When deaths from natural calamities rise into the many tens of thousands, as they have in Myanmar and now China from cyclone and earthquake, the scale of suffering and loss becomes a ghastly blur. The dead, at least, have no more worries. The living face devastation, disease and in many cases a desperate struggle to survive.

How much crueler that struggle becomes when the authorities cannot or will not pursue competent relief efforts. The paranoid generals who rule Myanmar wasted almost two weeks before permitting the first trickle of food shipments and other forms of international aid to the wretched survivors of Cyclone Nargis. In a country already chafing under government repression, the generals highlight their insecurity with their callousness.

In China, where the cities and towns of Sichuan province were tormented by Monday's vicious quake, the Communist government was more savvy to the political consequences of an inept response.

Top officials rushed to spur rescue efforts and encourage those trapped alive in the rubble of collapsed houses, schools and factories to hold on. But the earthquake still seemed likely to claim enough victims to make it China's worst natural disaster since a 1976 quake killed 240,000.

That tragedy posed a stark challenge to the government, and presumably lessons were learned. But it was also being said that Chinese leaders looked to the bungled American response to Hurricane Katrina as an example of emergency mismanagement. They no doubt are eager to avoid the recriminations that follow when officials, including American ones, leave disaster survivors homeless and hopeless.

The United States lately has not been spared nature's ravages. Tornadoes this spring have ripped at the heartland, killing scores and wiping communities off the map. And last week a tornado near Greensboro killed a North Carolina man.

Fellow citizens, wherever they live, become neighbors in times like these, and we look for ways to ease their misery. Relief agencies are poised to do all they can for those abroad as well. They can use our support -- support offered in the understanding that the tragedy of family members lost or homes destroyed is universal in the hurt it causes.