The news from that side of the world has been shocking. Good thoughts and sympathy go out to everyone, especially any board members who may have found themselves in the area.
Really unfortunate time for this to happen too...
As they say, disaster always strikes the poor man harder

I can't remember a natural catastrophe of this scale. JUST HORRIBLE and very very sad. A coworker was going to fly home to India TODAY and I wonder if he's still going. What a terrible shame. I have some relatives vacationing in Thailand during the time of the Tsunami too. I hope they're okay.

Saddened, MadridMan

Latest Death Toll as of 6:30 Pm(Madrid Time) was 23,000 dead. They say it could be double that. Europe or North America have not had a disaster of this magnitude as far back as I can remember.

Madridman, I pray that your relatives were out of harms way.

A truly terrifying and unexpected event to strike such a large area and so many countries. I too have not heard of such a calamity in my lifetime, where so many people lost their lives in an event that took less than a day!

I pray our governments expedite help to the stricken areas, they are going to need it quickly.

Thanks, Booklady. I JUST got word that they had left the Thailand coast just 2 days beforehand. Wow.

The Alaska earthquake of 1964 was stronger, but due to the low population density there was not the property damage or loss of life. The people in Cresent City, California did just what the people of Thailand did and went down to the beach and watched the tidal wave come in. That is where the loss of life came from on that one. Any married man can tell you not to argue with a woman, Mother Nature has no sense of humor.

MadridMan, good to hear about your relatives

This devastating event comes a year almost to the day after the quake in Bam, Iran which killed 10s of thousands also. What makes this event so devastating is the number of countries involved spread over 1000s of miles. What is really horrible is we haven't yet found out the scale of destruction in Indonesia (close to the centre of the quake). News reports today suggest there may be 30000 deaths in Indonesia alone. Let us pray that this figure proves to be an over-estimate. It all puts our day-to-day troubles into perspective..

Filbert,

I heard that awful figure of 30,000 quoted as a possibility on NPR this morning - and with far greater numbers of dead expected for many of the other countries, Sri Lanka and the southern tip of India primarily.

The immensity of this disaster is basically unbelievable ...

114 000 dead now. 80 000 in Indonesia alone. Not a lot to say.

I belong to another group called bookcrossing (you may have heard of them). Well there is a Spain related link.

http://bookcrossing.com/forum/5/1535010/5/subj_Tsunami-victims-aid:-Spain-leads-the-way.