In West, TX, the Mayor says the death toll will likely reach 35-40, including 10 first responders.
“We are out there searching the rubble, looking in each and every house. We are trying to locate each and every citizen,” Mayor Tommy Muska said in a telephone interview with The Times.
Muska said he arrived at the count of 35 to 40 dead because all other residents and first-responders in the area have been identified. Among those who were missing and believed dead, he said, were as many as six firefighters and four emergency medical technicians.
In Baghdad, in the second major pre-election terror attack (the other was on Monday, before the Marathon attack), 32 people died in a cafe bombing.
A suicide bomber set off his explosive belt inside the cafe on Thursday night. The cafe was packed with young people enjoying water pipes and playing pool.
Some bodies were found in a back street as people were thrown out of the cafe by the powerful explosion.
What’s happening in Boston is horrible (though undoubtedly exacerbated by the 24-hour crappy cable coverage and the decision to tip the perpetrators and set off this massive manhunt).
But I’m hearing a lot about this Boston tragedy being unique. The only thing that makes it unique is the media response.