Sunday, September 30, 2007

What is happening to the world?

Source: BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Deadly history of earthquakes
Deadly history of earthquakes
Earthquakes have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the last 100 years and improvements in technology have only slightly reduced the death toll.

15 August 2007

At least 437 people are killed in Peru's coastal province of Ica, as a 7.90-magnitude undersea earthquake strikes about 145km (90 miles) south-east of the capital, Lima.

17 July 2006:

A 7.7 magnitude undersea earthquake triggers a tsunami that strikes a 200km (125-mile) stretch of the southern coast of Java, killing more than 650 people on the Indonesian island.

27 May 2006:

Nearly 5,000 people die when a magnitude 6.2 quake hits the Indonesian island of Java, devastating the city of Yogyakarta and surrounding areas.

1 April 2006:

Seventy people are killed and some 1,200 injured when an earthquake measuring 6.0 strikes a remote region of western Iran.

8 October 2005:

An earthquake measuring 7.6 strikes northern Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir region, killing more than 73,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

28 March 2005:

About 1,300 people are killed in an 8.7 magnitude quake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Nias, west of Sumatra.

22 February 2005:

Hundreds die in a 6.4 magnitude quake centred in a remote area near Zarand in Iran's Kerman province.

26 December 2004:

Hundreds of thousands are killed across Asia when an earthquake measuring 8.9 triggers sea surges that spread across the region.

24 February 2004:

At least 500 people die in an earthquake which strikes towns on Morocco's Mediterranean coast.

26 December 2003:

More than 26,000 people are killed when an earthquake destroys the historic city of Bam in southern Iran.

21 May 2003:

Algeria suffers its worst earthquake in more than two decades. More than 2,000 people die and more than 8,000 are injured in a quake felt across the sea in Spain.

1 May 2003:

More than 160 people are killed, including 83 children in a collapsed dormitory, in south-eastern Turkey.

24 February 2003:

More than 260 people die and almost 10,000 homes are destroyed in Xinjiang region, in western China.

31 October 2002:

Italy is traumatised by the loss of an entire class of children, killed in the southern village of San Giuliano di Puglia when their school building collapses on them.

26 January 2001:

An earthquake measuring magnitude 7.9 devastates much of Gujarat state in north-western India, killing nearly 20,000 people and making more than a million homeless. Bhuj and Ahmedabad are among the towns worst hit.

12 November 1999:

Around 400 people die when an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale strikes Ducze, in north-west Turkey.

21 September 1999:

Taiwan is hit by a quake measuring 7.6 that kills nearly 2,500 people and causes damage to every town on the island.

17 August 1999:

An magnitude 7.4 earthquake rocks the Turkish cities of Izmit and Istanbul, leaving more than 17,000 dead and many more injured.

30 May 1998:

Northern Afghanistan is hit by a major earthquake, killing 4,000 people.

May 1997:

More than 1,600 killed in Birjand, eastern Iran, in an earthquake of magnitude 7.1.

27 May 1995:

The far eastern island of Sakhalin is hit by a massive earthquake, measuring 7.5, which claims the lives of 1,989 Russians.

17 January 1995:

The Hyogo quake hits the city of Kobe in Japan, killing 6,430 people.

30 September 1993:

About 10,000 villagers are killed in western and southern India.

21 June 1990:

Around 40,000 people die in a tremor in the northern Iranian province of Gilan.

7 December 1988:

An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale devastates north-west Armenia, killing 25,000 people.

19 September 1985:

Mexico City is shaken by a huge earthquake which razes buildings and kills 10,000 people.

28 July 1976:

The Chinese city of Tangshan is reduced to rubble in a quake that claims at least 250,000 lives.

23 December 1972:

Up to 10,000 people are killed in the Nicaraguan capital Managua by an earthquake that measures 6.5 on the Richter scale. The devastation caused by the earthquake was blamed on badly built high-rise buildings that easily collapsed.

31 May 1970:

An earthquake high in the Peruvian Andes triggers a landslide burying the town of Yungay and killing 66,000 people.

26 July 1963:

An earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale strikes the Macedonian capital of Skopje killing 1,000 and leaving 100,000 homeless.

22 May 1960:

The world's strongest recorded earthquake devastates Chile, with a reading of 9.5 on the Richter scale. A tsunami 30ft (10m) high eliminates entire villages in Chile and kills 61 hundreds of miles away in Hawaii.

1 September 1923:

The Great Kanto earthquake, with its epicentre just outside Tokyo, claims the lives of 142,800 people in the Japanese capital.

18 April 1906:

San Francisco is hit by a series of violent shocks which last up to a minute. Between 700 and 3,000 people die either from collapsing buildings or in the subsequent fire.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/in_depth/2059330.stm

Published: 2007/08/16 19:31:33 GMT

© BBC MMVII

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Checklist: How to live longer by decade - CNN.com

Checklist: How to live longer by decade - CNN.com

Take care of your health. Here's a check list how to.

