2010: A deadly natural disaster year

[marmar]

from AP, via CBC News:



Natural disasters took a toll in 2010


This was the year the Earth struck back.

Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts killed more than a quarter of a million people in 2010 — the deadliest year for natural disasters in more than a generation.

More people were killed worldwide by natural disasters this year than have been killed in terrorist attacks in the past 40 years combined.


Lorendo Gines surveys the damage to his house on Oct. 20, 2010, after typhoon Megi barrelled over the northeastern Philippines. Experts say 2010 was the worst year for deaths caused by natural disasters in more than a generation. (Bullit Marquez/Associated Press)

Swiss insurance company Re reports that through Nov. 30, nearly 260,000 people died in natural disasters, compared with 15,000 in 2009.

By comparison, the U.S. State Department and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said deaths from terrorism from 1968 to 2009 were less than 115,000. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/12/20/tech-disasters-earthquakes-heat-waves.html#ixzz18g2oZvkb

[liberal N proud]

1. K&R

[Still Blue in PDX]

2. Puts me in mind of the bumper sticker "God is coming and She is pissed." nt

[elocs]

3. Is this the "Revenge of the Third Planet from the Sun"?

Personally I prefer not to personify the planet on which we live by saying "the earth struck back". And earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides and droughts may have resulted in the deaths of a quarter of a million people, but they didn't kill people as if that was their intention.

I realize it is a question of semantics and the people are just as dead, but throughout history people have chosen, for good reasons for them, to live near water or in flood plains, or to live in the shadows of volcanoes. When that is done, bad things will happen but it is not anything deliberately done by the earth. As the earth's population grows by billions and billions, then natural disasters will consequently result in more deaths.