Floods Over Australia

Tropical rains continue to exacerbate the worst floods Australia has experienced in some 50 years.   Reports are that some areas of Queensland have been hit with over 13 inches in just the past 24 hours – complete with raging waters overturning cars and downing trees with tornado-like force.

Since the downpour began in late November, 18 people have been killed, 72 have gone missing, over 200,000 have been displaced, and hundreds of businesses have been impacted. And, sadly, there seems no end in sight to the devastation that will flow from these floods.

You want to cry.  It’s going to go up to the roof.

(Hotel manager Jess Philpot, Associated Press, January 9, 2011)

Yet you can be forgiven for having no clue about the enduring nature of this natural disaster. After all, except for a few reports on how so many Australians were spending their Christmas holidays dodging crocodiles and snakes in flood waters surrounding their homes, there has been relatively little coverage.

This stands in stark contrast to the 24/7 coverage that invariably attends natural disasters in poor countries like Pakistan. Not to mention the outpouring of sympathy and support this coverage evokes.

I understand, of course, that the same natural instinct that compels us to give up a seat on the train – not to the young and strong, but to the old and frail,  also compels us our interest in the suffering – not of the (relatively) rich and resourceful, but of the poor and defenseless.

All the same, I am all too mindful that the suffering is exactly the same for a person whose modern home is swept away by floods in Australia as for one whose provincial shack is swept away by floods in Pakistan. 

This is why we should not withhold our sympathy for the Australians now suffering the wrath of Mother Nature – even if the media gives it short shrift and we are naturally inclined to withhold our support.

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