Latest Updates on Chile’s Earthquake
Mar. 1st, 2010 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tinpraBy ROBERT MACKEY
As my colleague Marc Lacey reports, aftershocks struck Chile Monday morning, complicating efforts to rescue survivors of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated much of the country on Saturday. The death toll now stands at 711, but is expected to rise. The Lede is tracking the response to the earthquake online. Readers who are in Chile are encouraged to submit first-hand accounts in the form of text, video or photographs by posting comments or links in the thread below.
( You can read The Lede feed at the NY Times website )
It's funny (in a non-haha kind of way), but last week I'd heard or read somewhere that the coverage and concern for the Chilean earthquake wasn't going to be as strong as the one for the Haitian earthquake. So far that seems accurate. There are at least two articles from the Tiimes, in particular, that I'd seen on my iGoogle this afternoon and had wanted to post that are now kaputz. Well...not kaputz, but off my 9-header-max listing. While I'm sure the same kind of thing happened during the Haitian earthquake coverage, the "old news" was replaced with more Haitian news. It took work to find this particular article.
Anywho, so what are people's thoughts? Are we just disastered out? Is it that, although this quake is stronger than Haiti's, Chili is already earthquake prone and so it's "less" newsworthy b/c it's less shocking? I mean an 8.8 is no joke, but Chili is better prepared for a quake than Haiti ever was. Do you think it perhaps has to do with a quake on top of Haiti's abject poverty makes it "more" newsworthy? Or perhaps because there were so many foreigners already in Haiti dealing with other issues when the quake struck. Do you have thoughts at all? Random comments from strangers welcome.
As my colleague Marc Lacey reports, aftershocks struck Chile Monday morning, complicating efforts to rescue survivors of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated much of the country on Saturday. The death toll now stands at 711, but is expected to rise. The Lede is tracking the response to the earthquake online. Readers who are in Chile are encouraged to submit first-hand accounts in the form of text, video or photographs by posting comments or links in the thread below.
( You can read The Lede feed at the NY Times website )
It's funny (in a non-haha kind of way), but last week I'd heard or read somewhere that the coverage and concern for the Chilean earthquake wasn't going to be as strong as the one for the Haitian earthquake. So far that seems accurate. There are at least two articles from the Tiimes, in particular, that I'd seen on my iGoogle this afternoon and had wanted to post that are now kaputz. Well...not kaputz, but off my 9-header-max listing. While I'm sure the same kind of thing happened during the Haitian earthquake coverage, the "old news" was replaced with more Haitian news. It took work to find this particular article.
Anywho, so what are people's thoughts? Are we just disastered out? Is it that, although this quake is stronger than Haiti's, Chili is already earthquake prone and so it's "less" newsworthy b/c it's less shocking? I mean an 8.8 is no joke, but Chili is better prepared for a quake than Haiti ever was. Do you think it perhaps has to do with a quake on top of Haiti's abject poverty makes it "more" newsworthy? Or perhaps because there were so many foreigners already in Haiti dealing with other issues when the quake struck. Do you have thoughts at all? Random comments from strangers welcome.
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do you have any thoughts? :)
Date: 2010-03-03 06:39 pm (UTC)I do sort of think that given the amount of press, and all that was done for the Haiti and the survivors, there's this unfortunate backlash of apathy for the victims of Chile's earthquake.
You'd think it they'd benefit from this uprise in compassion and we'd just work harder in our efforts to raise funds or help them in any way we can because we've been working so hard to help Haiti. I'm not sure of the level of poverty with regards to Chile, but they may possibly be a tiny bit more fortunate. Does this make them except from our help, or more media coverage so that more people are aware?
I mean, I didn't even find out until a day after and that was because people were writing about it on their statuses.
Its just like that scenario where if two people are in a room, and a fire starts, and one person doesnt react; the 2nd person probably won't too. They just follow the example, trying not to start a fuss if they don't have to since no one else is.
And if its just playing the minority card, where they want to help the people who are darker and more needy looking, that's even more painful to imagine.
Who knows how these things happen, what gets covered and what doesn't but I definitely feel that there should be more coverage, and after all the compassion and money thrown the way of the Haitians don't we have an obligation to give the people of Chile just as much since they are suffering no less?