Sunday, October 16, 2005
The forgotten emergency
Never before has such an enormous emergency become unnewsworthy so quickly. It wasn't just the mudslides and flooding in Guatemala that became a victim of our collective amnesia, so did the food crisis in Malawi. The fact that this happened quite so fast, has something to do with the massive earthquake in Pakistan. But one week on, Pakistan too is slipping down the news agenda. With this unsustainable publicity, questions are being asked about how we organise emergency relief. Toby Porter, Emergency Director of Save of Children writes an interesting article on this in today's Observer.
This sentiment is echoed in much of the US where the coverage has been relatively poor in the wake of Katrina and Rita. "Hurricane Stan and Guatemala, We Hardly Heard About Ya". It is certainly echoed in many many other blogs, e.g. Norajean, Sunny, etc.
In fact, one of the most recent references to Guatemala in the UK (The Guardian) was as a possible venue for the 400,000 packaged meals that the US authorities have quarantined due to "mad cow" import regulations.
I've seen various articles begin to put the death toll as much higher than the 654 that Conred in Guatemala is officially saying. Caritas in Spain is putting the figure at 2,052, the BBC was putting the figure as over a 1,000, while Cananda's CBC put the figure at 1,400 since 8th October.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has put together an interesting article on journalism's role in the emergency.
Congratulations are due to El Canche for getting CBS (makers of the great US reality show- Survivor Guatemala- sadly you can watch it online) to change its really supportive page linking to organisations, none of whom were involved in the relief operations in Guatemala. Good on ya Canche.
This sentiment is echoed in much of the US where the coverage has been relatively poor in the wake of Katrina and Rita. "Hurricane Stan and Guatemala, We Hardly Heard About Ya". It is certainly echoed in many many other blogs, e.g. Norajean, Sunny, etc.
In fact, one of the most recent references to Guatemala in the UK (The Guardian) was as a possible venue for the 400,000 packaged meals that the US authorities have quarantined due to "mad cow" import regulations.
State department officials have considered sending the meals to Guatemala, devastated by mudslides, but the country does not have the vehicles to transport the pallets.AlertNet is doing a great job to counter this with its regular reports. For a feature article on the effects of STAN in the latest edition Informe Guatemala from Fundadesc.
I've seen various articles begin to put the death toll as much higher than the 654 that Conred in Guatemala is officially saying. Caritas in Spain is putting the figure at 2,052, the BBC was putting the figure as over a 1,000, while Cananda's CBC put the figure at 1,400 since 8th October.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has put together an interesting article on journalism's role in the emergency.
Congratulations are due to El Canche for getting CBS (makers of the great US reality show- Survivor Guatemala- sadly you can watch it online) to change its really supportive page linking to organisations, none of whom were involved in the relief operations in Guatemala. Good on ya Canche.
# posted by Pad @ 9:50 PM 
