Earthquake Japan and the Church LDS

Its a wonderful, beautiful feeling how our Church canimmediately organised itself and its people in times of disasters and particularly in a disaster of this magnitude. We pray for the Saints and missionaries along that vicious north coast

Japan earthquake, tsunami update
By Gerry Avant and Sarah Jane Weaver
Church News staff writers
Published: Friday, March 11, 2011
Video: Japan earthquake and tsunami update
LDS missionaries in Japan all safe
The Church continues to make every effort to track down the missionaries and Church members in Sendai, Japan — an area crippled by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake that struck the coast of northern Japan Friday, March 11, and triggered a massive tsunami.
Conan Grames, director of public affairs for the Asia North Area, said the Church has been able to contact at least two-thirds of missionaries and has not received reports of injury or serious damage. “They’re continually trying to make contact with all missionaries,” he said.
Hundreds of deaths have been confirmed in the fifth largest earthquake since 1900 and is the largest earthquake to ever hit Japan.
Further, strong aftershocks continue to shake the area, where thousands were displaced, hundreds of buildings and homes were destroyed and more than four million people were left without power.
AP PhotoWaves of water swept away homes, cars and people in Japan's worst earthquake on record.
Elder Grames said he and his wife, Cindy, are based in the area office in Tokyo.
"It started out as a really violent shake,” he said of the earthquake. “I’ve lived here 15 years, I’ve been through many earthquakes in Japan. When it started out, I said to Sister Grames, ‘This is a bad one.' We sat in our chairs maybe 30 seconds. It was growing in intensity so we decided it made good sense for us to get under our desks. So we did…. As we were under desks the earthquake continued to grow in intensity. It was shaking back and forth. There was a lot of noise. The shelves rattling, books on the desks were shaking. Of all the earthquakes I’ve ever felt, this lasted the longest time. It must have been a couple of minutes, at least, that we were under our desks and this was going on.”
Elder Grames said the soon learned most of the damage from the quake occurred in Sendai, located almost 200 miles from Tokyo.
“Communications throughout the Sendai mission are virtually impossible,” he said. “Even the cell phone networks are down, regular telephone lines are down, electricity is out, gas and water is out. The situation is really difficult in terms of all utilities and transportation.”
Elder Grames did communicated with Japan Sendai Mission President Reid Tateoka via e-mail. President Tateoka was traveling at the time of the earthquake and had set up an emergency center in a hotel in Koriyama. President Tateoka was able to communicate enough to know that the mission home in Sendai is in good shape.
Elder Grames said that as far as he knows there has been no reports of death or injury among Church members. He said all of the six missions in Japan — with the exception of the Sendai mission — have contacted all their missionaries and reported them safe and unharmed.
Further, he said, all the stake presidents in the area have been asked to communicate with the Church about loss and injury of members.
Elder Grames said at this point it is not possible to send relief to Sendai because the roads are closed and the bridges are out. “The airport was flooded,” he explained. “The transportation in and out of Sendai seems virtually impossible at this time.”
Elder Grames said the government is sending in a special force to help those in need and the Church has set up an emergency team in the Church Office Building in Tokyo.
“At this point, we’re focused on communication, trying to find out what the needs are, what the damages are,” he said. “And then we can hope in the near future to turn to offering assistance where it’s most needed.”
In addition, according to a Church Welfare report:
-- Contact with all mission presidents in Japan has been established.
-- All missionaries outside the Sendai mission are safe and accounted for. The Church is still waiting to hear from missionaries in Sendai, where communication and public transportation has been shut down.
-- All missionaries in Japan living along coastal regions have been moved to inland locations.
-- All members of the Asia North Area presidency and their wives are safe.
-- Minor damage is being reported to the Tokyo temple.
-- Tokyo temple housing is being used for to house members unable to return to their homes.
-- Local Church leaders are working to contact all members.
-- All employees in the area office are reported safe.
-- The LDS Disaster response team at Church Headquarters is monitoring the situation and has been in constant contact via “Skype” with the Asia North Area.
-- All missionaries are safe in areas outside of Japan.
-- Leaders in all area offices are on high-alert and are working with local leaders to contact members and make them aware of potential tsunami danger.
sarah@desnews.com

