Is this a particularly disastrous few months, or are the disasters just more noticeable these days? Tens of thousands are dead in the wake of yesterday’s magnitude 7.7 earthquake in South Asia, among them, many hundreds, possibly thousands, of children who were in schools when the quake hit. Among the hardest hit areas is Kashmir, where more than 30,000 are feared dead. In India, there are echoes of Katrina’s aftermath. Reporting for AP, Sadaqat Jon writes:

Hundreds of angry villagers blocked roads in the region, protesting the slow pace of rescue efforts. “Everything is destroyed — the ground shook and took everything down,” Syad Hassan said. “All the government people, the press people, they are just driving past.” Most people in Jammu-Kashmir spent the cold night in the open, lighting fires with wood pulled from fallen houses.

While the U.S. is mobilizing six to eight transport helicopters, the Pentagon once again is falling short in the compassion department:

A Pentagon spokeswoman said American officials were determining what assistance could be provided. The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said Washington had not instructed it to provide help, while a NATO spokesman said the mission was not allowed to operate outside Afghanistan.