_n14623648

Magdalena Memorial video 2

Magdalena article-The Tsunami as a Wake Up Call to Bridging the Digital Divide.

http://www.digitaldivide.net/articles/view.php?ArticleID=84

Final Paper- Andrea(a) Jessica(b) Nikita(c)

Andrea Varnava/Jessica Sodhi/ Nikita Soni/Madelena

Mr. Henkle

English 110 sec # 8M4WB

South East Asia Tsunami

For thousands of years people have faced many hardships that mother nature has brought their way. They have overcome bitter cold, excruciating heat, drought and famine, yet there is one destructive force that people have yet to conquer; the Tsunami. Tsunami is the Japanese word for a series of waves generated by underwater seismic disturbances. Although they have been occurring for ages, one of the most devastating tsunamis hit the shores of South East Asia on December 26, 2004.

When the tsunami hit land, approximately eleven countries were affected economically and socially. Casualties and widespread damage to both city and rural areas were rampant. According to the New York Times, it was the world’s most powerful earthquake in 40 years. They claim it was one of the “deadliest natural disasters in history”, killing over 225,000 people.

A few hours after the massive earthquake stuck, obscenely huge waves, some in excess of 50 feet crashed along the coastlines, causing large amounts of damage. The New York Times reports that many of the affected countries had no warning systems in place that could of helped alert citizens or even detect that there was an imminent disaster. Of the many countries in South East Asia, the hardest hit in Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. Reporters state “There were forty foot high walls of water going at about five hundred miles per hour. Nobody was safe once the waves hit. They devoured everything and everyone in their paths.” The locals weren’t the only ones that became casualties, since it had been their prime holiday season many vacationers had been killed as well. A survivor from Sweden interviewed by the New York Times reported a car floating into the lobby and overturning in his residence.

Soon after the disastrous event took place, everyone rushed to help in one way or another. Many donated money, food, clean water, supplies, and their time. Organizations such as the International Red Cross, pledged supplies and money to help clean up and support the people in the afflicted areas. Approximately 50,000 permanent homes are expected to be built in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, however 8000 have only been completed. The IRC who was also involved in the rebuilding effort defended its actions; a spokesman said “it was impossible to complete all the projects quickly. We said a few weeks after the tsunami that for us this was a five-year effort. Anyone who talked about it being completed in two or three years was totally unrealistic.” Although everyone pulled together and united as one to help them out, the support didn't last too long. The Guardian reported that there was 6.7 billion dollars was pledged to help rebuild the destroyed cities. Sadly they also reported that 3.5 billion was yet to be spent and this is about 2 years after the disaster took place. It has been reported that less then 35% of people have been rehoused. Many people are outraged by the lack of effort and aggravated with how the situation is being handled. To this day people are still trying to rebuild their lives and reestablish their homes, where they can once again build families and a new life.

The differences between each newspaper we examined which includes the New York Times, The Guardian, and the New York Post are quite visible and evident. Just by reading each type of newspaper, you can tell them apart. The New York Times compared to both The Guardian and The New York Post is more knowledge, informative, detailed, and precise. After reading The New York Times, the New York Post seems like a joke as the Post claims a couple of sentences to represent the entire article whereas, the Times gives a great deal of information about the entire event, from the beginning to the end.

The Post article only has one sentence of information about the South East Asia Tsunami which reads as follows, “On Dec. 26, 2004, giant waves triggered by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded pulverized villages along Indian Ocean shores, killing or leaving missing about 230,000 people,” while a Times article explains in great details about the Tsunami. An example of the Times coverage is, “A huge earthquake rocked Southeast Asia on Sunday December 26, 2004, setting off tsunami tidal waves that killed more than 150 people in Sri Lanka, sent residents rushing to high ground in Indonesia and washed into the Indian City of Chennai and the Thai tourist island of Phuket.” If you continue down the article it says, “Indonesia’s geophysics and meteorology office put the epicenter of the earthquake at 90 miles off the southern coast of the island and said the earthquake measured 6.8 on the open-ended Richter scale,” you can notice that the Times reports more statistical information which gives it the characterization of being precise.

