This caused a lot of panic in Australia with beaches on the whole East Coast being evacuated, sadly it would appear that the death toll will rise even further.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6520461.stm

What is with all the taunamis?

Yeah, this is all over the news here. One New Zealand man has been confirmed dead, seems he was in the Solomons visiting his elderly parents. Hadn't been over there for 18 years and his kids paid for the trip as a gift. He apparently drowned while trying to save his mother.
Soldiers from my army unit(reserves) here in NZ are on deployment there at the moment. The plane was due to fly over to them today to pick them up and drop off their replacements. Most of our guys are based in Honiara so they should've been OK but still haven't heard yet.

I don't see any end to the freak natural disasters any time soon. We've been messing with the Earth for long enough and Mother Nature is fighting back. Sad times.

Here is my take on golbal warming and freakish weather. The earth has been have a general warming trend since the last ice age. There is nothing we can do that will change that. Yes we have been posioning our planet, but golbal warming has been going on since the dawn of time. We did not "start" it, sped it up, maybe, but it goes on all by its self.

Oh, oswalder exactly how long have humans been messing with the earth in any significant scale. A hundred years. Mother Nature has been around for millions to billions of years. We are nothing more than a spect in the fabric of time and that is what we will remain.

We have been more than dust specks since we began burning fossil fuels at a high rate since the early to mid nineteenth century and have not stopped since. Yes, Earth has it's own heat exchange rate but we have definitely added to it and with another ice age due in about a thousand years or less it is picking up the pace of global weather changes that create such powerful climate/natural disasters. Hang on everyone, it is going to be a bumpy ride and lets just ride it out or start to demand an expanded space program where we can begin draining population into space colonies in orbit, on the moon, etc.... p:

I'm not saying that we aren't effecting global warming. I'm saying that alot of people don't know that global warming has been going on without us. They think that we caused it to happen.

I think you're getting "Global Warming" and the Earth's natural "general warming trend" confused. There's no question that the earth is on the upswing of its typical temperature cycle. However, "Global Warming" is a phenomenon that is driven by human social and technological influences that is affecting Earth at an alarming rate. No other organism on the planet has the ability to impact the environment on a global scale that we do. We may be a speck in the overall lifespan of the planet, but we are destroying it at a rate comparable to flesh-eating bacteria or meningitis in the human body. Merely a speck in a person's overall lifespan, but it can take a healthy person from alive to not in a day or two.

Sorry for the gloom-and-doom, not much going on here at the office today.

I see that it is pointless to argue. It all depends on yuor piont of view.

I think the main ideal should be to attempt slow down global warming in whatever way possible - if this means that countries have to incur large economic losses so be it - as there is no economy without a planet that offers human's subsistence.

As for natural disasters I don't think there has been any major increase in the number occurring or their intensity at this stage, nonetheless it stands to reason that if the planet heats up significantly we are likely to have a lot more unpredictable weather patterns in all areas of the world - with one of the biggest concerns for human populations being the increase in sea levels and the swamping of low lying areas.

Here's an interesting twist to the recent tsunami (not to take away from those who were lost) but this is pretty cool. Apparently the reefs in the area raised 10 feet! and in the process raised several WWII wrecks that had been forgotten. here's a copy of a CNN report I found regarding a WWII PT-Boat discoverd in the reefs with live ammo.

Quake brings WWII PT boat up from ocean floor

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Wreckage from a World War II torpedo boat was tossed up from the sea in the Solomon Islands after a powerful 8.1 earthquake hit the area in early April, an official said Friday.

Jay Waura of the National Disaster Management Office said the explosive-laden boat was exposed when reefs were pushed up three meters (10 feet) above sea level by the April 2 quake, which caused a devastating tsunami in the western Solomon Islands that killed 52 people.

The Solomons' coastline is still littered with decaying military wrecks from World War II, including the torpedo patrol boat commanded by U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

"My team members believe that this boat could have been one of those U.S. torpedo boats such as the famous PT-109, which the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy had served aboard during the war," Waura said.

Kennedy's boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Blackett Strait in August 1943 off Gizo, the main town of western Solomon Islands. The Solomons' main island, Guadalcanal, was the scene of fierce World War II fighting.

Waura said people on Rannonga island showed his team the wreckage sitting on dry ground.

"We were amazed by this finding, as previously this wreckage had long been sitting under the sea and rusting in peace without anyone knowing about it," New Zealand Press Association quoted Waura as saying.

Only the boat's hull with its deadly cargo of explosives remained intact, he said.

Waura said a Solomon Islands Police Force bomb disposal unit would be sent to the island to safely detonate the explosives.

Kennedy was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy serving in the Pacific when his PT-109 was cut in two by the Japanese destroyer. Two crew were killed, but Kennedy and the vessel's other survivors clung to the wreckage before swimming to a nearby island. The experience earned Kennedy the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

Wreckage from PT-109 was found in 2002 by shipwreck hunter Robert Ballard, who also found the Titanic as well as other notable sunken ships.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/04/2...t.ap/index.html
cop:

That is very comforting to know.

You will find some pretty wierd stuff sitting on the bottom of the ocean or any body of water for that matter.