2 really amazing tsunami stories.

[ZombieNixon]

My mother has a friend who was on the east coast of Sri Lanka with her husband and three-year-old daughter three days before the tsunami hit. They are walking along the beach one day, the sky is completely clear, the water is calm as can be, and the kid asks "Mommy, what's a really big wave called?" She answers, "It's called a tsunami." At this point, the little girl stares out at the ocean for a moment and says "I think there's going to be one."

The day of the tsunami, the temple elephants in NE Sri Lanka were reported to be crying. The mahouts managed to calm them down, but they started up again an hour later, broke through their fences and ran off. Hours later, the wave hit, washing away the entire community, but the elephant, without the mahouts, were seen wading through the water, picking up people, putting them on their backs and taking them up the hill. The wave washed away everything on the shore, climbed partway up the hill and stopped just short of where the elephants had dropped off their "passangers."

Weird. Really weird.

[liberal N proud]

1. I had read that there were few if any animals killed by the tsunami

They had a sense that it was coming and move to higher ground. Survival of the fittest?
In many disasters animals have the instinct to flee harms way, it only when man causes the disaster, is there any loss of wildlife.

[ZombieNixon]

2. They're smart enough to get the hell outta there...

why aren't we?

[Az]

7. We are curious

Sometimes not such a good trait.

[devilgrrl]

6. I heard that members of stone age tribes in the area survived as well...

do to their "sixth sense"... amazing!

[WillieWoohah]

10. Maybe they can just run faster, and are better swimmers

Could a dog outrun a tsunami?

[democracyindanger]

3. Just saw a doc on elephants

They apparently have thousands of vibration sensors on the bottom of their feet and the ends of their trunks.

[lovuian]

4. There are no coincidences!!!

Its not wierd its a blessing!!! I think 21st century man is so silly not believing in animals 6th sense or children's sometimes I feel like we have become so ignorant we can't recognize the signs around us!!!

[Karenina]

5. Can't hear much

with a cell phone glued to your ear! :evilgrin:

[Az]

8. We are conditioned

We believe we have the elements tamed. Anomalies are points of curiosity to us. To an animal they are threats. Thus a strange vibration passes unnoticed by us but spooks an animal.

Factor in that our senses are not the same as different animals. Some are tuned to the atmosphere. Some are tuned to the ground. They are all perfectly reasonable adaptions of the known senses. Its just our hubrous that makes us think that our senses are better than their's.

[losingit]

9. I saw tonight on the news that some of the tribes

on the Islands outside of India. Attacked a helicopter bringing supplies, was shot at by Bow and Arrows.

When asked if they were upset, the Indian reps said NO, We are happy!! It means the tribes survived!!!

Sorry but I liked to hear that. Good outlook.

[Must_B_Free]

11. they still know how to read nature

something us "superior" creatures have forgotten

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Living on low-lying islands, and cut off from outside influences,

the Andaman and Nicobar Islanders may have not so much a sixth sense as an unbroken tradition of stories of past tsunamis. I don't know if they were able to feel the earthquake, but they may have a customary practice of heading for higher ground if an earthquake occurs or if the ocean suddenly recedes.

Remember, they've lived on the same islands for tens of thousands of years. This can't be their first tsunami.