system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do news organizations report natural disaster death counts so specifically and so quickly (i.e. "88 people dead as a result of ...")?
gpt
When there are major incidents, local emergency workers generally establish a command post-type place where things like fatalities are reported as soon as they're located.  When they give the death toll, they give it based off the numbers that have been reported thus far.