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7.8 Earthquake Rocks Nepal, Hundreds Dead
An anonymous reader writes: Nepal was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 today, with an epicenter 80 km east of the country's second biggest city, Pokhara. Its effects were also strongly felt in the capital, Kathmandu. Casualty reports conflict, but authorities have indicated at least 500 are dead and many more are feared to be trapped. Nepal has declared a state of emergency for the affected areas, and asked for international humanitarian assistance. India and Pakistan have both offered help. Some Indian cities were affected by the earthquake as well, and there are reports of avalanches on Mt. Everest, which has many climbers at any given time.
This is /. so we can expect comments about 1) was Nepal ready to fight such a disaster, compared to, eg, Japan 2) what are the progresses in terms of EQ detection 3) what is the chance of such a strong EQ happening in that region 4) do we have more & more of such big disasters recently 5) is it linked to the Sun activity, linked to the human oil/gas digging 6) will China offers help to Nepal? ... All of this is rather interesting IMO, so wait and watch!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"Stop learning so much about the world around you. Knowing why complex natural events happen makes it harder to control people through fear of our magic invisible sky ruler."
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Some of us visit other places and try to learn something from the peoples and cultures we encounter there. Some of us spend their days in their mothers' basements cursing those who aren't afraid to emerge.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Poor undeveloped country has insufficient building standards for regular predictable natural disaster. People die.
Its not going to affect me, there is nothing I can do to help, and its hardly surprising, so why care? Not news for anyone, let alone nerds.
Empathy is a basic human emotion that refers to the capability to feel for other people. If you don't ever give a crap about anyone else, why should anyone else ever give a crap about you?
And by the way, I'd consider a earthquake capable of unleashing 7.8 Megatons of energy and leveling entire cities to be worthy of my morning news.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
If you get yourself stomped in an earthquake, maybe we will send you a package of Doritos and a new keyboard. But that's only if your karma improves. Right now, you're looking to get a couple of Slashdot dupes.
And we're being generous.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God."
Isaac Newton
Also, alchemy. Don't forget alchemy.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.