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Reuters World stunned as US struggles with Katrina By Andrew Gray Fri Sep 2,10:16 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - The world has watched amazed as the planet's only supe rpower struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some sayi ng the chaos has exposed flaws and deep divisions in American society.
World leaders and ordinary citizens have expressed sympathy with the peop le of the southern United States whose lives were devastated by the hurr icane and the flooding that followed. But many have also been shocked by the images of disorder beamed around t he world -- looters roaming the debris-strewn streets and thousands of p eople gathered in New Orleans waiting for the authorities to provide foo d, water and other aid. "Anarchy in the USA" declared Britain's best-selling newspaper The Sun. "Apocalypse Now" headlined Germany's Handelsblatt daily. The pictures of the catastrophe -- which has killed hundreds and possibly thousands -- have evoked memories of crises in the world's poorest nati ons such as last year's tsunami in Asia, which left more than 230,000 pe ople dead or missing. But some view the response to those disasters more favorably than the law less aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After the tsunami our people, even the ones w ho lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, as he watched a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lan ka. Now with all this happening in the US we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."
"A modern metropolis sinking in water and into anarchy -- it is a really cruel spectacle for a champion of security like Bush," France's left-lea ning Liberation newspaper said. "(Al Qaeda leader Osama) bin Laden, nice and dry in his hideaway, must be killing himself laughing."
South Korea said it may have been no accident the US was hit. "Maybe it was punishment for what it did to Iraq, which has a man-made di saster, not a natural disaster," said the woman, who did not want to be named as she has an American manager. Commentators noted the victims of the hurricane were overwhelmingly Afric an Americans, too poor to flee the region as the hurricane loomed unlike some of their white neighbors. New Orleans ranks fifth in the United States in terms of African American population and 67 percent of the city's residents are black. "In one of the poorest states in the country, where black people earn hal f as much as white people, this has taken on a racial dimension," said a report in Britain's Guardian daily. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, in a veiled criticism of US political thought, said the disaster showed the need for a strong state that could help poor people.
David Fordham, 33, a hospital anesthetist speaking at a London undergroun d rail station, said he had spent time in America and was not surprised the country had struggled to cope. "Maybe they just thought they could sit it out and everything would be ok ay," he said. "It's unbelievable though -- the TV images -- and your heart goes out to them."
Resident Mary Mason reads a newspaper in a rescue shelter at Biloxi J unior High School in Biloxi, Mississippi, September 1, 2005. The world h as watched amazed as the planet's only superpower struggles with the aft ermath of Hurricane Katrina, with some saying the chaos has exposed flaw s and deep divisions in American society.
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