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from Tales from the Trail:
Helping Haiti: the nightmare scenario
About the only thing that has gone right in the Haitian earthquake is the weather.
The dry, warm nights have been kind to the multitudes of homeless, injured and terrified Haitians sleeping out in streets, parks and pavements all over the nation. Not to mention the ever-growing legion of foreign rescuers, aid-workers and journalists who -- like the locals -- fear sleeping indoors because of still-rumbling aftershocks.
Apart from that, it has been a sheer nightmare for millions of Haitians, and for aid-groups wanting to help them, after the worst disaster on record in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation. No one knows the death-toll, and many bodies still lie untouched in the street, but clearly thousands, or tens of thousands, have perished. The Red Cross here estimates 45-50,000 dead, and 3 million injured and homeless.
It could not have happened to a more vulnerable nation.
Battered by storms in recent years, and still suffering from a long history of political turmoil, Haiti has struggled in the past to cope with far lesser disasters. Its government has precious few resources and the collapsed roof of the white presidential palace in downtown Port-au-Prince symbolizes its impotence. And of course many officials and policemen are too busy hunting for friends and relatives of their own, and picking through the rubble of their own homes, to turn their attention to any sort of nationwide rescue effort.
from Tales from the Trail:
Brzezinski sees encouraging signs emerging from Haitian catastrophe
It might sound Pollyannaish coming from anybody other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, the hard-nosed intellectual who was Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. But he says the gigantic catastrophe in Haiti may suggest some good things about the state of the modern world.
"As I look at this tragedy and as I look at this enormous human suffering, I'm also a little bit encouraged by the symbolism of the collective global response," Brzezinski said in an interview with MSNBC.
from Global News Journal:
Haiti earthquake: live coverage
Live coverage of the Haiti earthquake from Reuters and other sources. Reuters has not verified external content.
from Photographers Blog:
Disaster follows disaster
Erik de Castro is Chief Photographer for Reuters in the Philippines. A veteran of disasters and hot-spots across Asia and other parts of the world, he was also Chief Photographer in Baghdad, Iraq from 2006-2009. In the past three weeks he has covered floods and landslides in the Philippines and a huge earthquake in Indonesia.
On Sept. 26, I was driving back from a holiday in the northern Philippines when I heard radio reports of flooding in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. At around 4 p.m. I was in Bulacan province just outside the capital when traffic slowed down due to waist-deep floodwater on the expressway.
from Raw Japan:
Another Sunday night on the Pacific Ring of Fire
Sunday night's strong but uneventful 6.9 magnitude earthquake reminded all in greater Tokyo that these are indeed volatile times, tectonically speaking.
It was also a reminder of the advantages of Japan's intense preparation for if -- or when -- the "Big One" does indeed come. As usual, train lines immediately stopped service while media reports of the quake and its Japanese scale rating of "4" flashed within moments of the long temblor. Email and twitter-ing would have reached that magnitude when the Richter scale numbers were broadcast overseas.
from Global News Journal:
A month after quake, gratitude turns to impatience
A month after an earthquake killed nearly 300 people in Italy, the initial goodwill towards authorities for their swift handling of the disaster appears to be giving way to anger as survivors face an uncertain wait for promised funds and the prospect of a long summer in tents.
Italy's government is promising to start providing the thousands made homeless in the central Italian region of Abruzzo with new, furnished houses by September -- in what would be record speed anywhere. But continued aftershocks, rain and chilly temperatures have made life increasingly difficult for survivors in tents, which left-leaning newspapers have seized upon to issue long accounts of the "nightmare" of life in the 170 tent camps.
from Our Take on Your Take:
The emotion of covering Italy’s quake
Davide Elias is a regular contributor to Your View and in the following blog recounts his experience covering the devastating earthquake in L'Aquila.
Early on April 6, the town of L'Aquila, central Italy, was struck by a strong earthquake. My home town, Brescia, is about 600km (375 miles) from L'Aquila. I wanted to travel to the quake zone to take some pictures. I headed to the area the next evening, taking with me two cameras and two lenses (a 10-20 mm and a 70-200mm). I left my 400mm lens at home.
from Photographers Blog:
Be prepared!
"ALWAYS get to the scene as soon as possible", is a mantra for the Tokyo picture team. It is advice which features prominently in the pocket-sized guide to emergency coverage procedures produced by our boss Michael Caronna - a guide which has also become indispensible in everyday coverage too.
Japan is one of the world's most seismically active areas and the Tokyo Pictures team's emergency earthquake coverage plan is well-developed and paid off recently when we covered a powerful earthquake in Northern Japan.
