Sunday, 28 February 2010

Earthquake fatigue

Chile has just experienced one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history: 8.8. on the Richter scale. But it will soon fall off the news agenda.

Why? Because Chile planned for the natural disaster in advance. Buildings didn't collapse as they were constructed to be flexible, so the human loss of life -- though tragic -- was not biblical in scale. Lessons were learned from a similar disaster in 1960: and earthquakes seem to be a regular feature of life in Chile.

And the Chile event was the second international earthquake within a month, so the disaster didn't even have the merit of novelty. Unlike Haiti.

The international response? Call us if you need to, but you seem to be doing fine on your own.

Even the tsunamis passed around the Pacific Ocean without much of a murmur.

And the news footage often came with inappropriate, juxtaposed channel advertising. The world has already moved on.


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