A low-cost airline flight from Dubai crashed during a landing attempt on Saturday morning at Mangalore on the southwest coast of India, killing 158 passengers and crew. There were eight survivors. It is the worst air accident in India in more than a decade and involves the state-run Air India, whose record has been marred by several near-misses. In a country where air travel is growing at giddy rates, there is much introspection on laggard infrastructure and the lack of adequate air safety measures.

That's the grim assessment from two of Thailand's foremost academics, who've neatly summed up this national nightmare for today's Wall Street Journal.  It's a frightening superlative. Bangkok now appears to be done counting corpses from this week's political violence between soldiers and "Red Shirt" anti-govenrnment protesters. The body count falls at 85 dead and about 1,900 wounded.