It is almost impossible to conceive...

Of whole towns, areas, islands, even, gone. These are sets of true color set of photographs, taken six months, five days apart.

Below is Banda Aceh, the provincial capitol on northern Sumatra in Indonesia, before and after. There are more than 3,000 dead at the time of this post.

Images courtesy DigitalGlobe




Sri Lanka Beach - the "pull back" of the wave. Some 28,000 dead in that country at the time of this post. 343 meters is approximately 1125 feet.





I teach geology at a local community college and I continue to view this tragedy from so many different perspectives.

Part of me looks at it coolly. This happened thus and triggered this, which triggered that and from there we came to more than 120,000 people dead.

Another part of me stands bathed in awe and horror at the power and devastation that can explode in moments, in seconds, without any of us having the ability to predict where and when everything could end for us.