South Asian relief

I've been surprised and actually quite dismayed at how little information I've seen in the blogosphere and the Internet in general about the South Asian earthquake crisis and the relief effort. Maybe it's compassion fatigue, maybe it's a lack of TV news footage (I don't watch TV news, so I don't know how it's being covered there, I just know the areas affected are pretty remote). But in the wake of last December's tsuanmi there was a massive response, publicizing the devastation and detailing all the ways people could help; after the two hurricane hits in the US, there were similar appeals for aid everywhere (many of them are still in place on variosu websites). But I've seen nothing or almost nothing, outside the purely newssphere, describing the total devastation that has wracked Pakistan and India and Afghanistan, even though the casualty lists are horrific in comparison to Hurricane Katrina (over 75,000 at current count, more than twice the *highest* estimates of military *and* civilian deaths in Iraq over the last two years!) and the number of homes, of entire villages, towns, and cities damaged or totally destroyed, is staggering.

The BBC News has a page on "How You Can Help" that details the needs currently anticipated (shelter, health care, food, and clean water) and how little is being done (the UN releif effort has received less than a quarter of the funds they asked for). They have a section of their site that describes the quake and its effects and in-depth coverage including photos, correspondents' reports, and so on. And they have links to agencies that are providing assistance, which I will repeat below.

USAid also has a webpage on the earthquake and on relief efforts, as do ReliefWeb and the Center for International Disaster Information.

Please, if you can, consider contributing to one of these agencies; they desperately need help to provide aid to tens of thousands of injured people and hundreds of thousands who have little or no housing, food, or water and are facing the onset of winter in a rugged, mountainous part of the world where it is difficult to even reach survivors without helicopters.

UNICEF (UK)
UNICEF (US)
UN High Commission for Refugees
UN World Food Programme
UN Food and Agriculture Orgnization (Pakistan office)
World Health Organization--Pakistan
International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
International Committee of the Red Cross
International Organization for Migration
Kashmir International Relief Fund
Disasters Emergency Committee (UK)