A fifth of Pakistan lay submerged. Washed away with the villages were bridges, livestock, medical supplies and food. Survivors had gone 10 days without food, and the only clean water poured down from the sky. Titanic efforts to rebuild the scenic Swat Valley after insurgents had occupied it before being chased out by the army are washed away, along with schools, health clinics and bridges.
The Dec. 26, 2004, magnitude 8 earthquake that unleashed a 60-foot-high tidal wave that swept across Southeast and South Asian coastlines with a force of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs, drowned 150,000 and left millions homeless in 11 countries still did not have the earmarks of a long-lasting global catastrophe.
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