Musings on Disaster Response

It seems like it has been a bad year for disasters. Apparently I am not the only one struck by the issue as John Vidal at the Guardian asks "Are we having more natural disasters?" I don't know if we are having more, but they do seem to be killing more people. Regardless of how many, there seems to suddenly be a deficit of coverage.

As Katrina built and then rammed the coast, cable news had wall to wall coverage. This continued for a month until Rita, and then both have largely been replaced by other news. This bothers me as it leaves the impression that "things are on their way to normality - which for most is not the case.

Then hurricane Stan slams Guatemala and surrounding nations. Whole villages are abandoned as mass graves with mud slides to thick to recover the remains. We get one minute sound bites. A 7.6 magnitude quake hits Kashmir and Pakistan. Once again, sound bites. Where are the massive aid appeals?

This year got off to a rolling start with the December 26th tsunami. Wall to wall coverage, aid appeals, and the shaming of Bush into larger relief efforts. There were the aid concerts, and the donations for the U.S. public joined those from around the world. August 29th and the U.S. is hit by Katrina - massive coverage, aid concerts, donations roll in. Stan hits ... no aid appeals, no concerts. Massive earthquake ... no aid appeals, no concerts.

Is there a lack of coverage and appeals for aid because the U.S. media and relief organizations think that the public is burned out with disasters, or tapped dry on donations? Or is it because these new disasters are not in the U.S.?

The number of dead from the earthquake is mounting towards 40,000. The displaced estimated at over 2 million. In Guatemala the official death toll rises to 650, but many more are missing in villages now buried in mud.

Relief Agencies
Mercy Corps
The International Comm. of the Red Cross, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies