FLOOD REPORTING

There have been floods over much of the southern hemisphere during the past month. In Brazil more than 800 people are known to have died in the region around Rio de Janeiro, after torrential rain caused floods and mudslides in the hilly area. At least 70 people have died in South Africa after weeks of heavy rains. Eight of the country's nine provinces have been declared disaster areas, and big rivers such as the Zambezi are at twice their normal levels. In Sri Lanka four weeks of heavy rain have destroyed crops and forced hundreds of thousands of people into makeshift camps. At least 40 people have died. While in Australia, torrential rains have created rivers in Queensland where none existed before, and swamped the country's third biggest city, Brisbane. More than 30 people have died.

The adverse weather conditions are due to what is known as the La Nina effect. Cold water rises to the surface of the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America. Buffetted by strong easterly winds, this cold water surges westward, pushing the warm water in front of it. This gets trapped by the land masses of Australia and South East Asia, causing high pressure to build up, and resulting in unusually high rainfall. The phenomenon then continues westward, reaching southern and southeastern Africa and eventually the east coast of South America.

One interesting aspect of these events is the inverse relationship between the amount of media reporting of them and the number of deaths involved. Most of the focus - in Europe, at any rate - has been on Australia. There were a few items on the news about Brazil, but hardly anything about Sri Lanka. And until I starting clicking on links in order to write this post, I knew absolutely nothing about what had happened in South Africa.

Is it because we intuitively identify more with fellow rich, mainly Caucasian, societies? Or is it because we are more inured to the loss of life and property in poor countries; losing a two-story brick house with manicured lawn is somehow worse than losing a mud hut and two cows, even if the first is protected by flood insurance and the second is not? Sadly, I think it is the latter.

Walter Blotscher