Current estimate: 40-75 Canadians missing, presumed dead. Hard to track them down if they are just gone somewhere else.

This would be a Canadian national disaster in itself were it not such a miniscule part of a much huger tragedy. I guess we're all realizing how little the national identifications mean at this moment.

If I'm not mistaken, this unspeakable crime has set the tragic record of displacing the Halifax Explosion of 1917 (estimated 3000 dead; accidental collision of two munitions ships in harbor) as the worst single man-made disaster in North American history.

All these terms sound pale and trivial. Words really cannot describe--I was going to say "do justice to", but that didn't sound right either--the awfulness of this event.

Bill