Pakistan/Kashmir quake

October 9, 2005 4:21 AM

Over 19,000 dead in earthquake in South Asia
posted by Snyder (66 comments total)

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posted by secret about box at 4:25 AM on October 9, 2005

I imagine that any one of these charities could do with your money far more than the American Red Cross needed it.
posted by tapeguy at 4:35 AM on October 9, 2005

. indeed
posted by qwip at 4:37 AM on October 9, 2005

. Maybe, just maybe this will help to end the insane standoff between India and Pakistan over the wilderness of Kashmir, long to be considered the worlds most likely trigger point for nuclear war.
posted by harry hood at 5:37 AM on October 9, 2005

harry hood : "Maybe, just maybe this will help to end the insane standoff between India and Pakistan"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!
posted by Gyan at 5:41 AM on October 9, 2005

I was in Kashgar in west China when the quake hit and I felt a little shake in the building way up there. It must have been a big quake. It's scary to think what could be happening in all those remote mountain valleys.
posted by afu at 5:49 AM on October 9, 2005 [1 favorite]

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posted by Stynxno at 6:05 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by DrDoberman at 6:10 AM on October 9, 2005

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What's with the planet this year?
posted by amberglow at 6:13 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by russilwvong at 6:21 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by stevejensen at 6:26 AM on October 9, 2005

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Breaks my heart.
posted by mistersquid at 6:27 AM on October 9, 2005

Wikipedia
posted by xowie at 6:36 AM on October 9, 2005

See why I think war is always a loss of time and resources ? We live in the illusion we're safe on our planet and that's killing us.

But they let's bring democracy by massacre, we don't have other civilized means to show our scientific achievements
posted by elpapacito at 6:45 AM on October 9, 2005

I have to say I'm a little surprised by the timing of this post to MeFi - because no one was around on Saturday, or what? Anyway, I first saw this story at 4:30am yesterday, when they said only a hundred dead (and my sleep-deprived brain was stupidly happy about that). Last night when I went to bed the numbers had been holding steady at 3000 for quite a while. Now, 9 hours later, it's at 20K. Unbelievably shocking.

Does anyone know if MSF is planning on sending a team? I see on the Wiki page that Oxfam is already there, but I already donate to them, though I will probably just send them some more.
posted by livii at 6:54 AM on October 9, 2005

livii: yes they are, they had people already there and are sending more now. The link also has a BBC radio interview with a MSF coordinator who was there.
posted by funambulist at 7:02 AM on October 9, 2005

The World Wide Earthquake Locator.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 7:02 AM on October 9, 2005

Oh, great, funambulist, I was stupidly looking at the Canadian page only, not the .org site. Thanks a ton.
posted by livii at 7:08 AM on October 9, 2005

Maybe, just maybe this will help to end the insane standoff between India and Pakistan over the wilderness of Kashmir

What gyan said.
posted by madman at 7:17 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by May Kasahara at 7:46 AM on October 9, 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4323008.stm

US is giving $100,000 and the UK $177,000

Are they missing a zero or two, or am I missing something here?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/06/international.aid/index.html/

Thats about as much as Afghanistan gave the US for Katrina aid.

Pakistan gave the US about $1 million.

A couple of dozen million here could save thousands and thousands of lives.

Bah, the world is stupid.
posted by Mossy at 8:12 AM on October 9, 2005

And they continue to get hit by upper mid 5 Richterscale aftershocks.
As to "what's with the planet this year?", I believe we continue to be presented with opportunities to show our care and compassion for our fellow humen beings, until we get that war, oppression, abuse, greed and fear won't solve our problems.
posted by threehundredandsixty at 8:20 AM on October 9, 2005

Sometimes, there are no words.
posted by orange swan at 8:30 AM on October 9, 2005

Mossy, as with the Tsunami, I assure you those donation amounts will increase as the scale and scope of the tragedy unfold.
posted by gwint at 8:33 AM on October 9, 2005

livii: no prob, the local sites are often updated later than that central one, even if for donations you have to go to the local sites. They still haven't set up specific donations for this.

