(Commercialism before people—as always.)

… The Associated Press counts 67,000 dead in the eleven nations of the Indian Ocean. Reuters News Services calculates 69,900. A United Nations spokesman believes the toll just in Aceh Province, Indonesia, will be between 50,000 and 80,000. The International Red Cross currently confirms 68,000 deaths, and predicts the number will cross 100,000.

More terrifying still is the growing realization— reported sporadically in South Asia and Europe but almost unmentioned here— that some percentage of these deaths could have been prevented by timely warnings, but were not, out of fear of damaging tourism.

Bangkok's newspaper The Nation reported that Thailand's Meteorological Department, which supervises the country’s Seismological Department, was conducting a seminar at the hour the earthquake struck, Sunday morning, prevailing local time. Told the initial Richter Scale measurement was 8.2, a leading member of that department reportedly concluded there would be no tsunami, because another 2002 earthquake in the same Sumatra region that had measured 7.6 had produced no tsunami. The meeting devolved into the pros and cons of hurting the nation’s huge tourist economy in the event a warning proved unnecessary…

(Contribute to a relief fund, if you can.  The New York Times has a list.)

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