Devastation

I was channel surfing looking for something to watch, since I don't watch NYPD Blue, and my jaw dropped when I got to one of the news channels. Indonesia? Earthquake? Are they talking about the December tsunami in some sort of "look back"? No. It happened again, another earthquake. So far no huge tsunami, and let's just hope that never happens again. I can't believe they got hit again so soon with another powerful quake. Sigh.

But what is wrong with Headline News? They're going through the top headlines, and the stories about Terri Schiavo and Michael Jackson were discussed before the earthquake. Shouldn't an 8.7 quake that happened in the past few hours be the top news story, considering that the devastation there not only potentially goes far beyond the other two stories (of course, this starts the huge debate about the value of one life v. the value of many, and I won't even discuss that) but it's news that is new. The other stories have been going on for a while; the earthquake just happened. Doesn't seem like much of a weighing issue to me.

Poor Indonesia. I took a class on Southeast Asian history in undergrad and one of my concentration papers was on part of Indonesia's history. It's somewhere I've always wanted to visit, although hopefully at a more peaceful and less conflicted time. And to be hit twice with a powerful quake in less than 6 months? Why aren't people more concerned? Earthquakes affect a specific region, yes, but isn't the ultimate environmental effect going to be global in the long run? Shouldn't we be concerned that an earthquake hit the same place twice at such strong magnitude so close in time?

Sigh. I have no personal connection to the region but this story is really making me cry. I have to watch something else...