Suddenly, Two Waves of Death

At a soccer game and in Bangladesh, men and nature rage out of control

There is a breathless scene in Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust when the hero is caught in a street riot and is carried every way the mob heaves: "He was the spearhead of a flying wedge when it collided with a mass going in the opposite direction. The impact turned him around. As the two forces ground against each other, he was turned again and again, like a grain between millstones. This didn't stop until he became part of the opposing force."

Last week revived West's scene. Suddenly, there were two freakish disasters overseas, connected at first only by...

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