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Sunday, September 16, 2007

Revver » Don't Download This Song

Revver » Don't Download This Song

A very nice song by Weird Al Yankovic
Enjoy

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Blog in recess

Feeling the hot breath of PROMOS breathing on my neck now, I have no choice but to announce the blog to be in recess mode. Blog will automatically resume at 9th of October 2007, a tuesday. So do come and check out the new contents. Will try to put up entries by series after promos.

See you guys then.

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Sunday, September 9, 2007

Life Without Limbs :: Nick Vujicic

Life Without Limbs :: Nick Vujicic

He (Nick) came to City Harvest Church to speak to us and share his testimony. It was awesome and inspirational, especially when you see his smile. (I'll let the video do the talking for me on this)




He smiles despite his disabilities. He swims although he has no limbs. He live a normal life eventhough he has some pieces missing form his body.
His video was amazingly touching. I almost cried.[**the youtube video is not the video shown during the sevice]
His conditions set me thinking, if god is perfect, He should and never will make mistakes. Therefore, when a baby is born with disabilities, god must have want it that way, since god had thought of everything out even before our birth. God want to use one the way he is. This will mean that it is futile for someone who is born with disabilities to pray for his physical ailments to be healed. Instead one should seek the path that god had designed for him and live it the way god wants it to be. Just like what Nick said this morning: If god had healed him, giving him a perfect body, how many will believe that god actually healed him? Instead, more will come to challange the truth. If god has healed him physically, he will not even be there to talk to us.
Something he mentioned this morning strikes me. Faith in god prod us to make the decision to trust in Him. Therefore the statement signify that faith is different from trust The difference between faith and trust can be explain with a simple analogy: If your car is spoilt, you take it to the mechanics. This is trust because you know that a mechanics fixes cars. If your car is spoilt, you take it to a grocery. That is faith because you do not know if the grocer can fix a car or not, but you've made the decision to trust that he can fix your car. In short, we should not trust in god because we know that he heals and save us from hell, but instead, trust him out of faith and because he is our faithful god.
I really felt blessed this morning. I thank Brian for bringing me along to the service. I thank god too for placing Brian in my life so that he can bring me closer to god.

P/S: the Bak Koot Teh I ate for lunch tastes like warm water with a lot of pepper. Oh man, I really miss my hometown's Bak Kut Teh.... The meat is soft and tender though.

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Friday, September 7, 2007

Pets Coorperating Together

py10.jpg (JPEG Image, 279x417 pixels)
Importance of coorperation.

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Team Hoyt - Dick and Rick Hoyt



This is very heart warming.
Thanks Don for Sharing!!

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J's Sanctuary

J's Sanctuary

To commemorate the success of revamping my blog, I decided to write a post about what nudged me to make such a drastic change to my blog's cosmetics.

I was first inspired to decorate my blog when I saw Don's emo blog and Jowell's dark blog at the beginning of the year. However, my feeble attempt at beautifying my blog was truncated due to the lack of inspiration, raw materials and time. Another reason is due to the fact that this blog existed as a place for me to express my appreciation or discontentment towards life.

It was until recently when I saw Ziyi's courageous efforts to decorate his blog with the funny pig heading that I changed my mind set about blogging. It set me thinking: even if my blog is for me alone, should I not want the contents to be shown to the world, why bother writing the blog at the first place? That leads to another question: if the blog is meant to be read by everybody isn’t it a form of representation of myself?

Another event spurred me on to explore the possibilities of beautifying and personalizing the blog to serve as my “incarnation in the net” is no other than ASEAN Dance. Thanks to Wei Kit’s camera that I got hold of many photo of me, thus I have my materials. After a few hours of editing and rendering, I came up with the template, of which I am very proud of. After confirmation from few close friends, I published the headings. Then I spent a whole day adding stuffs and fine-tuning every detail in the blog. Voila, J’s Sanctuary

The reason I chose to change the heading is because I am neither an alien in Singapore anymore and nor is Singapore new to me. Since the blog is me and where is voice out about life, it is my little sanctuary where I can do what I like, and most of all it is a refuge for me from the harsh real world. The reason I chose the alphabet “J” is because it is the one and only alphabet that explains me as I am.

Finally, I want to thank many people who helped me in my small little project. I want to thank friends, especially Don, Ziyi, Wei Kit and Div for all the inspiration and support, webmasters for sharing the Photoshop brushes, blog templates and Widgets, and not to forget the website tutorials for teaching me how to use Photoshop a few years back when I got hold of my first Photoshop which was a 5.0. Besides that I also want to thank my bro, for introducing me to a few blogging tools like Google Analytics, CSS, Flock….. Last but not least, I want to give credit to Blogger for allowing me to host my blog for free.

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Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Asean Dance 2007


"Asean Dance 2007:Equinox" Logo

Hai Ching, Wei Kit, Me and Wei Yong

Me and Wei Kit

Me and Marcus

Hi all,
Its been a long time.
I've just been to Asean Dance. It was great with free flow drinks, photo booth and much more. The emcee was great too. Sadly there was no snacks. Hahah.
However, the lights and the sound was too intense for me.
Bye!!

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