The reporting on the Iran, Morocco, Turkey quakes, numerous mega-train wrecks were par for the course, local and national, with plenty of feel-good stories like when the 90 year old woman was pulled from the Bam rubble several days later. I seem to remember her dying later though...
Though I guess it's also unreasonable to think you might not assign some 'blame' in any event.
Natural (or man-made) disasters are dealt with in importance and significance according to what group of people is hit, and how. The Iranian earthquake than devastated Bam and other cities recently killed nearly 50,000 people, but was a low-priority, relative non-event in terms of US media reportage. Same with what happened in Haiti after Hurricane Jean, or in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch... and countless others. The ghastly slaughter in Rwanda some years back, or the hundreds of thousands massacred in East Timor over decades under Suharto weren't even mentioned until afterwards. Who decides which disasters and events "newsworthy", and is there any consistency? My point being, whether we like it or not, we do unfortunately regard human life in duplicitous fashion; life is sacred, but some lives are more sacred than others. I am sure that the ability to consume' is one of the parameters....
Sad
not to completely disagree with you here but this thing affected 3 continents, which is likely the reason that its being covered all over the world. It is certainly sad that not every event where large numbers of people die gets equal coverage but I can remember hearing quite a bit about the situation in Bam. additionally I think that the fact that many of the people could have been saved with some flavor of large scale warning device paired with the shear magnitude is what is contributing to the enormous amount of media coverage. This was 2 major events 1) 8.9 magnitude earthquake 2) an enormous tsunami killing tens of thousands of people on 3 continents. The whole situation is pretty sad.
It kills me that these people had 1.5 hours to evacuate the beach. If someone had told them the tsunami was coming that is. This is a very sad day and the fact that no one would have died if they were just warned about it makes it all that much sadder.
The reporting on the Iran, Morocco, Turkey quakes, numerous mega-train wrecks were par for the course, local and national, with plenty of feel-good stories like when the 90 year old woman was pulled from the Bam rubble several days later. I seem to remember her dying later though...
Though I guess it's also unreasonable to think you might not assign some 'blame' in any event.
Saddam Hussein and his thugs authorize the killing of some 300,000+ blameless Iraqi civilians over an 18 year period, Horrible, Horrific, Horrendous, name your adjective. That massacre has been banner headlines on and off since before the war started, and quite rightly so. George W. Bush does the same thing, chalking up 100,000 + (of the same group of people targeted by Saddam) in barely 18 months, a killing rate 6 times what Saddam achieved, and not a whisper in the mainstream US media. Now I am not saying that GWB is "six times as bad as Saddam"...but this wild and extraordinary double standard in the reportage of mass killing is... a tad....blatant. It's nothing new, but very disappointing for a democracy. Oh well.
Whwere disasters are avoidable (especially human motivated), blame is appropriate. In this latest natural disaster, some kind of tsunami buoy warning system should have been there, especially in such a seismically active region. Obviously, the dangers were not regarded as important enough to warrant the expenditure, and an amount of blame is appropriate again. Similary, the amount of $$ spent predicting/reserching whether the entirety of human life on Earth is going to get wiped out by an asteroid or meteor is less annually than the costs of running a medium sized McDonald's outlet. We certainly have our priorities.
I knew you wanted to talk about Iraq, globalization, etc. Anything but the topic at hand, eh. An overemphasis on one news topic doesn't equate to the understatement of others.
Is it possible to nuke the ocean floor into creating a tsunami? Or would it be next to impossible to create a 1000KM Ridge about 30 meters wide with current weapons?
Is it possible to nuke the ocean floor into creating a tsunami? Or would it be next to impossible to create a 1000KM Ridge about 30 meters wide with current weapons?
I read somewhere that the forces was 25 thousand times stronger than the hiroshima bomb. So it would have to be some very big nukes.
What is most tragic here is how this could have been avoided.
Im shocked by some of the horrible pictures showing up in the norwegian news. I won't post links due to the graphic nature, but they are the worst I've ever seen.
I have a coworker/friend from Sri Lanka. He went there the beginning of November but must have come back by now. I'll have to email him to see how his family came out of it.
I'm quite disgraced that the EU can only pledge $4 million in aid. Every country in Europe could pledge 5x that on their own. Considering the UK just spent £5 billions to blow the crap out of Iraqi's. £20m would be a drop in the ocean.
