Like Burma - you can’t blame any government for floods or earthquakes - but can you blame them for the aftermath. Such events show how fragile China still is. It’s infrastructure isn’t as dense and redundant as in many European countries.

And having friends helping you is important in such events. Ask the poor people of Burma …

I won’t spend a penny for China (because they literally sit on trillions of dollars of cash), but some hard earned cash for Burma.

Click image for an even bigger bang.

BBC - on this Day: Now that was a big bang and all the dust contributes to global warming today. It’s not only we humans that pollute the atmosphere, but also events like this - although volcanic eruptions are pretty rare and lame compared to some earlier earth periods.

More? Wikipedia entry and don’t miss the 1980’s section with some great images! Then you can ‘feel’ how massive that explosion was.