Now we have a possible nuclear fallout

THE operator of a quake-hit Japanese nuclear plant says the cooling system of another reactor is not working and there's a risk of an explosion.
"All the functions to keep cooling water levels in No 3 reactor have failed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant,'' a spokesman of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Sunday.
``As of 5.30am (07.30 AEDT), water injection stopped and inside pressure is rising slightly,'' he said, adding the operator filed an emergency report on the plant's condition with the government.
The massive earthquake and tsunami on Friday left more than 1,000 dead and at least 10,000 unaccounted for.
In its wake there was an explosion that blew off the roof and walls of the structure around the No 1 reactor at the Fukushima No 1 atomic plant, about 250km northeast of Tokyo.
Radiation leaked from the plant, but the government moved to calm fears of a meltdown, saying the blast did not rupture the container surrounding the reactor and that radiation levels had fallen afterwards.
Power debate: Fukushima crisis shows nuke danger
Tokyo: Japan doubles troops for quake help
Severe: Japan upgrades magnitude of killer quake
Hong Kong: People turn ever more to the web in crises
Wave of death: Tsunami toll mounts: '300 to 400 bodies found' - more than 1000 feared dead
Helping hand: Children's charity seeks $5m to help Japan
Help: Quake appeal launched in Australia
Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the accident at four on the international scale of 0 to 7. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven.Work to bring the situation under control is ongoing to prevent cooling liquid from evaporating and exposing the fuel rods to the air, which could trigger a major radiation leak.
"We have decided to douse the (reactor) container with sea water in order to reduce risks as quickly as possible,'' Kan's top spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters on Saturday.
Kyodo and Jiji reported before the explosion that the plant ``may be experiencing nuclear meltdown'', while NHK quoted the safety agency as saying metal tubes that contain uranium fuel may have melted.
An evacuation order for tens of thousands of residents was expanded to 20km around the Fukushima plant, and thousands more were shifted from another damaged plant, Fukushima No 2.
Meanwhile, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington said on Saturday it has sent two experts to Japan.
"We have some of the most expert people in this field in the world working for the NRC and we stand ready to assist in any way possible,'' commission chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a statement announcing the deployment.
The NRC - an independent agency mandated by Congress to regulate US commercial nuclear power plants and other nuclear materials - said the pair were experts in boiling water nuclear reactors and are part of a broader US aid team sent to the disaster zone.
The commission has activated ``its Maryland-based headquarters Operations Center since the beginning of the emergency in Japan, and is operating on a 24-hour basis'', the statement added.
As workers doused the stricken reactor with sea water on Saturday to try to avert catastrophe, Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the chaos unleashed by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake was an "unprecedented national disaster''.
The quake, one of the biggest ever recorded, unleashed a terrifying 10-metre wave that tore through towns and cities on Japan's northeastern coast, destroying everything in its path.
There are concerns for the safety of at least 160 Australians in the worst-hit areas of Japan.
In the small port town of Minamisanriku alone, about 10,000 people are unaccounted for -- more than half the population -- public broadcaster NHK reported.
Even as Japan struggled to assess the full extent of the devastation, the nation faced an atomic emergency as cooling systems damaged by the quake failed at two nuclear reactors.
An evacuation order for tens of thousands of residents was expanded to 20km around the Fukushima plant, and thousands more were shifted from another damaged plant, Fukushima No 2.
Media reports said three residents -- bedridden patients evacuated from a hospital near the plant -- had been found to be exposed to radiation after spending a long time in the open waiting for rescue.
Ron Chesser, director for the Centre for Environmental Radiation Studies at Texas Tech University, said it's critical to cool the reactor core to avoid a meltdown that would result in ``a large release of radiation''.
"Reactors are not like your car that you can turn off and walk away. They're going to continue generating a great amount of heat until the core is disassembled,'' he told the US-based ScienceDaily website.
The raging tsunami picked up shipping containers, cars and the debris of shattered homes. It crashed through the streets of Sendai and across open fields, forming a mud slick that covered vast tracts of land.
"There are so many people who lost their lives,'' an elderly man told TV reporters before breaking down in tears. "I have no words to say.''
Police reportedly said 200-300 bodies had been found in the city of Sendai. Up to 400 bodies were recovered in Rikuzentakata, a coastal town of about 23,000 people, NHK quoted the military as saying.
The premier's spokesman said at least 1000 people were believed to have lost their lives. Police said more than 215,000 people were huddled in emergency shelters.
"What used to be residential areas were mostly swept away in many coastal areas and fires are still blazing there,'' Kan said after surveying the damage by helicopter.
About 50,000 military and other rescue personnel are spearheading a Herculean rescue and recovery effort, with hundreds of ships, aircraft and vehicles headed to the Pacific coast area.
The towering wave set off alerts across the Pacific, sparking evacuations in Hawaii and on the US West Coast.
The Bank of Japan said it would do its "utmost'' to ensure the stability of financial markets after the quake brought huge disruption to key industries, raising short-term concerns for the nation's struggling economy.
In quake-hit areas, 5.6 million households had no power on Saturday and more than one million households were without water. Telecommunications networks were also hit.
In a rare piece of good news, a ship that was earlier reported missing was found swept out to sea and all 81 people aboard were airlifted to safety.
Leading international offers of help, which saw foreign rescue teams begin arriving in Japan on Saturday, President Barack Obama mobilised the US military to provide emergency aid after what he called a ``simply heartbreaking'' disaster.
The United States, which has nearly 50,000 military personnel in Japan, ordered a flotilla including two aircraft carriers and support ships to the region to provide aid.
The quake hit at 2:46pm (1646 AEDT) on Friday and lasted about two minutes, making buildings sway in greater Tokyo, the world's largest urban area and home to about 30 million people.
More than a day after the first, massive quake struck just under 400km northeast of Tokyo, aftershocks were still rattling the region, including a strong 6.8 magnitude tremor on Saturday.
Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire'' and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government has long warned of the likelihood that a devastating magnitude-eight quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.

