Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar - thousands dead

Tuike

Bloomberg: Myanmar Cyclone Claims Thousands as UN Surveys Damage

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 4972

Population: 47,758,181

Growth Rate: 0.8%

Growth per year: 382,000

Growth per day: 1,046

Deaths: About 4 days growth.

Cool

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Dieoff. Fun to watch. Better with hot buttered popcorn! new_popcornsmiley

seahorse2 · Expert Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 1824

I hate to be too skeptical, but how do they come up with these estimates of 4k dead? I seriously doubt they are counting bodies. And how would they be estimating, from what, based on what? I don't underestimate "inflated" body counts as an appeal factor for more aid. Please educate me on this.

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 245

The Myanmar government actually has a history of minimizing casualities from natural disasters, as with many other dictatorial regimes. Given the history of very high deal tolls from cyclones in the Indian Ocean basin and the fact the storm had a large surge over the most populated area of the country, it sadly does not surprise me at all.

IslandCrow

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 4972

dinopello

Death toll above 22,000 - Washington Post

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 701

Does the cyclone has anything to do with climate change? Didn't read anything about it.

jedinvest

Dan1195 · Heavy Crude Joined: Mar 19, 2005 Posts: 245

Found this interesting, but over at this site they do a weekly short summary of some major phrases that show up in linguistics analysis of a "web-bots" program which essentially combs the net and attempts to give hints about future events. I could see how for economic and social matters it might be useful but figures it would be rather useless when it comes to events triggered by natual disasters.

If you look at the archives of this year, there were repeated hints of a wind related event this spring. (no they were not added after the fact I was looking at the posting when the game out). Some striking similarities to Nargis:

1/28/2008

"marker before the "wind" event/natural disasters of the spring, to which government reacts badly and ticks people off.."

Maybe it was just dumb luck. Natural disasters resulting in poor government reaction happen fairly often.

Ferretlover

Myanmar Survivors Face Disease as Relief Awaits Entry (Update5)
May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Survivors of the Myanmar cyclone, now estimated to have killed as many as 100,000, are at risk of cholera and other infectious diseases as the United Nations urges the military government to accept foreign help.
More than 1 million people may have been left homeless since Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the country formerly known as Burma on May 3. Teams from aid group Doctors Without Borders found 80 percent of houses damaged and meter-high (3-foot) flood waters in some areas of Daala and Twante townships, where 300,000 people lived, in the Irrawaddy River delta area. ...
Link
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3aidlillahi · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 25, 2008 Posts: 593

It now looks like there will be 100 000 people dead and probably tens of thousands more dead over the coming months and years from diseases and whatnot caused by the storm and aftermath. I imagine Jack isn't posting since these new figures came out because 1) it's still not enough to make him care or 2) he's too busy masturbating to 100,000+ dead. I'm not sure which is more disturbing.

Although to be fair, even if this amounts to 200 000 dead, that's still equivalent to a week's dead due to starvation. Shock

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Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 4972

Goodness! Three-and-a-half months of population growth negated.

They would need four such disasters every year to go into negative population growth.

To decline be a mere 1.6% per year, they would need one every month.

Cool

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Dieoff. Fun to watch. Better with hot buttered popcorn! new_popcornsmiley

wisconsin_cur

Jack · Dark Lord Joined: Aug 11, 2004 Posts: 4972