As for the Guardian, it gives more information than the Post but not nearly as much as the Times. The Guardian articles seem to be predictable as their titles hint away the story while on the other hand, to understand the concept and report of the story you must read the New York Times thoroughly. An example of the Guardian’s headlines include Indian tsunami victims sold their kidneys to survive , but the Times has titles such as In Drowned Village, Grim Searches, Quick Burials or How Scientists and Victims Watched Helplessly. You can get an insight already of the Guardian article as the title already tells you what has happened, but for the Times article, it isn’t that easy to predict the analysis of the article.

The complex writings of the New York Times seems to create a division barrier among people as the article must be read quite a few times to understand the full context while the readings of the Post and Guardian appear to be appropriate for anybody to read. Times would have something that reads “As he set to work, Sumatra’s shores were already a soup of human flotsam. Thailand to the east was awash. The pulse of energy transferred from seabed to water, traveling at jetliner speed, was already most of the way across the Bay of Bengal and approaching unsuspecting villagers and tourists, fishermen and bathers, from the eight- foot- high coral strands of the Maldives to the teeming shores of Sri Lanka and eastern India.” This passage along with many others uses words that we don’t hear or use on a daily basis or some that we might have never heard at all. An article from the Post and Guardian are understandable and are not beyond reach. Therefore a Post or Guardian article might take half the time to read than to intake the New York Times.

The Guardian and New York Post have quite a few differences in themselves. The biggest one is that The New York Post is a local newspaper instead of being International like the Guardian. The significance this holds is that The Guardian, being and International newspaper can better report global incidents than a local New York paper can. The Guardian is better informed about the Tsunami in South East Asia event as they cover these big global catastrophes nevertheless The Post covers the issue to present it to the locals so that they can touch upon this subject. The highlights of the actual event are greater in the Guardian compared to the New York Post.
Another comparison between the New York Post and The Guardian is that the Post gives stories about personal relations to the event whereas the Guardian is gives the generalization of the coverage of the Tsunami. An example that can be presented is the Post article and how it talks about this women and how she lost her boyfriend in the South East Asia Tsunami in 2004. This was the only reference to the actual tsunami, the personal tie where one lost someone in the disaster that wiped many lives.
Even though tsunami took place in Southeast Asia the tragedy on December 26, 2004 shocked the whole world. The tsunami took away many innocent people from this earth into the sea and left many others homeless. December 26, 2004 left people crying and hoping that their countries will help them out, but no one heard their prayers. We can blame the lack of technology, the official, etc; however, it’s a storm that no one in this world could have stop. Even today on February 19, 2008 less than four year; we think people still remember the event, but the real question what are they doing to prevent history from repeating itself? What have we done to pray for the souls that died on December 26, 2004? What have we done for the people still wandering the street? Is there financial aid, moral support, available for the victims? There so many question , but no answers because there still people hoping that in few years their countries will develop technology that hold back mother nature or lessen the damage.
In the The New England Journal of Medicine, the article written “Recovering from the Tsunami “by William H. First, M.D. mentions about how individual have forward to help. The countries like India and Sri Lanka might face problems, countries poorer will face even greater problems.

