Steven Bartkoski

Hannah Kern, Baldwin City freshman; Reba Good, Overland Park junior; and Elena Larson, Lindsborg freshman, light candles to remember the victims of the Southeast Asia tsunami. Kaylee Miller, Olathe freshman, and Latricia Bradley, Kansas City, Kan., freshman stand in the background. The vigil was held last night at the Campanile to commemorate the one-month anniversary of the storm.

Huddled together, coats held tight, hands trembling, approximately 30 people gathered last night underneath the Campanile in silent memorial of the victims from last month's tsunami. The candlelight danced on their bowed heads as Elaine Jardon, Delta Force's nominee for student body president, read an excerpt from “Time” magazine reminding the participants of the tragedy that befell Southeast Asia. The vigil was one of the many efforts put forth by a campus-wide

effort to raise money and bring awareness to the tsunami victims. Elena Larson, Lindsborg freshman, braved the cold to attend last night’s event.

“It was meaningful for those who were here to show our support,” she said. Since classes have started, the “KU Campaign for Tsunami Relief” has planned fundraisers, speakers and a dinner to raise relief money. They have collected money in front of Wescoe Hall and inside the Kansas Union lobby. Volunteers for the campaign also attended the Kansas basketball games last week in Allen Fieldhouse.

“We have raised nearly $500 with our on-campus efforts,” Jennifer Donnally, Lawrence junior, said. “It’s so amazing, the students' generosity. It has been an uplifting process.”

Donnally said that she and Rashida Banerjee, doctoral student and president of KU UNICEF, were happy with yesterday’s turnout despite the cold weather.

Before last night's vigil, Donnally had asked Don Steeples, professor of geology and vice provost for scholarly support, to repeat a lecture that he gave earlier this month.

Steeples said he knew there would be a lot of lives lost following the magnitude 9.0 earthquake. The earthquake that hit Southeast Asia was the fourth largest earthquake in the last hundred years.

“I knew that the numbers from Indonesia were going to be huge because that's where the shaking would have been greatest, that's where the tsunami would have been greatest,” he said.

Steeples first gave the lecture to a standing-room only crowd in the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, west of the Lied Center, 10 days after the tsunami hit. He said he received many e-mails and phone calls urging him to talk about it. Steeples essentially compressed three lectures from his Earthquakes and Natural Disasters class.

“I've taught this stuff for many years,” he said. “There was a lot of misleading stuff floating around in the news media.”

For last night's lecture, Steeples removed pictures and video focusing on the damage and added a three-minute clip that demonstrated how an earthquake occurs underground and added a section that explained the lack of dead animals among the devastation.

KU UNICEF has fundraising planned until Feb. 4 with an international dinner planned for early February.