Sunday, February 08, 2009

Thoughts & Prayers For Australia

On a Net page filled with text and visual news links, The Daily Telegraph report begins:

Victoria remains under a shroud of smoke and grief today with thousands homeless and at least 108 people dead after the worst bushfires in the nation's history.

Entire towns were wiped out in the weekend's fires, which the Prime Minister described as hell's fury unleashed.
The DT’s entire page is here.

Australia's population is about 20 million.

America’s population is about 300 million.

So a proportionate death toll for Americans works out to roughly 15 times what the Aussies have experienced or about 1600 dead.

Our thoughts and prayers go the Australian people.

Let’s keep a watch out for how we in the States can help.

Perhaps Scott S. who’s down there in southern Australia and looks in at JinC often will give us a lead on how we can help a great people and their country in a terrible time.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the thoughts John, it's really just shocking. I've been glued to the TV watching the updates, the death toll is mind blowing, it is up to 131 at the moment and it sure to get worse.

When I was in primary school I used to do school sports at Kinglake which is one of the hardest places hit. It really brings it home.

If anyone wishes to donate, they can do it through the Australian Red Cross at this website.
https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp

Scott S.

JWM said...

Dear Scott,

I'm very sorry for the terrible disaster and continue to keep the victims, their families and Australia in my thoughts and prayers.

I'll post tonight around 10 our time which should be around 1 or 2 PM Tuesday your time.

If you want to send an email by then with some first-hand observations and thoughts as well as a few links to news orgs doing the best job telling the story, I'll work that into the post.

Thanks for the tip and link to the ARC.

More soon.

Best,

John