Conffederate
Confederate

October 21, 2005

The Quake That Disappeared

When I made my guestimate on October 9 that the Pakistani quake might lead up to 100,000 dead, I'd hoped that that figure would be substantially off.

Sadly, it may not be:

The top United Nations top relief coordinator Jan Egeland, incensed by what he saw as a woefully inadequate international response to the most difficult relief operation the world has ever seen, called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to stage a massive airlift to get survivors to safety.

That would mean helicopters, the only means of getting quickly deep into the rugged Himalayan foothills of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province where 51,000 people are dead. That toll, in addition to some 1,300 who were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, is still expected to rise substantially. Pakistan said the number of injured, now 74,000, could also leap because large quake-hit areas had not yet been reached.

Our own weather woes and political scandals de jour have all but erased this from the American mind. You can keep up with the rescue and recover effort at the South Asia Quake Blog.

Posted by Confederate Yankee at October 21, 2005 11:22 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Why should the MSM ever give a thought to a disaster that can't be blamed on Americans in general and Bush, Christians and Republicans in particular?

Posted by: gluxian at October 22, 2005 11:32 AM

I hate that it happened, but it sure quieted those Islamofascists who loudly contended that the US hurricanes of the past two years were judgments from Allah on an evil infidel populace. One would have thought they'd have learned not to make such 'pious' pronouncements after the tsunami hit.

Posted by: Salamantis at October 22, 2005 02:28 PM