Massive earthquake in Japan

Japan earthquake triggers widespread tsunami alerts AP, AFP, AAP From: AAP, AP, AFP March 11, 2011 6:11PM What are these? This graphic provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows estimated tsunami travel times following the massive earthquake. Picture: AFP PHOTO
Tsunami devastates Japan. Picture: AFP PHOTO / HO / NHK Source: Supplied
Latest warnings: Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre
Alerts: Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre

UPDATE 8.43pm: THE first tsunami waves have reached the Kuril Islands chain after a powerful quake struck off Japan, prompting Russia to evacuate 11,000 people, officials said.
The US tsunami monitoring centre has issued a widespread tsunami warning for virtually the entire Pacific coast after a massive 8.9 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Japan.
The quake forced a wall of water to descend on the Japanese coast, smashing ships into the shore and sending cars floating down city streets.

It also triggered a string of the tsunami warnings for the Pacific coast, parts of Asia, and as far north as Russia.

Small tsunami waves reached two of the Kuril Islands' four southernmost islands, with waves at Shikotan Island reaching one metre and waves at Kunashir Island 95cm, a representative of the Sakhalin Tsunami Centre told AFP.

Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
"The second and third waves may be bigger," she said by telephone from Sakhalin Island, where the centre is based.

Along with Iturup and Habomai, Kunashir and Shikotan are the Kuril chain's southernmost islands that are at the heart of Russia's territorial dispute with Japan.

Earlier on Friday, Russia declared a tsunami warning for the entire Kuril Islands and ordered the evacuation of 11,000 people, officials said.

The natural resources ministry said in a separate statement that all economic activity had been suspended on the islands.

Emergencies ministry spokeswoman, Yekaterina Potvorova, speaking to AFP earlier in the day, played down the potential threat of the tsunami, saying that waves were expected to reach around two metres.

The tsunami warning does not include Sakhalin Island that lies close to the Kurils, she added.

The Bureau of Meteorology says there is no tsunami threat for Australia following the deadly quake.

The latest Bureau of Meteorology update, issued at 4.46pm, says Australia's mainland, islands and territories are safe.

Forecaster Chris Ryan from the National Meteorological and Oceanographic Centre said there was a chance that could change if the quake's magnitude is found to be higher.

"But we're a fair while past the event now, it seems to have settled to that level," he told AAP.

The tsunami warnings closest to Australia are for the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

"We're relatively sheltered by those island chains," Mr Ryan said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre based in Hawaii, however, has widened its warnings to virtually the entire Pacific coast, including Australia New Zealand and Central and South America.

The Pacific centre also has issued tsunami warnings for Japan, Russia, Marcus Island and the Northern Marianas.

A tsunami watch is active for Guam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and the US state of Hawaii, where Prime Minister Julia Gillard was due to fly to on Friday.

