CYCLONE IN INDIA & EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA

CYCLONE SLAMS EASTERN INDIA AND BANGLADESH
MASSIVE QUAKE DEVASTATES WESTERN CHINA

CALCUTTA (AP) - A cyclone has hit eastern India and Bangladesh, killing at least 125 people and destroying more than 60,000 homes. The storm ripped across India's West Bengal and Bihar states and neighboring parts of Bangladesh late Tuesday. The cyclone packed winds of up to 160 kilometers an hour, destroying power and telephone lines, demolishing nearly 50,000 mud huts and uprooting trees in several villages in Bihar and West Bengal.

Indian authorities are rushing aid to cyclone-hit areas, and the homeless are being shifted to temporary shelters. Many people are still disappearing, and according to the officials there are still lots of people under the trees and houses which have collapsed. Officials said most of the people who died were women and children who were crushed to death when their huts caved. The storm was accompanied by hail and rain.

YUSHU (Xinhua) - At least 617 have been killed and over 10,000 injured in a massive earthquake of 7.1 magnitude, in Yushu area in the southwest Chinese province of Qinghai on Wednesday. The quake was followed by a series of aftershocks. Thousands of houses, electric poles and dozens of temples and gas stations were destroyed in the quake, which also disrupted power supplies and telecommunications. Yesterday soldiers and civilians used shovels and their bare hands to dig through collapsed buildings in search of survivors. Officials said excavators were not available and with most of the roads leading to the nearest airport damaged, equipment and rescuers would have a hard time reaching the area. Soldiers, civilian rescuers and medical workers, have been rushed to the affected areas.

Rescue teams have saved more than 900 people from the debris of collapsed houses, the authorities reported. Today, thousands of earthquake survivors braved near-freezing temperatures with little shelter, hospitals were overwhelmed, many lacking even the basic supplies, and doctors were in short supply.

Yesterday, two natural calamities - a cyclone and a quake - have lashed different countries. These disasters almost happen daily, so how is it possible to live thinking that this place is for our enjoyment? We should take the nectar of the shelter at the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord, before it would be too late.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

What relish can there be for material enjoyments when we are exposed to hunger, thirst, disease, decrepitude, emaciation, growth, decline and death. The universe is tending to decay - grass, trees, animals - spring up and die. Mighty men are gone leaving their joys and glories. Beings still greater than these have passed away, vast oceans have dried - mountains have been thrown down, the polar star displaced, the cords that bind the planets rent asunder, the whole earth deluged with flood - in such a world what relish can there be for fleeting enjoyments? Living in such a world are we not like frogs jumping in a dried up well?

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thākura Prabhupāda :
“Vaishnavism Real & Apparent”
Chapter: “Two Minds - Material and Spiritual”
http://www.bvml.org/SBSST/index.htm