While pledges for financial aid continue to mount in the aftermath of the Asian earthquake and tsunami two weeks ago, the nightmare continues for millions of people in South Asia …
… whose lives have been destroyed by this tragedy.
The same is true in a wholly different way for the families of the thousands of foreign visitors who are missing. I wrote a few days ago about there being an estimated 10,000 tourists still missing in the region. It’s almost unimaginable that this horror appears to be without any end in sight.
For the UK, the number of missing has now more than doubled, from nearly 200 to over 440.
But Sweden is the country outside the disaster region that’s enduring the most suffering right now, as well as undergoing much soul-searching in social attitudes – and considerable anger towards the government for how it’s dealing with this crisis.
From a report in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph:
“While 52 Swedes are confirmed dead, around 2,000 – among them leading businessmen, politicians and sports stars – remain missing or unaccounted for. This would be a huge blow to any nation, but particularly to this tight-knit family of just nine million. The scale of its loss would be equivalent to Britain losing 12,600 of its citizens.
At first, even the government did not want to face up to the awful truth, taking almost 48 hours to react to reports that the Swedish toll was heavy. Now it has angered a normally reticent, placid people by refusing to publish a list of the missing in order to “protect our citizens”.”
Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.
Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.
