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you probably heard of the devastating tsunami* caused by the earthquake near indonesia. at the time of this post almost 12,000 people are dead Update (12/29/2004): Numbers are closer to 80,000 nowand the numbers are only rising. i HATE it when such natural disasters are responsible for so many lives lost. i do feel sad when people die from all kinds of events, but what hurts the most is when an innocent person/people die in an unexpected event. its not like they were standing on a ledge trying to see if they can balance but its like being pushed over the ledge by a strong wind, despite staying 5 feet away from the ledge. just goes to remind us that however advanced our technology is, we can never really be safe.
Update (12/29/2004): Probability of the meteor striking us has gone down to an insignificant probability
I bet a lot of people havent heard about this other natural disaster that MAY happen in another 25 years. That nightmare is called 2004MN4. You can view more information about it here - http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html. When i first read about it on Slashdot, the probability of that meteor hitting earth was 1/233, which seemed pretty high. Then later on the same day, the probability went up to 1/63 which seemed even higher. Now the probability is 1/45. When you see the probability decreasing, it seems very scary, but if you compare the percentage of it missing earth, it just changed from 99.57% to 98.4% to 97.7%. So, there is a 97.7% chance of us not being hit. Currently the D-day is set for april 13th 2029 which happens to Friday the 13th!
* Tsunami - A tsunami is one or a series of ocean surface waves that occur after a large earthquake (having a vertical component of movement), seaquake, volcanic activity, slumps, or meteorite impacts in or near the sea. The term tidal wave is sometimes incorrectly used in place of tsunami but the two are different and in scientific usage tsunamis are not related to tides.
