The extreme weather of late

So i just read on the bbc news that 800 people are known to have died in Brazil with a further 400 presumed dead or missing. With just last month and still now there have been some terrible floods in Queensland in Austrlia where they have had droughts for years and years now under huge amounts of water.

In brazilThe Brazilian government has said it will set up an early warning system to alert communities of impending danger.

The flooding is considered the worst natural disaster Brazil has ever experienced.

According to figures compiled by the newspaper O Globo, a third of all victims were under age.

The youngest fatality was a five-day-old baby buried in a mudslide in Nova Friburgo, the worst affected town with 324 dead.

Continuing danger

The number of missing has been declining as forensic experts identify more bodies, but rescue workers fear the full extent of the disaster is not yet known, with some remote communities still only reachable by helicopter.


Funeral workers said some dogs were guarding their owners' graves for days Emergency workers say their priority is to make sure no new deaths occur.

They are warning of the risks of contaminated water.

Three people are known to have contracted leptospirosis, an infectious bacterial disease, which is caused by exposure to water contaminated with rats' urine.

In Teresopolis, doctors have been administering thousands of tetanus vaccines.

In Sao Jose do Vale, workers were erecting more than a hundred tents sent from the UK to house those whose homes were swept away or flooded.

Volunteers in Rio de Janeiro held an adoption fair in the hope of re-homing some of the 5,000 animals left without owners as a result of the disaster.

The government has allocated $240m (£150m) in emergency reconstruction money for the area.


Two points really one is are these more frequent natural disasters a natural problem that we cant do much about or is this another consequence of global warming affecting us now. As my blogpost earlier detailed the affect of capitalism and industralisation is having such a huge impact on our planet and i still dont think we have seen the true consequences of all this.

The trouble is alot of these disasters that mostly the west and now China now are creating due to excessive pollution into the earth's atmosphere over a number of years most of the natural disasters are happening to 3rd world or developing countries who have little infrustructure to deal with large scale disaster. From teh article from the bbc i just posted above the small fund the brazilian government can give to disasters like this is low compared to if this kind of disaster happened in the western world. I do conceed that when America and New orleans faced wide spread flooding and destruction after hurricane Katrina they to were slow to react but i partly think that was down to them not being ready or prepared properly not lack of funds.

But my second point is that howcomes disasters in the 3rd and developing worlds recieve such little attention in our news these days ? Our news seems very biased towards western based news stories and rarely make a big deal of disasters like this i have just posted. Why is this do we think ?

link to bbc article on brazilian floods :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12263166?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter