[wao]

This is indeed, even from an objective point of view, a very terrible thing to happen. One earthquake managed to hit so many different places and what's more at a pretty crappy time. I saw a lot of it on TV because we knew of the incident shortly after it happened.

I come from Sri Lanka, while I've never actually lived there my relatives are there and I've visited there a lot. Nothing to worry about though, my relatives are all on the west side of the island so they don't exactly suffer much - but even there the sea also came in a fair bit. Heck, if this can go all the way to the Maldives (it was covered... entirely!) and Somalia (!)...

It actually makes me feel a bit sad compared to other disasters because of my selfish nature: because I recognize those buses that are floating on the water and while I don't believe race makes a person, seeing people crying in a language I understand and seeing carplates I recognize as being from there floating around... Only when it relates to me then do I feel anything, eh.

BUt on the other hand, while it really is awful - there were lots of tourists there - it's no point sobbing over the lost deaths, just get over it I guess. The only thing you can be hundred percent sure of in your life is that it will end. So instead... I really don't know how these coutnries will cope, I think Thailand wasn't badly hit and Bangladesh not so much compared to the rest, but South India, Indonesia and SL will have problems. Sri Lanka I know has been in deep shit all this while. Civil war and honestly an utterly crap government that can't handle it. Plus this... Not enough money used to maintain the roads in the rural areas (or even build them in some cases), what makes you think they can build new ones, eh.

In Singapore we felt almost nothing (except in some areas slight tremors). We live in a very very lucky place. Almost no natural disasters.