Don't Believe Drudge's Hype

Parroting a sensationalist headline from The Independent, Drudge runs the banner headline "The Lost Generation" on his site for December 29th. A lot of people are buying that line, and running with it.

The only problem is, the headline isn't true.

Using the CIA World Fact Book for total population data and the This is London link from Drudge's own site for current casualty data, we can compile some rough figures using the calculator at Math.com.

• India, a country of 1 billion, has lost a confirmed 7,000 dead, or 0.0007-percent of their population.
• Thailand, a country of 64 million, has lost a confirmed 1,700 dead or 0.002-percent of their population.
• Indonesia, a country of 238.5 million, has lost a confirmed 42,000 dead, or 0.017-percent of their population.
• Sri Lanka, a country of 19.9 million, has lost a confirmed 22,500 dead, was the hardest hit per capita, with 0.113-percent of their population killed.

The deaths from this seismic event are tragic on a grand scale, but it falls far short of the massive casualties sustained at Stalingrad (1942-3, 1-2 million dead), and I've heard few claiming that an entire generation of Soviets or Germans were wiped out in that battle.

Perhaps the media should stick with the facts, and leave the propaganda to Michael Moore.

Edit: The phrase "The hardest hit countries lost less than one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population..." was corrected to read "The hardest hit country lost just over one-tenth of one-percent of their overall population."

Update: The death toll in Indonesia has nearly doubled to 80,000, raising their loses to 0.034-percent of their total population.