MERRY CHRISMUNAKKAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dark Jaguar]

While the number will indeed be high, remember that a lot of the time death counts rise rapidly then suddenly take a sharp decline when a real number is found. That is, at first all sorts of people are being reported multiple times, that alone raises it a startling amount. Then count the people who are merely missing but presumed dead, but turn out to be alive due to being on vacation somewhere else for example. All in all, death tolls for things like this get vastly inflated very quickly. The end result will still likely be very high, but just consider it likely won't be nearly as high as the news reports may eventually say.

What's this about officials not making an attempt to warn people about this LL? I hadn't heard anything about that. One thing to consider is that those responsible for getting readings to determine if the quake is coming are generally not the same people in charge of warning others about it. That is to say, scientists rarely find themselves with any sort of political influence (Benjamin Franklin excluded, that guy was frickin' AWESOME). That's all I have to say really... I know nothing about this...