Myanmar Death Toll

[michelle]

Anybody keeping up with this event? 100,00 people possibly dead? That's just crazy.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20080507/capt.cps.ncp15.070508232822.photo00.photo.default-512x347.jpg?x=400&y=270&sig=IdbnigYDaCCTWbrxKAZ6JA--

http://abcnews.go.com/International/Weather/story?id=4803286&page=1

[lit666]

last I heard was 22k but I haven't seen it since this morning.

[awsomeears]

I'm not much of the Praying type but dam my heart goes out to them !!!

[Reverend Cooper]

wow between that and the tsunami's thats alotta of carnage

[lordairgtar]

...and yet they refuse our aid. Oh, love the av, Michelle.

[That_Guy]

this is pretty hard core.. i would hope they start excepting aid otherwise disease is going to start spreading rampidy

[Syclone0044]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Nargis

I had to read up first. Damn!!

[Prince Valiant]

The military junta over there is not keen to let outside forces in lest they undermine their grip on power...their fear is that if other military presence shows up, people may be more inclined to rise up, even during their darkest hardest hours.

Worst natural disasters:
May 2008 - The death toll from Cyclone Nargis remains uncertain (more than 22,000, according to reports) and is likely to climb. Caught with nowhere to run, residents of low-lying rice fields in Maynmar were simply swept away.

Oct. 8, 2005 - Magnitude-7.6 earthquake in Pakistan killed more than 40,000 people. The destruction was due in part to the quake's shallow origin.

August 2005 - Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800 people and is the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. More so than any U.S. disaster in recent decades, its effects linger even today as New Orleans and many coastal communities still struggle to get back on their feet.

Dec. 26, 2004 - The magnitude-9.3 Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting Sumatran tsunami is estimated to have killed more than 225,000 people. It affected a broader region and more people than any modern disaster.

1992 - Hurricane Andrew killed 26, but property damage was $25 billion -- most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history at the time.

1985 - Nevado del Ruiz (Columbia) volcano killed 25,000 people, most caught in a massive mudflow.

1976 - Tangshan earthquake in China, a magnitude-8 event, killed somewhere between 255,000 and 655,000.

1931 - Yellow River flood, estimated to have killed 1 million to 3.7 million people via drowning, disease, ensuing famines and droughts. The river also had flooded catastrophically in 1887, killing nearly as many.

1815 - Tambora, Indonesia, volcano of 1815. 80,000 people died of subsequent famine.

1811-12 - Three New Madrid earthquakes in Missouri represent some of the strongest earthquakes in the contiguous United States in recorded history. With magnitudes estimated as high as 7.8 or so, they were felt as far away as Boston. Damage was relatively light due to sparse population, but the quakes serve as a frightening reminder of how fickle nature can be and they are also alarmingly predictive of what could happen in the future now that the area is far more populous.

1737 - Calcutta, India, event killed 300,000. Once thought to have been an earthquake, scientists now lean toward typhoon.

1556 - Shaanzi, China, earthquake killed 830,000. Nobody knows the seismic magnitude.

1330-1351 - The Black Death or Bubonic Plague, a pandemic caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, killed an estimated 75 million people, wiping out somewhere between 30 to 60 percent of Europe's population.

1138 - Aleppo earthquake in Syria, killed about 230,000. It is listed by the U.S. Geological Survey as the fourth deadliest earthquake of all time.

1500 B.C., or so - The Mediterranean Stroggli island blew up. A tsunami virtually wiped out Minoan civilization. Area now called Santorini; Plato called it the site where Atlantis disappeared.