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Saturday 11 February 2023

An absurd thing to say



Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll expected to more than double, says UN aid chief

Mr Griffiths, the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, said: "I think it is difficult to estimate precisely as we need to get under the rubble but I'm sure it will double or more.

"That's terrifying. This is nature striking back in a really harsh way."

What did the man think he was saying here? We are abusing nature and this is nature striking back at us? An absurd thing to say under any circumstances, but particularly so after such a dreadful catastrophe. 

9 comments:

dearieme said...

Just paganism.

Still, at least he didn't say "Mother Nature". That would be genderist.

A K Haart said...

dearieme - it does have a whiff of paganism. A diplomatic whiff perhaps, under the circumstances.

Sam Vega said...

It's times like this I'm proud to be British. We started the trend for abusing nature when we invented industrialisation, but managed to convince nature that it was all the fault of the Turks and the Syrians.

A K Haart said...

Sam - maybe recycling yogurt pots has been noticed and nature is now inclined to forget old faults.

Doonhamer said...

Death tolls never go down.
They will always increase, barring resurrection.
It's a fact of life.
Yes, I'm a pedant.

johnd2008 said...

Here in New Zealand,some perfectly good buildings are being demolished as they either cannot be sufficiently modified, or it is cheaper to build new.All new buildings have to reach a very high standard of earthquake resistance or they do not get built. From the pictures I have seen, some of the turkish buildings would not stand against a strong wind, let alone a big tremor.

Ed P said...

Funds were allocated after the last big earthquake in Turkey, mainly to strengthen buildings, so they'd be more prepared for the next one. It's been said that Erdogan did little to implement improvements and the funds were used for other projects.

James Higham said...

If it’s UN, I ignore it.

A K Haart said...

Doonhamer - that's the bureaucrat in him, only bet on certainties.

John - yes, it already sounds as if corruption affected building standards.

Ed - I see they are already arresting contractors. Probably those without the right connections.

James - worth keeping an eye on them though.