Mossy: hopefully those are only the first immediate pledges and the figures will rise later when the calls for help are official and the efforts more coordinated.
posted by funambulist at 8:40 AM on October 9, 2005

Let's hope so. Sorry if I was a bit angry above, relatives-in-law from that area..
posted by Mossy at 8:42 AM on October 9, 2005

As to "what's with the planet this year?", I believe we continue to be presented with opportunities to show our care and compassion for our fellow humen beings, until we get that war, oppression, abuse, greed and fear won't solve our problems.

I'll take that challenge.
posted by amberglow at 8:43 AM on October 9, 2005

I was going to post this with the title "It seems as though God is an equal-opportunity disasterer after all" -- but that would have been insensitive.

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posted by pmbuko at 8:46 AM on October 9, 2005

But how many Americans died?
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:11 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by Marquis at 9:39 AM on October 9, 2005

Bush has just announced that he is sending Mike Brown to Pakistan to coordinate American relief efforts.
posted by rdone at 9:45 AM on October 9, 2005

Pakistan has just announced that they're sending him back.
posted by tapeguy at 9:48 AM on October 9, 2005

Note how there are already relief workers there, a few hours later. Again, we see how third-world countries are so much more responsive in case of emergencies than our own government...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:58 AM on October 9, 2005

gwint and funambulist: We will start giving more, once it becomes some childish game of "who can give more" and people are shamed into giving. I may be wrong, but isn't that essentially what happened in the Tsunami last year?

I'm not completely cynical, and I would hope that it's just a matter of bullshit American bureaucracy and not what my worst fears are, that it's essentially a game of political one-upsmanship.
posted by symbioid at 10:05 AM on October 9, 2005

Scale: It's easier to do this programatically.

for i in `jot 19000` ; do echo -n "." ; done

What a horror. I just pray it doesn't destablize Pakistan anymore -- between a fundametalist islamic insurgency and nuclear weapons, collapse has the possibility of being very bad, for Pakistani, Indians -- and us.
posted by eriko at 10:27 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by C.Batt at 10:30 AM on October 9, 2005

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*sigh*
posted by Soliloquy at 10:36 AM on October 9, 2005

Note how there are already relief workers there, a few hours later.
It must be happy living in your world, where you only see what you want to see in news stories.
posted by smackfu at 10:45 AM on October 9, 2005

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posted by onalark at 11:20 AM on October 9, 2005

What Mayor Curley said. The only reason brown people mattered after the tsunami is because there were a couple of white people mixed in with them that cause the selfish ego centric Americans to offer some commiseration. Unless a blonde woman is one if the victims this will cease to be a news story after Monday. Hopefully some of the billions Bush has given to Pakistan as part of his coalition of the billing will find it's way to the recovery effort but somehow I doubt it will.
posted by any major dude at 11:24 AM on October 9, 2005

but mossy, the U.S. shoudn't help the world anymore because when they had katrina -- widely and loudly declaimed by Americans as Our Tsunami -- the world selfishly didn't help them.

Oh wait I forgot, it would take a Katrina every month for SEVENTEEN FUCKING YEARS to be the equivalent of the tsunami, and the entire world did try to send aid for your disaster and were ignored/denied.
posted by lastobelus at 11:26 AM on October 9, 2005

Must everything here devolve into a screed against the U.S.?
posted by stargell at 11:47 AM on October 9, 2005

self-loathing is a wonderfully productive endeavor, stargell.
posted by pmbuko at 12:10 PM on October 9, 2005

We used to have a tradition, here, that on threads of what is essentially condolence the snark and politics would be restrained.

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posted by dhartung at 12:52 PM on October 9, 2005

What's with all the pre-emptive U.S. bashing? If we don't give enough we're heartless bastards and if we give plenty we're just playing a game of one-upmanship? Sheesh.
posted by gwint at 1:11 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by id at 1:49 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by adzm at 2:04 PM on October 9, 2005

What's with all the pre-emptive U.S. bashing?

