HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!

[Superstar Punani]

8.9 Quake + Tsunamis kill 8000+ people

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapc...ake/index.html

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

the death toll is up to 11,000+ now....

a bunch of our friends are in Thailand now for the holidays. Phucket to be exact which is a beach resort town on the coast that was hit....we can't get in touch with them...hoping for the best

[hop]

Very ungood. I also know a bunch of folks in that area right now... some just left Calgary the other day. Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

[Will]

A friend of mine is in Thailand right now teaching english. He sent me an e-mail and some photos.

--------------------------------------------

So Christmas night we were out in Patong, the tourist capital of Phuket, we were out partying till around 3 in the morning and caught a tuk tuk home, and at 10 o'clock in the morning on the 26th it hit without a warning. 7 hours after we left the place it is destroyed.
I was in Patong this afternoon looking around and the last place we were is devastated.

sidenote: I was walking down one of the roads today (Bangla road) and I was all the way to the beach when people start running away from the beach. It was pure panic and they were yelling ANOTHER ONE ANOTHER ONE!!!!! So I begin running and the street fills up with pick up trucks, motorbikes, people, etc... all running. The people on the motorbike next to me got ran over by a truck. The street was like running with the bulls in Spain, but in Thailand with trucks. It was 40 minutes of chaos. And in the end it was nothing but a scare but a big one indeed. I ran up some stairs into a bar/disco to wait it out and then hopped in the back of a driving truck to head up to the hills.

I live on the opposite coast of where it hit the hardest but in Patong, Kata, Karon there are buses turned over, jeeps in hotel lobbies, boats broken in half, boats up 400 feet inland, 5 inches of sand on the roads, it is absolutely ruined, it is crazy here. I never experienced anything like this.

I knew it was a big event yesterday afternoon, when we first found out, but today seeing the carnage I now realize how big of a deal it is. It is hard to find out what is going on watching Thai TV but today we saw some CNN and kinda got filled in a little bit.

Where I work is right across the street from the major hospital in Phuket and the area is crawling with tourists all bandaged up. It is a sad sight.

[Big E]

Wow. Will, glad to hear your friend is ok, hopefully everyone else gets word soon.

I can't even imagine the chaos that must have caused when it hit. I heard an interview on the news this morning with someone that was over there, and a friend of his from Switzerland had called him to tell him about the quake, that they were expecting huge tsunami's. Friend had enough time to get to higher ground, but it's almost inconcievable that something of that magnitude hit without any warning even in the touristy, beach resorts.

[hop]

Whew! All of my Cdn. friends are ok... including the one in Phuket. Never felt so good to see the "you have received a new email from YOUR PAL IN PHUKET" pop up in the corner of the screen.

[Tippster]

Good to hear, Hop. Thank Goodness.

[BanditXXX]

CNN is saying upwards of 100,000 people dead and that many more will die from diseases. Unbelievable!