New fault lines are complicating the already daunting challenge of recovering from last October’s killer earthquake in the Himalayan foothills of northern Pakistan. As tens of thousands of survivors brace for the coming winter, relief groups are caught in a religious squeeze play that makes recovery and reconstruction even more difficult.
A year ago, Americans started signing checks and clicking on Web links to raise an estimated $4.2 billion in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the most they have ever donated in response to a natural disaster, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
After Katrina roared ashore August 29, the worst U.S. natural disaster in the Internet age offered a model for how donors might respond to future catastrophes: increasingly online, and to the largest, most established charities.