In 2003, an estimated 43,000 people were killed in the ancient city of Bam, Iran. following a 6.5-scale earthquake. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne raged through the Caribbean and Southeastern United States in 2004, and were responsible for more than 3,100 deaths. Later that year, the Indian Ocean earthquake and subsequent Asian Tsunami devastated the continent’s southern coastal communities and killed in excess of 280,000 people. Asia was struck again in 2005 by the Sumatra earthquake, which took 1,800 lives from the Indonesian island of Nias, and India’s Maharashtra floods, which were responsible for somewhere around 1,000 deaths.
Of course, we can’t overlook Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1,418 people, but did you know about Hurricane Stan? This weak storm was apparently embedded in a larger, non-tropical system of rainstorms that dropped torrential rains on Guatemala, El Salvador and southern Mexico, causing flooding and mudslides that were responsible for at least 1,600 and possibly up to 2,000 deaths.
Then, there was the Kashmir earthquake of October, 2005 (a.k.a. the Northern Pakistan earthquake or South Asia earthquake). Registering 7.6 on the Richter scale, it was responsible for around 90,000 deaths.
The most recent tragedy occurred in the eastern Philippines, where a landslide covered the sea-level village of Guinsaugon and entombed up to 1,800 people.
Mother Nature does not discriminate and she’s neither merciful nor mild. The big question is, what will happen next, and where?
On a side note, here’s an interesting article on Western disaster coverage from New Kerala.com, an online, India-based newspaper:
Western press biased in disaster coverage: study
This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2006.