[gretchen]

Originally Posted by David

It's doubly tragic because the loss of life is amplified tenfold by the corruption & incompetence of these governments.

There's no good reason why the Myanmar government couldn't have allerted its people DAYS in advance of an approaching typhoon (a hurricane), & even a Third World country should have decent enough roads & infrastructure to allow people to move inland. Typhoons & hurricanes weaken as they move inland.

As for China, it's well past high time for an empire with such vast resources (even if those resources are mostly centrally controlled) & such frequent seismicity to start building up to code.

The thinking must be, chillingly: "With a billion people, what's a few tens of thousands?"

In short, these are government disasters as much as, if not more so than, natural disasters.

Well said.