Incidents and deadlines at the daily grind have kept me from posting of late. One subject of import that I have sorely neglected has been the utmost dire situation in the regions affected by the recent earthquake. theyblinked’s brother Trevor gave him an “account”:http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/2005/10/this-just-in-from-trevor-in-pakistan.html a few weeks ago:
bq. Hope you get this. My computer died on me… hope to have it fixed today. Things here are unimaginable and its freezing cold–rain and hail the last few days. I have a cold already and I have warm clothes. Think of the millions that are sleeping under the sky. There are so many bodies here. The stench is terrible. They can’t bury them fast enough because they don’t have enough burial shrouds or shovels or people who aren’t injured.
The running deathcount has become an unfathomable number: 80,0000, rivaling only the December 2004 Tsunami in its human toll. Unlike that natural disaster, focus on the suffering due to this earthquake from U.S. news outlets has paled in comparison, where the public tendency to donate support is unfortunately in direct proportion to media attention.
As winter comes, it becomes apparent that unless more assistance comes in the form of worldwide attention and humanitarian relief, the number of collateral deaths due to the earthquake will only rise.
For those interested in lending a hand directly, there’s a “link”:http://www.securedpath.com/?type=Contact&submit=thanks&PayPal=other at Trevor’s site _Secured Path_.
See also Abbas from 3quarksdaily’s recent story and “plea for help”:http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2005/10/pakistan_earthq.html, with photos of the devastation from the NY times.
