« JohnAugust.com | Main | Collect Britain: Accents & Dialects »
September 07, 2005
Comparison New Orleans vs. Mumbai (Bombay)
New Orleans vs. Mumbai (Bombay)
inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina... 18
inches of rain in mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1
population of new orleans... 484,674
population of mumbai.... 12,622,500
deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37.
number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000
Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE
Time taken for US army to reach new orleans...48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours
status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and its business is as usual
USA...world's most developed nation
India...third world country..
oopss...did i get the last fact wrong???
September 7, 2005 in Info, Reality | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834220df153ef00d83455a46053ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Comparison New Orleans vs. Mumbai (Bombay):
Comments
The main difference that made the New Orleans tragedy so much harder than the one in Bombay is that New Orleans is below sea level.
Posted by: Happy102785 | Sep 12, 2005 6:01:38 PM
Katrina vs Mouse fart (maybe a glorified mouse fart)
I wish you got the facts correct and that the comparison is apple:apple. Unfortunately you are comparing a heavy rainfall to Katrina.
Before writing the statistics if you had made some observations like:
1. Katrina directly broke solid concrete bridges and other well built structures as if they were cookies.
2. Katrina's winds exceeded 250 kmph.
3. Katrina threw shipping containers inland.
4. Katrina washed massive boats into the streets.
5. Katrina tossed huge trucks and cars like toys.
Oops! Did I compare Katrina to a mouse fart?!
I am not a qualified meteorologist. However, a hurricane, even to qualify as category I by definition has winds exceeding 125 Kmph. Anything below that is considered a tropical storm. In comparison to the monster Katrina (category 4/5) Mumbai monsoon was just a cat fart. Furthermore, the geography of the two cities are entirely different. And this is just for starters to get any science brain cells tingling. May I suggest www.wikipedia.org for your reference? It might get the frog get out of the well.
On violence... Where were these Indians in Oct/Nov 1984 when thousands of Sikhs were brutally killed in the capital of India? Where were they when thousands of people were massacred in Mumbai in December of 1992? 2002 Gujarat violence? Why didn’t the Americans take to killing after 9/11? Why didn’t the British take to killing after 7/7?
There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from both the natural disasters. Hope we put them to good use in the future rather than making immature claims (if not classical Indian political claim) like my misfortune was better than yours etc.
BTW, our rich Indian culture doesn’t take pride in someone else’s misfortune.
Dude - observe, think, question… Don't jump to conclusions. Question and answer yourself before reach conclusions!
Posted by: Seethar | Sep 10, 2005 3:03:18 PM
There is no point in comparing tragedies and taking pride. No two tragedies are alike. Granted that the delayed response of FEMA is questionable, but this is not the right reason for anyone to take pride.
Posted by: તૂષાર | Sep 10, 2005 11:57:56 AM
Hooo weeee... That's ingenius... throw us more.
Posted by: Tasneem | Sep 7, 2005 11:34:45 PM
lets not forget that facts are sometimes subjective even though they are numbers. These
numbers do not account for the fact of an area that has had similar warnings before,
political "crimes" of knowing levees needed to be stronger, and also that some things were
only possible because we are a first world country.
India isnt fighting a war (money going to Iraq has commonly been attributed to the diaster -
from money being taken away from the budget, to military presense diminshed)
Bombay simply isnt dependent on engineering to survive (levees come to mind...)
Bombay didnt suffer the misfortune of having a huge disaster (in our case the hurricane),
followed by another (levees breaking) causing total havoc
Bombay is *the* biggest city in the entire country. Were this to hit LA, NYC, or Chicago,
the response rate would have been ridiculously faster.
There wasnt a supposed issue of "race" in Mumbai
I cant imagine India's equivalent of the FEMA being that bearacratic with all sorts of
agencies, governors, needing signoff to go ahead. (mistake on our contingency
plan...perhaps)
TO say there was no violence or shootings is also not a full story. First, I am assuming the
cultures are different so it is not apples to apples. Also, who knows what was reported and
what wasnt in India as far as violence. Plus I dont think Indians walk around with guns like
Americans so maybe that has more to do with our cultures rather than one isolated incident
and what the response was.
Anyway....by no means do I think our rescue effort was perfect (actually it was from from)
but sometimes it helps to factor the intangibles as well.
India vs America with similar type disasters is too general of an analysis.
Posted by: Bob | Sep 7, 2005 8:26:52 PM
another screaming proof that dubya's gun culture's got to go...
Posted by: lucidly awake | Sep 7, 2005 7:47:03 AM
The comments to this entry are closed.
