WQ EDITORIAL: Often left unmentioned in coverage of "natural" disasters is the social-psychological dimension. These disasters are, in fact, man made. It would not be regarded a "disaster" if a storm or quake or fire hit an empty field. People make it what it is, and they are there for social, psychological, and political reasons. For instance, poverty leads the poor to build on ground that annually is hit by devastating climactic events. The more affluent hoard food or impede equitable distribution of resources. The greatest cause of disease is not a pathogen; it is malnourishment. That is not the same as starvation. The population eats but there is insufficient nutrition to fight off disease. Water becomes contaminated. In the absence of fuel, populations deforest their environment then suffer the predictable consequence when the rains come. This happens all over the world. And we cover it not so the West will feel pity and send monetary help but so that something will be done on a systemic level. The problem is not cured by care packages. The solution exists within the social dimension. Only if we become aware of the real cause of human disasters -- political destabilization by Western powers, greed of military juntas, fear and hoarding, and so on -- can something finally be done about it. Cyclone Aila affected a region of Bangladesh where Barua Buddhists reside as they have for millenia, Chittagong. Meanwhile, the tiny Bangladesh Buddhist community in the United States celebrated Vesak this weekend far from the "disaster."
PLAY VIDEO: Cyclone AilaMudslides in India's famed Darjeeling tea district killed at least 22 people overnight, said Asim Dasgupta, the finance minister of the worst-affected West Bengal state in India.
The official death toll in India stood at 78 by Wednesday, Dasgupta told reporters, adding about 2.3 million people were affected or stranded in flooded villages.
Bangladesh's Food and Disaster Management Ministry said the toll there was 113 after more bodies were found. Most victims drowned or were washed away when storm surges hit coastal areas.
Soldiers have been deployed to take food, water and medicine to hundreds of thousands of people stranded in flooded villages, Bangladeshi Minister Abdur Razzak told reporters Wednesday. In India rescuers evacuated more than 41,000 people by Wednesday, Dasgupta said.
At least 500,000 villagers were affected or stranded, mostly by flash floods caused by tidal surges, said Ziaul Alam, the local administrator in Bangladesh's Khulna district.
The cyclone also caused damage in the Sundarbans, a tangle of mangrove forests that is home to one of the world's largest tiger populations.
Conservationists expressed concern over the tigers' fate.
At least one tiger from the flooded reserve took refuge in a house. Forest guards tranquilized it and were planning to release it once the waters subside, said Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, which assisted in the operation.
It is believed about 250 tigers live on the Indian side of the Sundarbans and another 250 live on the Bangladeshi side.
Conservationists in India said water levels were too high for ecologists and forest officials to enter the area and assess the extent of the damage.
N.C. Bahuguna, a senior Indian conservation official, said water sources were likely contaminated by salt water from the sea.
Abani Bhushan Thakur, a local forest department official in Bangladesh, said there were no reports of damage or casualties in their part of the Sundarbans mangrove forests. Source
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Associated Press writer Farid Hossain contributed to this story.
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