I mentioned a few days ago that the BBC reported that the number of dead is purposefully being under-reported by governments who fear that if the real figures were known it would hurt tourism, the #1 economic mainstay of the region. These facts may now be becoming impossible to hide:

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=111574

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/975541.cms

I wonder how much breast beating and foreign aid there would be if the quake had been off San Francisco.
**** happens. People die. The more population we have, the more will die.

This area has one of the greatest population densities on Earth, concentrated on the coasts. I can see it in the realm of reason that the actual death toll goes into the millions. Perhaps the US should take note of what the results of letting unbridled development take place on our earthquake prone coastal areas could result in.

Does anybody along the west coast NOT know they're in an area destined to have an earthquake on that scale? USGS says it is overdue and could happen any day or it could be a hundred years. Knowing the risk, people still live along the west coast and some of the highest priced real estate will be the cliffside dwellings that will crash into the Pacific. But people don't care. That's life. It amazes me that insurance companies don't protect themselves by holding more reserves. As it stands now, even Lloyds would be bankrupted.

Then there's the MO/TN/AR/KY area. It had one of the largest quakes ever in the early 19th century. Glass broke in Chraleston SC and buildings shook in NY. The Mississippi ran north for 3 days and finally changed course.

Day after day
More people come to L.A.
O, you better get ready boys
The whole thing shakin' away.

Just read a report on Oberman's MSNBC blog. Apparently an Indonesian town of 150,000 people has been discovered as completely annihilated, with no survivors. If that is true, it is more casualities in one town than the entire current death toll. This is getting incredible. It could be the largest earthquake fatality event in history - currently 850,000 dead in a Chinese earthquake two thousand years ago holds the record.