Last post of the year! Bye-bye 2004!
Dear all,
May you have a Happy New Year! Last post for the year…=) May 2005 bring forth joy, good fortune and love….
Trying hard to sync
Managed to drop by at Cold Storage after dinner at Yi Garden to get food for tomorrow night. Am currently facing some problems synchronizing my hand phone to my computer through Active Sync. Have been trying the whole night and am a very very extremely frustrated girl right now.
Noodle soup
Didn’t managed to drop by at Kino. Was stuck at the Maxis centre…activating and setting up my GPRS. Managed to have my favourite noodle soup though….last one for this year!!
Tsunami updates and donations
All day long, I have been drawn to news updates and reports on the earthquake/tsunami disaster. I’ve been scouring the net for the latest news, background on how a tsunami forms, photos and videos. Just like how one is drawn to staring at a car accident, I’m afraid I possess that same kind of morbid fascination. Just an example of how fast news gets around on the internet, I received an email yesterday morning with an attachment containing an amateur video (probably taken in Penang) of the waves rushing in at the beach! From the latest news, the death toll is now predicted to surpass 100,000. Experts have already named it as one of the worst natural disasters in history. Just a stark reminder of how Mother Nature cannot be underestimated.
I did a quick search on the net on earthquake and tsunami related disasters and found the following website that has combined news reports from all over. And an article from BBC’s website:
“Tsunami among world’s worst disasters
Hurricanes occur annually, but some are worse than others The massive sea surge in Asia has been described by relief experts as one of the worst natural disasters in recent history. With a magnitude of 9.0, the undersea quake off the coast of Sumatra is the worst for 40 years and the fourth strongest since 1900. It is also notable for the extent of its reach - killing tens of thousands of people, from Malaysia in the east to the African coast in the west.
As the number of dead continues to rise, this tsunami may well earn itself a grim place in the record books.
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the highest death toll from a tsunami until now happened in 1896, when 27,000 people were drowned following an earthquake off the coast of Japan.
But while natural catastrophes of this size are thankfully not frequent, they are deadly - wiping out whole communities and leaving billions of dollars’ worth of damage behind.
One of the most overwhelming disasters of recent times is Hurricane Mitch, which devastated much of Honduras and Nicaragua in Central America in 1998. More than 10,000 people were estimated to have been killed and some two million left homeless as the torrential rain caused mudslides that swept away whole villages.
Bangladesh was even harder hit in 1970, when a cyclone killed up to 500,000 people. Winds of up to 230 km/h whipped up massive waves that took away entire villages.
China suffered similar losses when an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.3 almost obliterated the north-eastern city of Tangshan in 1976. The official number of people killed was put at around 250,000, although some said the figure was more like 750,000.
And almost exactly a year ago, a 6.3 quake devastated the Iranian city of Bam, killing more than 50,000.
China, and indeed Asia as a whole, has had its fair share of natural disasters over the centuries. Whole communities are left devastated by natural disasters Shanxi and Henan provinces lost more than 800,000 people when they were hit, in 1556, by one of the worst earthquakes in history. In 1887, about 900,000 people died when the country’s Yellow River burst its banks in the worst-ever recorded flooding. A volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora on Indonesia’s Sumbawa island in 1815 claimed the lives of more than 90,000 people as a blanket of lava and ash covered all around it, leading to agricultural devastation, famine and disease. And one of the worst monsoons in living memory claimed the lives of 10,000 people in Thailand over the course of three months in 1983. Some 100,000 people contracted waterborne diseases as a result of the storm.
Snow storms, forest fires and avalanches have all proved deadly. A single landslide in Peru in 1970 killed more than 18,000 people in the town of Yungay.
Most of these disasters were isolated to one area or one country. But, as the Asian tsunami has shown, nature knows no borders.
The droughts that swept across sub-Saharan African in the 1980s led to the starvation of an estimated one million people. They are threatening to do the same again.”
Both NST and The Star have set up relief funds and Malaysians have once again proved that they are a generous lot. Donations for The Star’s Earthquake/Tsunami Relief Fund have now increased to some RM1.4mil. For more information on how to donate, please refer to the following links (Update: I’ve removed the links since they no longer exist anymore):
- Malaysian Tsunami Disaster Fund (The New Straits Times and Berita Harian newspapers, joined by TV3 and 8TV)
- The Star’s Earthquake/Tsunami Relief Fund
- Asian Tsunami Disaster Fund Foreign
As the original links from the newspaper websites may not work if the pages have been archived, I’ve copied the full news report in as well, just in case.
Appropriately, our Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has announced that all New Year celebrations have been cancelled in view of the tsunami tragedy and has called on all parties, including the private sector, to instead hold prayers for the welfare of those affected.
This will be the last post from me on the earthquake/tsunami tragedy. My thoughts and prayers lie with those who have lost their loved ones, who are still searching for their family members and friends and those who have been injured. And may those who perished rest in peace.
In other news…
There was a feature today in Section 2 of The Star newspaper on a lady named Grace Chow. Dying of a rare tumour at the base of her skull, she kept a blog on the last few days of her life at ‘Dying Is…’. I’ve just visited the site, and the courage which she showed just brought me to tears. In her words: “Soon, I will be dead. I have a recalcitrant tumour in the neck, and it’s a real pain. It’s given me plenty of time to prepare for my death, and now it’s finally going for the kill. I am completely powerless in the face of it. My only option is to flee to my mind, where I have so, so much to say and tell… but I have no one to tell it to. This is the loneliness of death.” She has also written an autobiography entitled ‘A Pain in the Neck’. Will probably drop by at Kinokuniya today to check if they have the book in stock.
My new O2 XphoneII!!
I know I said I’ll wait till next year to get my new phone….but as of today, I’ve finally given up on my Nokia. made a quick trip to Low Yat Plaza during lunch….and bought myself an O2 XphoneII. Quite a good deal (if you got a better one….don’t tell me and break my heart….)…RM1,938 for the phone plus 256mb memory card. Charging it up now….can’t wait to start customizing it.
A couple of friends will be dropping by on New Year’s eve for a movie and fireworks from the balcony. Plan to make tiramisu, bruschetta and sausages for snacks…time to go shopping for ingredients! =))