Josh Clark

And we you know, if you're actually you don't have to be much of a certain age, but.

On December 26, 2004, there was an undersea earthquake about a 9.0 magnitude that set off this incredible tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

I mean, we've done episodes on tsunamis and earthquakes, and we've talked about all this before, but it was about 100 feet tall, traveling at 500 miles an hour.

not much advance warning and was one of the most devastating tragedies in human history.

It killed close to 230,000 people in 14 countries.

It also sparked the biggest rail disaster in history when it

completely wiped out a train traveling along the coast of Sri Lanka.

And we mention all this because the only positive that came out of this was the media's reaction, which sparked the incredible amount of philanthropy and aid and giving in its aftermath.

Yeah, because I was reading a study on this.

It was called Media Coverage and Charitable Giving After the 2004 Tsunami.

It was by Philip H. Brown and Jessica H. Minty.

And they said the media coverage was unprecedented.

The world didn't forget about it in three days.

It was 24-hour coverage of this disaster for weeks on end, right?

Yeah.

And because these images were broadcast around the world and because it was so mind-bogglingly devastating, people just opened up their pockets.

I saw 99 different countries donated, and 13 of those countries had never donated for a natural disaster relief before.

It got to everybody.

Yeah, and there are, I think, about 195 countries in the world

Yeah, which it's kind of like do better other 96 countries.