Haitian death tolls

Here are a few quick links regarding the death toll of the recent earthquake in Haiti:

• Kiwi missionary estimates death toll could be 1 million 
• Red Cross: Haiti death toll near 50K; aid begins arriving 
• Haiti death toll in thousands
• 2010 Haiti earthquake (Wikipedia)
  

The first number is a prediction of eventual total deaths; the second is an official estimate from the Red Cross (45-50 000), and the third includes an estimate from unnamed Haitian government officials of about 100 000; the Wikipedia article collects these latter two estimates, and it looks like both of them are current counts, not predictions.

I'm not going to take any cheap shots here; on the other hand, I'd suggest that estimating a large number when communication is poor and data incomplete is really hard.

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