Fortunately this isn’t the whole story. The outpouring of aid to stricken areas has been incredible. $350 million from the US government alone, not counting private donations, a staggering $500 million from Japan, with worldwide relief efforts reportedly reaching $2 billion. Doctors Without Borders has received enough donations to cover everything they expect to be able to do in the area, and are asking people to donate to their general fund instead, to help relieve other humanitarian crises. And there’s talk of both building a warning system in the Indian Ocean and improving the system in the Pacific [archive.org]. Robert Cringely has even suggested harnessing the Internet as a warning system, though in this case, many of the hardest-hit areas were still missing lines of communication.

Here’s a list of charities at MeyerWeb and the original at CNN.

“We tried to do what we could,” McCreery said. “We don’t have contacts in our address book for anybody in that part of the world.”

Within moments of detecting the 9-magnitude quake, McCreery and his staff were on the phone to Australia, then to U.S. Naval officials, various U.S. embassies and finally the U.S. State Department.

Even with a warning system in place, it would have caused massive devastation, but there would have been time for many—maybe even most of the people who died (at least from the immediate deluge) to reach higher ground and safety.

Reportedly efforts are underway to set up a network.

Red Cross donation info.