The cyclone in Myanmar. Tornadoes in the Midwest. The earthquake in Sichuan, China. Are natural disasters becoming more frequent, or does it just seem that way with increased reporting of them on the Internet?
We probably wouldn’t know the full extent of the damage of the cyclone in Myanmar if it weren’t for the local journalists there who took video footage of the damage and released it to international news agencies at great personal risk of retaliation from the governing junta.
The tightly controlled state media there show footage of the junta distributing comfort and aid to the victims without making mention of the aid and support pouring in from around the world. In addition, aid workers in that country are reporting that the junta is hoarding the high-quality food sent in by international agencies, while giving out rotten food to the worst-hit cyclone victims.
These are details that we might not have known without the global reach of the Internet.
Minutes after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck the Sichuan province in China yesterday, videos and eyewitness accounts flooded the Internet. The news of the earthquake first broke on Twitter and videos soon made their way to YouTube. This was in great contrast to the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, a 7.8-magnitude quake that was the deadliest in the 20th century. The Chinese government refused to admit the earthquake had even happened, despite the death toll of at least 240,000 people.
That is not something that can happen in the era of the Internet. The instant any event happens anywhere in the world, cameras are filming it, and the video is distributed globally. Official reporters are no longer necessary, and the “citizen journalist” footage is unfiltered and unbiased by the media. The technology used to capture and disseminate these images is changing the way we face and respond to natural disasters, and hopefully, the faster the world knows about them, the faster help can be sent to the victims.
