The numbers regarding both the disasters in Burma and China have been, unfortunately, updated. In Burma, some 78,000 people are now reported dead with a further 56,000 missing. The United Nations is estimating that the death toll is above 100,000. The number one threat to those survivors in the area of the country that was hit remains access to clean water.
In China, just over 22,000 people are being reported dead with an estimated 5 million people left homeless. The death toll is expected to reach 50,000 or more.
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who knew numbers could be so terrifying.. :\
they’ve more than trippled in just a few days.
it’s devastating really, such an ENORMOUS loss.
it makes me feel so useless that i cant really do anything drastic to change it.
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Link.
excerpt:
Aid groups have blasted the ruling junta for refusing to allow foreign experts into the impacted region and say storm survivors are being handed out spoiled food — not the nutrition-rich biscuits sent out by international donors.
In a statement, Human Rights Watch confirmed an Associated Press report that the military had seized the high-energy biscuits from donors, and then sent out its own low-quality, locally produced ones to survivors.
Disgusting. What makes people become that dirty…
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I don’t think Westerners (myself included) really “get” what happened in China or have a very good idea about China in general. For reference, the population of the city of Chengdu (which was close to the epicentre) is about 10.5 million. For reference, the population of Canada is only 33 million. The GTA is about 5 million, Toronto itself only about 2.5 million. That 5 million people homeless statistic Matt cites in his post, therefore, is put in context: Consider the entire GTA sleeping in tents outside.
If you consider that the earthquake was a magnitude 7.8 and the reports are that the earthquake was nearly 3 minutes, the scale of this disaster - because of the dense population centre it has struck - is “epic”, if the earthquake is only rated “major” by the Richter scale. (”Epic” refers to a 10.0 magnitude earthquake.)
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Why doesn’t the US do some sabre rattling here against Myanmar?
(Or is that utterly absurd?)
Where is the American erection of a liberal phallocracy?
The psy-ops? Rambo?
Or how bout - The conservative-left? The radical left? the left-right? the centre? How about the evangelicals?
Where’s Unicef?
The head of Unicef was quoted in the Globe recently as saying that fatigue sets in the international community from so many disasters. No kidding - we’re also bloody sick of Sally Struthers.
Another editorial in the paper about the “responsibility to protect” and how it’s a cover for inaction by the international community. Well written - quoted Aristotle. (from yesterday’s globe)
A liberal internationalist doctrine written in Canada - brought to the UN - with the impetus to make protecting people in other countries international law is a cover because nothing serious will be done to enforce it. Sounds like news to me.
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The U.S. should, but I think all its sabres are being used for tilting at windmills in Iraq.
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Quoting Blogic:
You’re right. The whole international law thing is nonsense as there’s no institution that would ensure abidance with that law. What ever attempt was made to implement generally binding rules for the international community it was shot down by security council members as countries like the US or China would never agree to some kind of reform being able to limit their freedom of action.
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Quoting P. Martini:
You’re right - the only problem remaining being that some of those wind mills occasionally self-destruct in crowded market places.
Quoting Tuuli22:
I wouldn’t say it is nonsense just that there is something lost in the execution. Look at the International War Crimes Court. Why doesn’t the US abide by it? Why doesn’t somebody put Henry Kissinger on trial in the Hague? It could have then been used to try Saddam Hussein.
The present American Administration needs to go. I wouldn’t trust them in Burma - looking at Katrina. Maybe Obama will bring a freshness to American Foreign Policy.
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Quoting Blogic:
That’s what I meant to say. It’s a precious idea, indeed - but nothing more yet. But that’s not what the mighty nations leading the UN tell people. They picture ‘the international law” sacrosanct - whenever its not them who are about to ignore it.
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Read this article by Naomi Klein:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080602/klein
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Clean water…we take it so for granted….
Putting aside the who’s-to-blames-and politics isn’t it an appalling state of affairs when we (globally) cannot even provide the most basic of human needs…
fuck me, I wish I was a fish….
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Quoting Blogic:
The U.S. is aiding Burma. They’re not trying to take over the place. Jesus…
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Quite a few of my aunt’s (she’s Chinese) relatives are among those homeless in Sichuan province. Luckily none of them were harmed, but for the moment they’re not allowed to go back to their homes.
In one of the buildings they lived in, which was housing for government employees, I know they told her that they didn’t even see any rebar in any of the rubble. I’d rather live in a building made of cake.
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Oh well.
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Blogic and P.Martini:
So you guys are calling for the US Military to Invade Burma in order to feed people?
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If sovereignty is a legitimate excuse to allow tens of thousands to die, the I don’t see how we are any better off than we were a thousand years ago.
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Robert R:
I think, in general, the discussion here has been closer to commentary on the seriousness of the Burmese government’s neglect of its citizens than it has been strategic placement of U.S. military hardware. My point was intended to be an implied criticism of my government’s involvement in Iraq. The idea that the current U.S. administration might deploy our military to relieve a humanitarian disaster (rather than to create one) struck me as tragically unlikely.
Further, my comment (and Hurricane Katrina) might question what we should recognize as the effects of the Iraq war. It, undoubtedly, must be true that the negative effects of occupying our military in Iraq cannot be measured only by casualties of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen and by casualties of Iraqi civilians. That the Iraq war was imprudent national security strategy must also be argued when disasters occur to which the military should be deployed to respond (or at least offered in assistance). Of course, because of the Iraq war, our military’s ability to attack humanitarian disasters - as a general point - is hamstrung, notwithstanding the Navy’s aid which it has offered in Burma.