Update: In the wake of the complete and utter lack of attention (36 views for a hugely un-publicized national disaster, vs. 315 for some hate-mongering 12 year old media spectacles? ) this post got, I have decided to beef it up a bit. **Weeks after the earthquake a new trouble has arisen. Children are going missing. Traffickers are taking full advantage of the situation, Pakistan has put a full ban on adoption, so you can only speculate where these missing children are headed. Apart from missing children, the casualty number is now confirmed at 79,000+ people, with 75,000 wounded, in Pakistan ALONE.
Quotes from survivors: "I need go no further than Islamabad, only 140 km away, to find the noise and chaos gives me a headache. I see people there living life as normal and I feel they don't care what happened to us. Only I know this pain.
Pray for us, whoever you are reading this, give us motivation. "
"I have a question for the world. There is a lot of relief work here but it's slowing down. I get the sense that other countries are beginning to lose interest in us. Why is that? Is it because this is still not as big a death toll as the tsunami?" Please keep in mind that these are quotes from a city that is receiving aid because it is easily accessible. The hardest hit areas will receive NO aid because the Pakistani government does not have the capability to access these regions.
In the wake of the complete devastation that has and will continue to put hundreds of thousands of Pakistan's mountain people in danger of dying there has been very little North American media attention. After watching BBC news today I felt that I must highlight this disaster for everyone here because these people will soon be freezing to death, and many people in the west will never even know. There are 328,539,175 people in the US and Canada, a miniscule donation from a bunch of people would make a huge difference.
What's going on in Pakistan is a tragedy and I wish it was possible to do more than make a small donation to the red cross (i.e. from a not-rich individual's perspective), but how exactly does viewing this thread help the situation?
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"Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Don't limit yourself in this way." - Bruce Mau
It's just so massive and terrible. It makes one (me) feel helpless. What can I do? Sure I contribute my tiny amount of money (considering) to the Red Cross. But it doesn't make me feel better. It's all just so sad...
What's going on in Pakistan is a tragedy and I wish it was possible to do more than make a small donation to the red cross (i.e. from a not-rich individual's perspective), but how exactly does viewing this thread help the situation?
I think she wanted ppl to view the thread, make a donation and get the word out to others to make a donation.
I decided to pretty much avoid this area of the forum from this point on, but I have decided to post in this thread to address your question Mia. If a natural disaster like this occurs and goes unnoticed by the media in the west, chances are more people will die then neccessarily need to. A good way to prevent that from happening is to get the word out in other ways. Since at least a few hundred people view this forum everyday, who probably would not access the bbc website, or the ctv or cbc websites, condensing the information and presenting it to them, --a more diverse audience then it would normally find-- is certainly effective from my P.O.V.
To the others, I realize this is a huge huge thing. But every dollar helps, and every word said about it helps as much, maybe more. Maybe if we keep spreading the word, the media will pick up the story and the Pakistanis will get some serious help.
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"...If I know my supermodels (and according to the half-dozen or so draped across my bed in a jenga of crack-glazed longing, I certainly do)"