Even though there are charity companies like Red Cross come forward to help, yet it isn’t enough. In addition Dr. Williams mentions that the water was unhygienic and there are many medical procedure involved that cannot be complete. Even though our first priority is to provide shelter, warm clothing, food and water, etc there still nothing available till February, almost two month after the tragedy. There still no government taking charge to provide complete aid to tsunami victims. There still many people without clean water and hoping that someone will offer them help and save them.
Tsunami didn’t only claim the lives of Southeast Asians, but many western tourists. They were among many that putting flowers and teddy bear near the sea. While fisherman console and shared stories about their lost family members, friends, and colleagues with one another. There’re people still searching for the dead bodies or graves of their love ones. All those candle were hope of many brought light to dark world and spread the pray to all those lost. Many people lited up paper lanterns on Khao Lak beach in Thailand to remind and console each other that dark cloud behind us and we should keep fighting and praying. While many countries still are receiving aid from corporations like UUSA, UUA, individual supporters etc.
In place like Thailand were Buddhist monk hymning prayers for victims and dead souls. Place like Sri Lanka and Indonesia had pause stood in silence to remember their love ones and pay their respect to the dead. Other place had warning sirens to pay their respect. Today many people gather to mourn and hope to rebuild the countries. Many missionary hopes to rebuild the beauty and bring back peace and quite on the beach that once people used to come relax. Volunteers from all over come to provide food, shelter, and console to those lost in sea of Indian Ocean.
How can we forget events like tsunami, 9/11, etc? Is there important lesson that we aren’t being able to understand? Is our government’s lack of technology or official we elected to be blamed? If we blame the government, are we just looking for scapegoats? Tsunami wasn't anyone fault, but we could say if we had advance technology to hinder about of the event; we could prevent so many lives from going to waste. There no power that could stop such a strong storm, but we could’ve taken so many precautions. Instead of writing the tsunami in some history book or making some memorial ,that once year everyone will pay their tribute; We should rebuild the countries and show coming generation that we has a society fight together. We should make sure to take full precaution and build strong technology that will help prevent such tragedy.

Tsunami was a horrible disaster.It killed millions of people in South Asia.

The tragedy was full of death and people wanted to do create something for the

victims of the tragedy. There were many physical objects that were used to help

create memorials.A lot of memorial objects were made for the Sri Lankas. Most of

of the memorials were created for the children over there . In one of the clinic

there will be a huge stone. This stone is a physical object because it is a stone

from the tsunami. It is going to be a memorial dedicated for the little children

who died in tsunami.The Europeans made a ''Baht'' for the victims of tsunami.

There will be a lot of light in the ground. The lights will be in form of the

circles, squares. it is going to be safe for the environment. People who created

the project are architects from Finland, Norway and Germany. Those countries

participate a lot in recovery of South Asia. Germany gave the people 8.2 million of

Euro while Norway gave 2 million of Euro. The Germans help to rebuild the hospitals,

they also donate food ,clothing , medicine. They found out a plan for the South Asian

societies how to avoid different kinds of harrasments. They also help them with

cleaning organizations. There was a competition among Europeans about a diferent

project.They will set up towers in the Park of Thailand. The three huge towers

wil be so tall and enviroment free. They placed the towers next to the sea.

It is going to be a museum for the visitors. They will be able to experience what

the victims felt at the moment of tragedy. There was an artist and painter called

Nani Ahuliwan.One of his pictures is called Mercury. the painting is really weird

becuse it is all in orange. Inside of it there is some bubling or maybe they are

scars of the people. It looks like a liquid that has been preparing to pop out. It

is kind of a mixture made by witches. It has bubbling on it with circles.

He also created a painting called Enlightment. It only has colors on it and is

weird.It has yellow and keeps getting darker.On the Temples of the South Asian

states there were paintings also. One of the paintings shows a human face. The face

is evil is on top of the water. The branches are coming out of the nose. The face is

surrounded by a circle.Around the face are different features like, an eagle with a

fire stick, a skeleton in heart coffin like. Basically there are many abstracts

and we can only guess what they mean. In Norway they create another project . It is

going to be a site dedicated for the tsunami victims. It is going to be next to the

sea. TheEuropeans are trying to help the victims. It was a horrible disaster and I

that every time we complain about something in our lives we should think of those

poor people. They wished they had our problems.

Magdalena-Tsunami video

http://www.asiantsunamivideos.com/

Magdalena-Tsyunami article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/aug/07/tsunami2004.internationalaidanddevelopment