Comments
Though I guess it's also unreasonable to think you might not assign some 'blame' in any event.
Originally posted by sammi jo
Natural (or man-made) disasters are dealt with in importance and significance according to what group of people is hit, and how. The Iranian earthquake than devastated Bam and other cities recently killed nearly 50,000 people, but was a low-priority, relative non-event in terms of US media reportage. Same with what happened in Haiti after Hurricane Jean, or in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch... and countless others. The ghastly slaughter in Rwanda some years back, or the hundreds of thousands massacred in East Timor over decades under Suharto weren't even mentioned until afterwards. Who decides which disasters and events "newsworthy", and is there any consistency? My point being, whether we like it or not, we do unfortunately regard human life in duplicitous fashion; life is sacred, but some lives are more sacred than others. I am sure that the ability to consume' is one of the parameters....
Sad
not to completely disagree with you here but this thing affected 3 continents, which is likely the reason that its being covered all over the world. It is certainly sad that not every event where large numbers of people die gets equal coverage but I can remember hearing quite a bit about the situation in Bam. additionally I think that the fact that many of the people could have been saved with some flavor of large scale warning device paired with the shear magnitude is what is contributing to the enormous amount of media coverage. This was 2 major events 1) 8.9 magnitude earthquake 2) an enormous tsunami killing tens of thousands of people on 3 continents. The whole situation is pretty sad.
Originally posted by Eugene
The reporting on the Iran, Morocco, Turkey quakes, numerous mega-train wrecks were par for the course, local and national, with plenty of feel-good stories like when the 90 year old woman was pulled from the Bam rubble several days later. I seem to remember her dying later though...
Though I guess it's also unreasonable to think you might not assign some 'blame' in any event.
Saddam Hussein and his thugs authorize the killing of some 300,000+ blameless Iraqi civilians over an 18 year period, Horrible, Horrific, Horrendous, name your adjective. That massacre has been banner headlines on and off since before the war started, and quite rightly so. George W. Bush does the same thing, chalking up 100,000 + (of the same group of people targeted by Saddam) in barely 18 months, a killing rate 6 times what Saddam achieved, and not a whisper in the mainstream US media. Now I am not saying that GWB is "six times as bad as Saddam"...but this wild and extraordinary double standard in the reportage of mass killing is... a tad....blatant. It's nothing new, but very disappointing for a democracy. Oh well.
Whwere disasters are avoidable (especially human motivated), blame is appropriate. In this latest natural disaster, some kind of tsunami buoy warning system should have been there, especially in such a seismically active region. Obviously, the dangers were not regarded as important enough to warrant the expenditure, and an amount of blame is appropriate again. Similary, the amount of $$ spent predicting/reserching whether the entirety of human life on Earth is going to get wiped out by an asteroid or meteor is less annually than the costs of running a medium sized McDonald's outlet. We certainly have our priorities.
Originally posted by tonton
My 6 year-old daughter and my ex-wife were in Phuket when this happened. Fortunately, they are both safe.
Profound, huge Congratulations!
Most Sincerely,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by tonton
My 6 year-old daughter and my ex-wife were in Phuket when this happened. Fortunately, they are both safe.
Happy to hear that, and also frigthened : the world is small.
Some US scientists said that the seism was a major disaster, the earth oscillated on his axis, and some islands where displaced of about 20 meters.
Originally posted by tonton
My 6 year-old daughter and my ex-wife were in Phuket when this happened. Fortunately, they are both safe.
That's very good to hear Tonton. a kid from my daugthers day-care center is also in phuket right now. I'm a bit worried...
btw: I already made a thread here, http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=49172, maybe you could merge the threads?
the death toll is closing on 30 000...The UN estimates that this number might be as much as doubled.
Originally posted by New
That's very good to hear Tonton. a kid from my daugthers day-care center is also in phuket right now. I'm a bit worried...
btw: I already made a thread here, http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...threadid=49172, maybe you could merge the threads?
the death toll is closing on 30 000...The UN estimates that this number might be as much as doubled.
Moved in the right place : apple outsider and merged
Originally posted by talksense101
Is it possible to nuke the ocean floor into creating a tsunami? Or would it be next to impossible to create a 1000KM Ridge about 30 meters wide with current weapons?
I read somewhere that the forces was 25 thousand times stronger than the hiroshima bomb. So it would have to be some very big nukes.
What is most tragic here is how this could have been avoided.