Katrina-the great equalizer

As Katrina crashed thru Southern US, the initial casualty reports said there were 55 dead. I was speaking to a group of students and I marveled at how early and accurate storm warnings and the timely evacuation of almost an entire city in a technologically advanced country had kept the lid on the casualty figures. We joked and said that had Katrina hit India, it would have knocked off 55,000, not just 55.
But as the days pass and the true horror and scale of Katrina's devastation becomes apparent, the distinction between superpower and a third world country is becoming blurred. Both, it seems, are equally vulnerable to the wrath of nature especially if the magnitude is that of a Tsunami that struck South Asia in Dec2004 or of a Katrina.
The death toll in the US has now soared to a third worldish 10,000 and not 55 as was earlier reported. Carcasses are strewn all over New Orleans as hospitals and search and rescue teams struggle to cope with the casualties; then there is the danger of disease from contaminated, stagnant water and in all this, predators roam the streets- raping and looting amidst the death and destruction.

Are these scenes from the world's richest nation or are they pictures from a flood ravaged part of Africa?
Hard to say.

What I find touching and quaint in this grim tragedy is todays news that Sri lanka, while still tottering and groggy in the aftermath of the Tsunami, has decided to give a token $20,000 as aid to the USA!
Did you hear that?

Sometimes it takes great adversity to bring out the best in human beings.