I am hearing/reading lots of very high numbers reported. From “thousands” to “could be between 45,000-50,000”, to “300,000-400,000”. The last estimate would be 3-4% of the population. This has obviously been devastating, but has it been that devastating?
What are you hearing? What do you think? At this point, how do we know?
According to the Miami Herald (which can be expected to take special interest in this story, as so many Haitians live in Miami-Dade County that government publications such as hurricane-evacuation guides are printed in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole), the latest estimate of the Haitian Red Cross is 45,000 to 50,000 dead.
We don’t know. We probably never will. Guesses will be made, many to suit a particular political agenda.
Personally, based on the amount of devastation, I’ll say the actual number will probably be somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000, But again, we’ll never really know.
And I can almost guarantee that the Republicans and FOX News are currently formulating their talking points to criticize Obama for taking quick, decisive action here.
Rush Limbaugh is on it:
I imagine his example for how a president should respond is Bush’s reaction to Katrina; any action might be interpreted as exploiting a disaster for your own purposes, so it is best not to do anything until you see how the political wind is blowing.
The news media always looks for the highest possible numbers. Like in the collapse of the WTC, it was up to 50,000 dead, which was based on the average number of people in the towers each day.
I’m not calling this subject mundane, but there’s no debate here - it’s better suited for MPSIMS. Moved from Great Debates.
That said, there’s really no way to know how many people are dead and it’s probably going to take a while to get a good idea. There’s little organization there. One senator said 500,000 people might be dead, and I think the prime minister said 100,000 was possible. The Red Cross total might be more realistic. It’s worth noting that Hurricane Katrina occurred in the U.S., and five years later the exact number of dead is not known.
Somewhat challenging to see the relevance of this to the OP.
I agree that an accurate toll is unlikely. Affected governments tend to have some control over the figures and tend to want to keep them low.
I knew a guy who was heavily involved in rescue and relief efforts after the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. At one point a couple of weeks after the quake, he was in the office of some tolerably important government official. On the official’s desk was a document that was almost certainly not intended to be seen by outsiders. Reading upside down, he saw: “Death toll to be publicly acknowledged: 10,000 Actual: 28,000.” (Many deaths there were attributable to substandard construction facilitated by bribes, which gave the government good reason to downplay the actual toll.)
This is MPSIMS, not GD or the Pit – pls. leave partisan politics out of it.
Thanks,
twickster, MPSIMS mod
When that was posted, it was in GD.
Yes, Twicksie, ol’ bean. Your admonishment is undeserved. Undeserved, I tells ya!
I was responding to the content of the link BrainGlutton posted above.
Oops – so 'twas. Didn’t see that Marley had moved it.
And so withdrawn.
Thank you, Twicksalicious. You rule! …literally 
Getting back to the OP: I just heard on 60 Minutes that the death toll is now in excess of 150,000.
Judging from the video on 60 Minutes, I’d believe it. Piles of bodies…everywhere…as far as the camera could see. Just horrid. I had to change the channel.
Some numbers and estimates from CNN:
If that’s all correct, the earlier Red Cross estimate was way too low.
That’s just incredible. From the clips I’ve seen, it looks like nearly every building is damaged and many are just flat.