Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Sobering story

Robyn has some family that were in the Tsunami. That is a seriously scary story (If you are coming here late, it is the Dec 30th entry).

Everybody should read this, and think a bit about how lucky all of us are to have been spared something like this. This is one of many thousands of stories, some luckier, but many not. The scale of this tragedy is staggering, I hope this is the last of mass loss of life we see in anything like this severity again. To have even just seen this sort of suffering is something I wouldn't want to wish on anyone, and to actually have been involved and had to cope with, leaves me beyond words to try and empathise with.

My sincerest wishes are with anyone involved in the tragedy, and also with those having to deal with cleaning up the aftermath. I imagine that they will never get over having to recover, stack, identify and mass bury so many bodies. I hope they sleep, I'm not sure I would. The cost and rolling impact of this will carry on for years. Even if the people get their various business' up and running, although how they will get the money is anyone's guess, many of these areas depend in some way on tourism. How many years do you think it will be before any one at all will want to go and stay there, never mind in sufficient numbers to allow them to recover their economy. It may be ten years before they are back to the style of life that they have had until the Tsunami.

I want to say something meaningful about this but it's just words and it doesn't count for shit really. I'm going to go and give some money to the relief fund, I urge any of you that can afford it to do the same, even if it's only a tenner. If that's all I can do, then at least I owe it to these people to do it.

posted by Brock @ Thursday, December 30, 2004