safe in singapore

“The chain reaction that sent enormous, deadly tidal waves crashing into the coasts of Asia and Africa on Sunday started more than 10km beneath the ocean floor off the tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Geologic plates pressing against each other slipped violently, creating a bulge on the sea bottom that could be as high as 10m and hundreds of kilometres long

'It's just like moving an enormous paddle at the bottom of the sea,'
'A big column of water has moved, we're talking about billions of tons. This is an enormous disturbance.'

As the waves moved across deep areas of the ocean in the early morning, they may have been almost undetectable on the surface, with swells of about a metre or less. But when they approached land the huge volumes of water were forced to the surface and the waves grew higher, swamping coastal communities and causing massive casualties.”-- ST

The Indian Ocean Plate, being less dense than the Eurasian Plate, rides underneath the latter as the 2 plates moves towards each other with the plate going below melting into the mantle of Earth. However this slipping under is rarely smooth and tension is always building up due to the rubbing of the rough rock surfaces with each other. The moment this tension is released, it triggers off wad we call an Earthquake, a wave of huge vibrations along the tectonic plates. On 26 Dec 2004, a day after Xmas, this occurred beneath the Indian Ocean, not only triggering a quake, but also a tsunami.

After checking out the map of southern asia, I then understand why wasn’t Singapore affected. We’re so near the epicenter, but only tremors were slightly felt, where r the waves??



The epicenter was at the tip of northern Sumatra island, the crack runs north-south and the waves moved east-west bi-directionally.
North of us lies Peninsula Malaysia; and west, Sumatra.
We were shielded away from everything!! How lucky… juz imagine Sri Lanka was hit as well… tog w India and the Maldives Islands.

Been reading ST Interactive these 2 days (while waiting for my cells to grow in lab… but they always died on me, and so I’ve always gotta redo!! That aside…..). Articles describing how high the wall-waves are, how fishes and the sea creatures were brought ashores, how fascinated ppl catching a glimpse of the dried beach (after the 1st wave) were swallowed by the 2nd one….

The lucky ones tat’s been there and out alive includes a baby sleeping on a floating mattress (beside the parents’ road-side stall), a lady sleeping in a hammock and the hammock was caught in the branches of a tree, thus saved from the enveloping sea…A Hong Kong couple washed out to sea by tsunamis that struck Thailand survived by clinging to a mattress for about six hours till help arrived.

All these happened when we were all safe an sound in the warm embrace of our little island…how fortunate can we get? (I shall digress a little) I’ve juz read a thread in a local biking forum, www.togoparts.com , and there’s this posting commenting on how we shldn’t be complaining abt staying in Singapore as we compare to many other much less fortunate third world countries… and away from the war-torn nations and also many with inter-racial disputes, unrests and poverty. I agree with was this lady said, but I nv reply to her posting. Some kid replies and ask this lady to think twice b4 posting… kinda had mixed thoughts w regarding this…. Wait a min….i shall go search for this thread…hang on ahz…

“as for taxes - well, the income taxes are low here, but the "other taxes" like coe, and hdb (hdb is a straight tax, since you pay a huge sum of money to live in a place that belongs to the gahmen), erp etc. maybe it balances out with the high income taxes in other countries, but other countries have free medical care (not including usa of course). here - we have to save up for our own healthcare, and somehow the gahmen gets credit!”

“as for stepping out of the country. i have. i went and explored the great barrier reef. i went and mountain biked in whistler. what can singapore offer to compare with that? in fact, what the hell is mdm wong referring to when she says that "singapore really is a good place to live"?”

“So is SG an aquarium culture?.....lottsa goldfish in a controlled environ. Happy in that glass cage and thinking thats its the safest and never mind artificial place to be far from predators and the shortcomings of nature.
Happily swimming, being fed and well maintained with a lot of aquatic pen playthings provided for...artificial plant, stone, aquatic scenery, etc....plastic and faux thingy everywhere...what a nice watery wonderland!
....of course your life is forever in a dependent mode for the rest of your existence. Dunn complain, just give hours upon hours of enjoying viewing and relaxing pleasure to the caretaker and you will be rewarded and maintained well.Not bad....compared to those fishes in lily ponds, mud colored rivers or what have you...they survive on their own and no playthings to boot....very gray and drab life dunn ya think?
And,...what to know about how the real world goes by? Never mind so routine and very cramped area eh? at least survive and alive, food abundant till grow fat... Freedom whazz tat? born and raised in captivity so how to know an abstract thought like that?...least to feel or attain liberty and get yourself gobbled-up by predators or forever swim in murky waters without filters and getting paranoid running away from constant dangers. How to live outside even if want?”

Well I dunno… there’s always ppl complaining abt how Singapore works, how the government plans, policies, how much they r earning compare to wad the citizen folks r earning… complaining abt this, complaining abt that… blah blah…
As above, one guy compared ourselves to staying in a fish tank, away from dangers and everything….but we’re juz in a world of our own regardless of wad’s outside, a whole world tat we’ve come up on our own, sort of an abstract thought perhaps? Happy, safe, but a fake world.

Try to get out of the country then!! Complain so much and u r still here….making noise and not doing anything abt it….sigh!

Oh! As I was saying…the tsunamis… why did I get to this topic? Coz it juz stuck a thought in me that we’re always so safe back home here… no wars, no natural disaster, everyone living in harmony… even when a quake is juz off Sumatra and affecting even India, we’re untouched!

hmm....i think we can't complain all the time abt how lousy our govenment is....lousy planning policies...wadever... coz i believe they've been very thoughtful for us as well...our welll-being and peace in the whole.... possibly juz room for further improvement huh....