The centre had earlier said the tsunami would hit Hawaii at around 2.45am (11.45pm AEDT) and the US West Coast at 7.45am (2.45am AEDT).

Philippine officials ordered the evacuation of coastal communities along the country's eastern seaboard in expectation of a tsunami following the quake.

Philippine Volcanology and Seismology Institute director Renato Solidum said the first 1m high waves are expected to hit the northernmost Batanes islands by 5pm local time (8pm AEDT).

Disaster management officials in Albay province southeast of Manila say they have ordered residents to move to designated evacuation sites that are at least 5m above sea level.

A number of eastern regions in Indonesia have also been put on tsunami watch.

Indonesia's Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysical Agency said waves generated by the earthquake which struck off Japan's northeastern coast could hit North Maluku, North Sulawesi and Papua.

It said residents should be aware that waves could hit the regions at about 6pm Jakarta time (10pm AEDT).


THE Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre has issued a widespread tsunami alert for the following countries.

Japan
Russia
Marcus Island
Northern Marianas
Guam
Wake Island
Taiwan
Yap
Philippines
Marshall Island
Belau
Midway Island
Pohnpei
Chuuk
Kosrae
Indonesia
Papua New Guinea
Nauru
Johnston Island
Solomon Island
Kiribati
Howland-Baker
Hawaii
Tuvalu
Palmyra Island
Vanuatu
Tokelau
Jarvis Island
Wallis-Futuna
Samoa
American Samoa
Cook Islands
Niue
Australia
Fiji
New Caledonia
Tonga
Mexico
Kermadec Island
French Polynesia
New Zealand
Pitcairn
Guatemala
El Salvador
Costa Rica
Nicaragua
Antarctica
Panama
Honduras
Chile
Ecuador
Colombia
Peru

March 2011 floods

More flooding has occurred in the north of the state, where towns were still recuperating and repairing after Cyclone Yasi. These are the last days....

