Read all about it It is feared that 50,000 people will have died from this earthquake by the time the bodies can all be counted. All the hand-wringing and sky-high death predictions of New Orleans don't shake a stick to figures like that, and, they turned out to be more false than the Pamela Anderson's body parts. This looks to be real. Dire and real. The similarly sized San Francisco quake (click now to read about it) killed about 60 people. The only thing that separates Loma Prieta, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Pakistan is a capitalist society, judeo-christian values and a kind nod to twentieth century progress. Countries like Pakistan who insist on living in ancient history, including a dark-ages approach to learning, religious bigotry, and male/female roles will be damned to the rubble of their pre-historic societies. It's not with a cold heart I say such things; it's with certain sadness to realize that people will trade the lives and futures of their children in for their outdated ideals.