Also Locusts
by digby
I hadn’t heard much about this horror but I’ve been to this town and it’s devastating:
Under the glare of portable floodlights and the flashlights that some held, men in sweat-soaked jumpsuits dug into a hillock of rubble in this city, the night after the largest earthquake to hit Mexico in a century flattened buildings here and across southern Mexico.
Atop the mound of debris, the men at times moved like archaeologists, sifting with bare, dirt-encrusted hands, chunk by concrete chunk. At other times, they powered up an excavator, which, with its own brutish precision, moved the workers closer to their goal.
There was a man under there — perhaps alive, perhaps dead.
Throughout the day on Friday, victims were pulled from the debris of homes, shops and offices in Juchitán de Zaragoza, a city of 100,000 people in Oaxaca State: at least 36 dead, more than 300 injured.
The earthquake, which was felt as far north as Mexico City, more than 300 miles away, had killed at least 61 people across the south of Mexico. But no place had lost more than Juchitán, a small provincial city near the Pacific Coast.
President Enrique Peña Nieto, seeking to soothe the nation, visited the city on Friday afternoon.
“Indeed, the strength of this earthquake was devastating, but we are also certain that the strength of unity, the strength of solidarity and the strength of shared responsibility will be greater,” Mr. Peña Nieto said in a statement. By nightfall, he and his entourage were gone.
The earthquake that struck was more powerful than the one in 1985 that killed about 10,000 people, many in Mexico City. Thursday’s quake, however, was farther away from Mexico City and more directly affected a less populated region of Mexico, leading to a significantly lower casualty total.
Rescue workers searched for Juan Jiménez, the police officer buried in the rubble of the city hall building, where he was on duty when the earthquake struck on Thursday.
But nearly a full day later, there was one last person to try to save in the city.
The rubble the rescue workers were digging through had once been the city hall of Juchitán de Zaragoza, and trapped inside was a 36-year-old police officer, Juan Jiménez, who for 18 years had stood guard there, most recently working the night shift.
He was now buried under a story of wreckage, on the ground where he last stood. Finding him would allow the city to move from the rescue phase to repair and recovery. The search for him would continue until close to midnight on Friday, then resume at dawn on Saturday.
Apparently, they’re still digging.
A reminder that disasters and misery don’t just affect Americans.
An estimated 40 million people in South Asia are struggling to rebuild their lives after massive floods devastated the region nearly a month ago.
Authorities have described it as the region’s worst flood in 40 years, with a metre of rain falling in some areas in the space of days.
The worst-hit areas include Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states in northern India, the Terai region in southern Nepal, and Kurigram and Chimari districts in northern Bangladesh.
In India alone, UNICEF estimated 31 million people were affected by the floods, losing their homes, livelihoods, cattle or property.
In Bangladesh, more than 8 million people were affected, including about 3 million children.
Earthquakes aren’t caused by climate change but the rest of these disasters are almost certainly affected by it. When the locusts come they will be too.
There have always been natural disasters and there always will be. Humans so stupid that they’re actually trying to make them worse and more common.
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