New to the site?
posted by dhoyt at 2:12 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by matteo at 2:43 PM on October 9, 2005

I'm inequity of human life in popular western perception bashing. I already apologised if it seemed a bit raw above - imagine if you had relatives in the area and saw the international response in comparison to other more recent ones. You'd want as much aid as possible over there.
posted by Mossy at 2:48 PM on October 9, 2005

We used to have a tradition, here, that on threads of what is essentially condolence the snark and politics would be restrained

I cannot take it to MeTa now (the one post a week rule), but I disagree quite strongly. the hundred-dot threads seem pointless to me (excuse the pun). and since this disaster won't get 200 threads here like Katrina did, this seems as good a place as any to add some sort of conversation. I recently posted about Wiesenthal's death, and I wouldn't have minded a bit of discussion re: his life and work
again, dot-dot-dot-dot seem pretty boring to me. that, one can do by him or herself, on a big Word file, without reading a website, you know.

posted by matteo at 2:50 PM on October 9, 2005

Here are links for those that want to donate to help out:

http://www.muslimhands.org/Site/Pages/Appeals/PakistanKashmirEarthquake
http://www.kirf.org/
http://www.ifrc.org/ (red crescent)
http://www.muslimaid.org/subpages.php?section=donations&sub=donateonline&down=yes
http://www.unicef.org/
posted by Mossy at 3:10 PM on October 9, 2005

The USA will usually promise a small amount upfront, then later contribute more when the scope is confirmed and need established (and PR is more effective). According to Wikipedia, the US has so far donated $500k versus China who has promised 6 million, but those numbers are sure to change (not to mention private US based charities).
posted by stbalbach at 3:50 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by illiad at 4:17 PM on October 9, 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4325094.stm

More aid = good. Feel a bit better now..
posted by Mossy at 4:22 PM on October 9, 2005

The third world has had a tough time of it lately. Tougher than usual.
posted by jonmc at 6:12 PM on October 9, 2005

Here are links for those that want to donate to help out:
...
http://www.kirf.org/
..

Not them, please, they fund terrorism.
posted by kickingtheground at 7:21 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by kryptos at 7:27 PM on October 9, 2005

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posted by blackturtleneck at 8:14 PM on October 9, 2005

How do they have numbers and we don't?
posted by 31d1 at 8:33 PM on October 9, 2005

Not them, please, they fund terrorism.

There's no evidence in that article that they would send your money to those organisations, just that they had one "bad apple" who would help facilitate the transfer should you choose to donate to such groups.

Still, you can donate to many other charities.
posted by Mossy at 9:25 PM on October 9, 2005

Not them, please, they fund terrorism.

There's no evidence in that article that they would send your money to those organisations, just that they had one "bad apple" who would help facilitate the transfer should you choose to donate to such groups.


There are many American Muslims who are sitting in jail right now due to contributing to middle eastern charities that had "one bad apple". Of course you never read about these people because that would take actual reporting that might piss off the administration and lose your news organization access to the anonymous government officials they quote verbatim every day without doing a lick of work on finding a coroborating source. But hey working as a propaganda disseminator for the government sure does pay well.
posted by any major dude at 10:31 PM on October 9, 2005

"Must everything here devolve into a screed against the U.S.?"

Must the Earth be constantly warmed by the sun?

"We used to have a tradition..."

Tradition be damned. - luv m
posted by mischief at 11:09 PM on October 9, 2005

Sadly, I believe that the person who said something about the tragedy lacking blond-haired, blue-eyed victims is correct. Unless some of those start to pop up...this will not get the media coverage of tsunami.
posted by sultan at 7:26 AM on October 10, 2005

It's been the lead story of every major news outlet for the past three days.
posted by gwint at 7:49 AM on October 10, 2005

Actually any major dude, I do read about those people as I used to do quite a lot of community work..

I posted that charity in my list of links as the BBC link to it, eg:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4327900.stm

Still, please donate to any of the listed charities and give generously to save lives.
posted by Mossy at 9:17 AM on October 10, 2005