http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapc...sia/index.html

Maybe Bin Bin's cave colapsed.

Unfortunately, they think Bin Laden is still safe. I hope these numbers are just hyped up (like when they suggested that many people were dead in New Orleans). Still a tragedy though.

I also feel bad that one of my first thoughts was, "wonder if this will help bring some jobs back to the U.S." I wouldn't want it to be this way.

is that your kingdom Pak? I feel sad for your denizens

Thats horrible. Natural disasters are a bitch. Impossible to prevent, nobody to blame, hard to protect/defend against & recover from.

I wonder if the Pakistani people will criticize the Governments response to the disaster?

My first thought was "there goes more millions to put the US in further debt". More effort should really be put into disaster preparation, instead of waiting to put an unknown amount of money into the relief. With a large number of the world population located in areas prone to disaster, these events aren't surprising. I'm sure Bin Bin is safe, and the war will continue distracting us from other important tasks at hand across the globe as our numbers increase.

..7.6-magnitude..

Woa. Didn't they have any prequake warning? That deathtoll may not be off since basically an entire city collapsed with people inside multistory apartment buildings.

Its kinda shows some hope that India is setting aside their differences to come and help.

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My first thought was "there goes more millions to put the US in further debt".

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sorry, but that was your first tought? You sure it wasnt concerns about the gas prize goin up again?

Oxy, there's really no such thing as a pre-quake warning. While geologists may have some idea that a quake is coming, they are usually only able to predict seismic activity within a rather large time window, say between 0 and 200 years. Wherever there are faults, there will be quakes. I'm not sure how much advanced seismic equipment that they've got in that area of Pakistan, but it wouldn't be much help in any case.

incredible, amazing how many lives can be lost, & yes Grind, gonna run up more national debt.

yeah if these estimates are on the scale of New Orleans, 30,000 means something more like 5,000. But somehow, foreign countries with horrific disasters tend to overstate their death tolls a little less than we do. but hey, relaying the numbers random people tell us counts as reporting, right?

hawken : Yeah pakistan is where my Mom was born.

Umm, there isn't the same tech sector in pakistan that there like their neihbour to the south (India) like hydrabad and bangalor. Thousands of dead pak's doesn't mean more jobs for Americans *sighs* and there is no major upstream or downstream oil industry in pakistan, so wtf are you guys talking about?

-R

I thought geologists could get a better time frame depending on how the quakes come?

Anyhow, again, I dont think the deathtoll is overly exagerated at all. Think about it. Entire city blocks and apartmnenns collapse with people inside?

Yeah, their building standards are nowhere near what we've got in modern western construction. Taking the more recent Iranian quake as a frame of reference, their caualty estimations are probably in the ballpark.

Sometimes I forget how much I take living in a 1st-world nation for granted [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]. So many people dying from an earthquake (or regardless of the cause, just that many people dying at once) is hard to fathom.

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I thought geologists could get a better time frame depending on how the quakes come?

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oXYnary> My brother happens to be a geologist. What I remember is that there is no way to predict an earthquake, apart from assuming the higher risk if you are qeographically placed on top or nearby where the "earth plates" overlap (or continental planes or whatever it is called...). If there has been an earthquake, well I guess then you will have aftershocks. Haven't heard of preshocks. But I'll ask him next time I meet him just to make sure.