.Heartbreak as floods ravage Cardwell weeks after Cyclone Yasi destroyed the town Staff writers From: The Courier-Mail March 09, 2011 9:56AM Increase Text SizeDecrease Text SizePrintEmail Share
Replay: Floods hit cyclone-battered Cardwell
SHATTERED Cyclone Yasi victims are battling a second cruel blow as torrential rain floods already-battered towns, leaving residents stranded and sodden.
Premier Anna Bligh said the thoughts and prayers of all Queenslanders are with the residents of Cardwell, which has been flooded again.
The town is isolated, with roads cut to the north and the south. Forecasters predict 200mm of rain between Cooktown and Innisfail until tomorrow morning and authorities have set up an evacuation centre.
Residents warn the downpour has set back the already massive recovery effort as they struggle to protect their homes with little more than tarps. Many drains are still clogged with cyclone debris overflow.
Woman's body found in floodwaters
The Cassowary Coast Local Disaster Management Group opened the Cardwell Community Call as a temporary evacuation centre last night but there were no takers, most preferring to shack up with family and friends.
A couple had to be rescued from their home by the SES at 5.30am this morning after flood waters rose too high for them to leave safely.
The town is still bound by floodwater this morning after it was hit with 211mm of rainfall in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday.
But locals with their own backyard rain guages say the falls have been even higher, and have reported falls closer to 300mm yesterday.
About 90 per cent of the town can not flush their toilets – most people use septic tanks and the water table is higher than the septic system. There are reports of sewerage bubbling up on to lawns.
“Cardwell is an island, a very wet, flooded island, resident Rita Dalli told The Cairns Post.
Hinchinbrook Real Estate owner Lindsay Hallam said it had been wet over the weekend but torrential rain had not let up since 7pm Monday.
“We have copped it for a few days now but last night (Monday) was insane,” she said. “We have been hit with a double whammy – Cardwell hasn’t had time to recover from the cyclone, there are still people living under tarps and cleaning up after the tidal surge.”
"Cardwell is being hit hard for the second time in as many months, it's just heartbreaking," the premier said in a statement.
"The community was devastated by Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi last month, and in the past 24 hours around 200mm of rain has fallen."
But there is some good news with a tropical low that's threatening to turn into a cyclone in the far eastern Coral Sea unlikely to affect Queensland.
The Fiji weather bureau told AAP there's a low to moderate chance of a tropical low, sitting off Fiji, developing into a category one cyclone in the next 24-48 hours.
Michelle Berry from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said the low was moving away from Queensland and was highly unlikely to affect the state.
``It's certainly looking like nothing that will impact our coast ... It's nowhere near us at all,'' she said.
Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said help will try and move in today.
"A State Emergency Service team from Cairns will attempt to make it through to Cardwell today to provide support (to) local crews in Cardwell," Mr Roberts said in a statement.
Seventeen Queensland Fire and Rescue Service (QFRS) specialists, including 12 swift water rescue personnel, four electronic command and control personnel and one communications officer, were deployed yesterday from southeast and central Queensland.
A sandbagging machine was also dispatched to the community.
Hawkins Creek, outside of Ingham, received 212mm in the past 24 hours, while
Ingham has received 203mm since 9am yesterday.
Elsewhere in the region, the Murtarnee Store weather station recorded 235mm and the Paluma Dam received 210mm in the past 24 hours.
Seventeen rescue specialists were deployed to Cairns and Townsville yesterday, while police recovered the body of Kuranda woman Michelle Murray after her car was swept away in raging floodwaters.
Premier Anna Bligh yesterday said her heart went out to north Queenslanders.
"Those people, particularly in Cardwell, still reeling from Cyclone Yasi, must be thinking what on earth is next," she said.
Dozens of roads are closed in the far north and an area the size of Tasmania is inundated in the southwest as Queensland's big wet continues.A new cyclone likely to develop 1000km northeast of Mackay today is not expected to threaten the coast, but forecasters warned of more storms to come.
Wet weather that has plagued the Townsville region should also ease today but falls ranging up to 200mm will continue in the coastal strip between Cooktown and Innisfail until tomorrow morning.
Floods closed the Bruce Highway to the north and south of Ingham and near the Cardwell range. To the south, the highway is closed at Francis and Cattle creeks.
The body of Michelle Murray, 42, of Kuranda, a psychology research assistant at James Cook University in Cairns, was yesterday found 1km away from where her car was swept off a flooded creek crossing early Monday.
The UK-born student, who worked part-time in the Kuranda market, tried to cross a flooded causeway in a hatchback, police said.
Swift-water specialists found her body about 11am after a search in a creek near her Barron Falls home.
In the far southwest, Senior Constable Neale McShane of Birdsville was preparing to rescue a German tourist stranded 160km to the east on the Birdsville Developmental Rd.
"He's in a Britz camper with water all around him on one of the few strips of bitumen out there," he said.
Bedourie Senior Constable Tim Farran said at least three-quarters of their massive shire was under water.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "When you are flying, it's from horizon to horizon."
Sen-Constable Farran said a NSW driver bogged for three days on the Coorabulka Rd was more than keen to be rescued when he got to him on Monday.
"He had the shakes and was very smelly," he said. "He had about a month's food with him but had to leave it as we couldn't take too much on the chopper. He wasn't too happy about that but he shouldn't have been out there."
Sen-Constable Farran said damage to roads had been so bad they would not be passable, even after water receded.

Christchurch Earthquake 2011

This is very, very sad, but we know in the last days that such catastrophic conditions will ocurr before our Saviour comes. My heart and prayers go out to parents, siblings, friends, husbands, wives, whose loved ones died in the disaster. A Phillipino lass text her mother from where she was trapped beneath a crumpled building. She told of the pain she felt, how dark it was. They could not get her out and she died, along with dozens of others.
NZ quake death toll rises to 159
2nd March 2011

The death toll from Christchurch's earthquake has risen to 159 after more bodies were recovered.
Photos
Christchurch earthquake in pictures

