Weather News I Missed

At least 55 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced as the river changed its course. Thousands more people are being evacuated to higher ground to escape the rising floodwaters.

kosi-river-nepal.jpg

I was just scouting around the web looking for as much on Hurricane Gustav as I could find. From the official Cuban government weather site I was directed to the World Meteorological Organization’s site. Usually there’s little of interest from the WMO–a top-heavy international bureaucracy with nearly no operational responsibility.

“On 18 August, after heavy monsoon rains, a dam on the Saptakoshi (Kosi) river in Nepal burst, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless and triggering flooding in the neighbouring Indian state of Bihar, where at least 55 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced as the river changed its course. Thousands more people are being evacuated to higher ground to escape the rising floodwaters. Roads and railway tracks have been washed away and water and electricity supplies have been affected in many areas.”

That’s staggering. 2.5 million people displaced. I can’t imagine what it must be like there.

Why haven’t I heard or read about this? Are American’s really that isolated from the rest of the world? Am I that isolated?