Thursday, December 30, 2004

How many in one day?

I just can't get my brain around it, the number of people who died in one day. Today's CNN article says 116,000 people were killed by the earthquake and tsunamis and that number is growing. I'm having a hard time imagining what that number means so I looked up some statistics to help me put this disaster into perspective.

In 1945, the U.S. dropped bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, resulting in a cumulative death toll of 237,062. Many of the bombing victims did not die instantly.

Between the years 1939 and 1945, approximately 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators in the holocaust.

- Studies indicate that 24,000 individuals die each day of hunger-related causes, according to The Hunger Project.

- An average of 114 people die each day in car crashes in the U.S.

- Some 700 people die smoking-related deaths in Russia each day.

- More than 1.6 million people die from violence every year: more than 4,400 deaths each day.

- Over 2,600 cardiovascular disease-related deaths in the U.S. each day.

- Cancer will kill more than 1,500 Americans each day this year.

- Estimate of the global daily death rate: 146,000.

So this means that IN ONE DAY the global death rate was nearly doubled.

In one day.


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