The deadliest tsunami set off work to be ready for the next big wave | Hacker News Reader

The deadliest tsunami set off work to be ready for the next big wave

nytimes.com

36 pointsbookofjoe16 comments

The detail I remember is how they identified the dead.

They would find the person's phone. Pop the SIM card into another phone. Call people on the contacts until they found someone who recognized the number. Ask the name, record it and ask if that person can notify the next of kin of another tsunami victim.

Then they'd move on to the next body and look for another phone.

> Pop the SIM card into another phone. Call people on the contacts until they found someone who recognized the number.

So no PIN on the SIM and contacts stored inside the SIM? I wonder on which percentage of the victims it worked.

This was 2004. I think that PINs on SIM cards were uncommon.

In the video that I watched, it worked 2x in a row.

PINs on SIMs are still very uncommon in India. No more contacts on SIM though. It was a common practice back then though, as it was easy to swap phones, as long as you didn’t have so many contacts that they wouldn’t fit on the SIM.

https://archive.ph/v6p3x

hard to believe that was twenty years ago

The movie they made about it is a difficult watch. Just terrifying.

Here is the trailer: https://youtu.be/Bgw394ZKsis?si=q3OuzOBCsnq5nyXE

My thoughts visiting the link:

Title: [..] NEW TRAILER (2012) [..]

Me: oh, hey, not that long ag..

Description: 12 Years ago

Getting old has always been bad, but COVID paused most people’s mental calendars for about three years so the kicks hurt worse. “Oh that was six… no that was a decade ago. Fuuuck.”

It really has, to the point where I just want a refund on those years. Just give them back. But then you realize that everybody had to go through that. For me, at least, it may be because there's is literally no part of that experience that I want to revisit or validate.

I was in Sri Lanka at the time.

If we had not delayed my plans for a day by ex, our daughter and I would have been on the coast road when it hir.

How did this headline make it past the editors?

what a terrible headline (changed from the original)

I think the "work" in particular was a rough choice because it's not immediately clear whether they're using it as a verb or noun. And "set off" is bad for similar reasons.

Something like "deadliest tsunami triggered preparations for the next one" or "deadliest tsunami inspired readiness for the next one" might be better.

Or even "lessons from the 2004 tsunami help us prepare for the next one".

Submitted title was "20 Years Ago Today, Deadliest Tsunami Set Off Work to Be Ready for Next Big Wave". We've made it be the same as the article's now.

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