Another earthquake
From Balakot With Trepidation - A follow-up of Oct 8

Please state for the record how many and who in your family are from the army. I suspect that several people are.

I--as every other tax payer-- have been feeding the army by paying through my nose and you dare pretend the parasites are doing me a favour by making themselves useful for a change instead of twiddling their thumbs ???

And you dare pretend that this is the kind of noble cause that these freeloaders have always espoused (``the army `as usual` is working overtime...``) ?? Overtime ???? Over time ??? Are you a joker or what ?

Earthquake of 6.6, reported at Hindu kush today, Thankfuuly not much damage reported so far.

The elected representatives, who had campaigned for months with promises of welfare of the town, fled the area at the first tremor, leaving their voters buried under rubble. In their criminal absence, it was left to the army to move in from North Punjab and take control of the situation.

Yaar, why this almost morbid fascination with the army at the expense of civilians? You are quick to blame the politicians for fleeing the quake-hit areas, but don’t you realize that most of them, along with their families could have perished much the same way the rest of the town did? And just how can you compare local politicians with the army units that were brought in from Punjab? Do local politicians have the same kind of sweeping powers, unlimited funds, and manpower like the army has?

An otherwise good write up was spoiled by this silly observation.

hammad writes ``The whole of Indian subcontinent is under the threat of further tectonic activity in the Indian plate and the Karakoram fault line. There are speculations that this activity will increase with time. ``

Hammad sahib, while we can reasonably conclude that due to human interference our weather pattern will likely change, I am not sure if a similar scientific conclusion could be reached about the activities of the tectronic plates. Humans have negligible role in how molten lava underneath the earth behaves.

However, a reasonable conclusion could be reached that population pressure throughout the world, coupled with limited education on environment, has pushed human settlements into areas where the likelihood of a catastrophe is high. This could be said of the earthquake as well as flood prone areas.