Tod_Johnston RT @nzherald: Demand for port-a-loos is so high they're being imported from Australia - but private households can't... http://t.co/DMM3EsQ 9 minutes ago · reply
kiwinerd RT @nzherald: Demand for port-a-loos is so high they're being imported from Australia - but private households can't hire them: http://t.co/DMM3EsQ #eqnz 9 minutes ago · reply
nzherald Demand for port-a-loos is so high they're being imported from Australia - but private households can't hire them: http://t.co/DMM3EsQ #eqnz 9 minutes ago · reply
Police released the names of three more victims, eight days after the deadly 6.3-magnitude quake struck the city and wreaked widespread damage through the CBD and eastern suburbs.
Those named on Wednesday were Jayden Andrews-Howland, 15, from Aranui, Paul Clarence Dunlop, 67, from Rolleston, and Andrew Stephen Cochrane, 43, of Bromley.
Eleven people have now been officially named.
Police expect the death toll to reach about 240 once all the bodies have been recovered from collapsed buildings and identified.
Superintendent Dave Cliff told media on Wednesday police expected to name more people in the near future as the identification process was gaining momentum.
Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) head Russell Wood said teams had now managed to get to the 10th floor of the 26-storey Hotel Grand Chancellor and had found no one.
The hotel is threatening to topple over and was reinforced with concrete so USAR teams could get in.
He said teams had also done a second sweep of the red carded buildings but found no bodies.
The teams would also try to get into the rubble of the spire of ChristChurch Cathedral to search for bodies, he said.
Meanwhile, Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker said about 60 homes in Sumner, near the RSA, were evacuated overnight after fears an unstable cliff would come down on them.
Other houses in other suburbs were also evacuated because large boulders above were threatening to fall on them.
Civil Defence said they were looking at ways to allow people into the CBD cordon to retrieve their cars and get to their businesses to retrieve essential items.
Meanwhile, NZ television personality Jason Gunn says his phone has been running hot and a website inundated with offers to adopt Christchurch families badly affected by last week's devastating earthquake.
Gunn and his wife Janine Morrell-Gunn launched the adoptachristchurchfamily.com website after helping out two families badly hit by last September's magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
"From America, from Europe, it (the response) has been incredible, heartwarming, it's really heartwarming," Gunn told NewstalkZB on Wednesday.
On his website Gunn said after September's quake he and his wife financially supported two families from the hard-hit suburb of Bexley.
"We wanted to give targeted practical assistance."

The things we are asked to write at Wynnum Writers

Using phrases. This little tale uses phrases starting with 'd'. Next month it is 'e' and 'f'
What you do with useful phrases
First you got to have an introduction! The plot was people around a table having an important meeting, but one of them, seemed a little strange.

In this seemingly strange plot, John was in a drowsing tranquility, not really interested, but content to let the others speak at the meeting. This did not go down too well with some of the club members. Charles was certain that such declamatory treatment by them would result in much ado about nothing, of which he was decidedly against, being John’s best friend. But John 2, full of dashing gallantry, sided with Brian’s delightful variation of John being affected by the hot and sticky humid weather! That was what was wrong with him. So the meeting continued, with each observer giving their various views on poor John’s strange condition. Val thought that John was full of delicious vagueness, thus placing his mood into something that sounded suspiciously of an edible variety of vegetable, very strange indeed. The remark was greeted by Bernadette with deadly virulence, as she did not like to be faced with such shocking enmity to Val’s thought. Meanwhile, Colleen had been pondering all that had been said thus far, and thought all the remarks smacked of derogatory denial in an inability to see John’s true condition, that he was slightly swacked by the writer’s disease, having been busy at it all night.

Heather observed that these divergent calculations by most members of the club were nothing but various remarks of jealousy, while Sue muttered that such thinking by all of the puzzled members would need to fade into dusky obscurity, for she noted that John gave a gentle snore, and the much-maligned man fell asleep over his papers, leaving several eyes regarding him in horror. Colleen chuckled softly to herself.

Wynnum Writers 1 March 2011

This is a great exercize and the name of the sentence is practically unpronounceable!

Are there such things as paraprosdokian sentences?
Here is one. War does not determine who is right – only who is left. Well, I ask you, is that right? After all, war is usually a fight to the bitter end with death reigning on both sides. As the bullets fly and the cannons roar, who is there to say that war is right anyhow? Those with leftist ideals might demand that the hostilities be quickly ended, but mostly both sides consider themselves to be fighting for what they feel is right; in their point of view that is. So the bullets flew, the canons continued to roar and from the aircraft in formation in the heavens, bombs landed their lethal loads to add to the melee.
Finally the barrage ceased. Who is right? Well, those who started the war, for they considered themselves right, hadn’t many warriors left; hadn’t much of anything left actually. What they had left is shattered pride and a shattered country and a conquering people taking over their lives. The winners, those who consider they are right also, hadn’t much of anything left, and are little better off, but there are no conquering people in their countries.
So who is left then? A conquering people and a conquered; the war itself had determined who is left. But those left, did they determine which side is right?

I confused even myself who wrote the thing!