The joy of bad transliterations

Kalsoom Lakhani has written up the terrible earthquake in Baluchistan. It’s no laughing matter, of course, but I reluctantly confess, this part had me laughing:

Today, yet another tragedy has occurred, this time on the brink of a harsh winter. Mohammed Hashim, a resident in Wam, one of the hardest hit villages, told the AFP, “We are doomed…We have nothing left to save our families from the cold in the night.”

Why’d one of the hardest-hit villages have to be called Wam? And remember the earthquake a couple years ago in Iran? The one that hit Bam? They shoulda seen it coming.