It's up to almost sixty thousand now.

I was actually surprised at how low the early reports were, considering how widespread the devastation was, and how densely populated many of the areas were. I won't be surprised if the final tally ends up being in the hundreds of thousands, as areas start reporting in that we haven't even heard from yet.

No kidding. Now the question on my mind all day has been: what about Bangladesh? The last report I saw from there about 3 hours ago said *2* dead. I just don't believe that....

I've been keeping a close eye on Bangladesh, and it seems that despite everything, we dodged a bullet there.
It could so easily have been 2 million, not 2.

Rand - the link has expired.

There is already a lot of discussion about tsunami warning systems or lack thereof. From personal experience, I can tell you that in some cases even a timely warning doesn't work. Around 1958 I was messing around with model sailboats in the ponds near the Ala Wai boat Harbor in Honolulu, a really big crowd - hundreds, if not thousands began to gather along the seawall - I asked why and it turned out they were all there to watch the tidal wave! Sure enough the ocean went up and the ocean went down a bunch of times, but due to the submarine topography it didn't unindate the area we were occupying. Historically, Hawaiians have run out on the reef to catch stranded fish, and the surfers have to be chased away by the cops.

Many of these countries are grappling with a lot of very trying social issues. In situations like this is sure seems like a good bet to not worry about a tsunami, and spend limited resources elsewhere. To be honest I would have likely done the same.

My projections using models indicates 18 million in the zone, 250,000 seriously injured, 128 thousand immediate dead. Of the 250k injured, 50k probably won't make it due to disrupted/absent health care system. Details at http://satblog.methaz.org/

As for a warning system, it's cheap (about 3 top major league baseball player salaries per year), can be used for other research, and will save a lot of lives in an event like this, even if some choose to help natural selection along and ignore the warnings.

Chuck, great blog. The Iraqi oil fires are fascinating as well as the tsunami material.

Chuck Watson
"As for a warning system, it's cheap (about 3 top major league baseball player salaries per year), can be used for other research, and will save a lot of lives in an event like this, even if some choose to help natural selection along and ignore the warnings."

That's still a lot of money for a place (speaking of Bangladesh) where it's cheaper to pay a gang of workman for a month to do something you could do in a day with (say) a powered shovel. If you could find a power shovel.

I'm not throwing up my hands or suggesting you are wrong, Chuck, but a place like Bangladesh isn't likely to _get_ a tsunami warning system if it has to wait for the government to do it. To many other priorities that could affect life 'now' and not 'years from now'.

I have heard a dozen times in this few days about the problem of no Warning Systems. It's my understanding that some of the local TV stations in these countries have helicopters that were sent aloft to take video of the waves as they hit.

Now allow me to be simple, IF and I say IF they have that kind of foresight, why oh why couldn't they set their sights on announcing the tsunami on the TV and radio? I know that these countries have TV and radio services. I know that someone MUST have known that a quake of this size would cause a tsunami. How is it then, that no warning seems to have been given?

I ask these questions in all sincerity. It seems like some sort of warning should have been possible. If I am off base tell me where.