Before the floods
I just heard that the death toll from the earthquake and ensuing tsunami this past weekend has topped 70,000. It's hard to imagine. A friend of mine in southern India tells me that "most parts of the city are completely unaffected by the tsunami. that's the irony of it all.... that people are wiped out without a trace in some parts and the rest is just the same." This is a photo taken on the southern shore of Sri Lanka in 2002. You can find more photos of Sri Lanka from then here.

And NPR has a list of agencies accepting donations for tsunami relief.