I remember reading that if this earthquake had hitten a populated area, instead of happening on the bottom of the ocean, there would be even more dead, but I doubt it, as it would concentrate it's destruction in one place, and this tsunami got to a lot of different places.

And the bizarre, bizarre, creepy part of it: there's this TV ad over here, I've seen it on... december 24th I think: there's this local tradition of jumping 7 waves on the beach on new years eve, and if you do so you'll get lucky for the rest of the year. So there was this life insurance ad which feature a happy couple jumping the waves, counting "one, two", while the narrator kept talking how theres no such thing as luck, and telling people to do a life insurance, and then when he ends his narration, the couple is about to jump the 7th wave, comes this huge CGI wave and takes them away, and they are shown on the ground, spitting water, and with fishes on them and stuff... Supposed to be comical, and it was I thought it was amusing, very funny, but I belive they had to pull the ad out of the air, now... Talk about bad timing!

Reminds me also of the last TV show I watched on the night of september 10, 2001: a discovery channel programm about the twin towers and how they would be able to survive strong winds and earthquakes, and were supposed to last for 5 more decades.