Third world disasters in the first world
Posted on Saturday 14th February 2009
I’m sure most of you will have read about the current catastrophes besetting Australia. The climate is bi-polar with extremes at opposite sides of the continent. This isn’t going to be a rant about global warming, or climate change, but the dichotomy between north and south seems more than just normal variation.
When we think about natural disasters it usually conjures up images of financial and resource poor nations struggling to cope with normal seasonal variations in the face of inadequate infrastructure. So you can imagine how much the recent afflictions on Australian soil have come as a shock.
Up in Northern Queensland they have been deluged with rain, and are enduring widespread flooding. The wet season normally leads to rivers bursting their banks, but this is on a far grander scale than normal. Much of the state is now impassable with public services stretched to breaking point and many people left homeless. Of course the Aussie digger spirit will get them through, but they are facing a horrendous time.
Victoria has been seeing the results of the opposite end of the weather spectrum. Weeks without rain, and record high temperatures have turned much of the south of the country into a tinderbox. It came as no surprise that bush fires broke out, but the severity and rate of spread has been unprecedented. This caught many people off guard with deadly consequences. All Australians have been deeply affected by the 181 victims so far accounted for.
To really make things worse it transpires that many of these fires were deliberately started. Pyromania is a recognised psychological illness, but you have to wonder at the callousness of an arsonist starting a fire in very dry conditions and near population centres. It seems that arson is one of the characteristic modus operandi of psychopaths here. I suppose it never caught on in the UK, since everything is so wet all the time.
It’s not just Victoria that has been affected, as even yesterday Adelaide was targetted. Fortunately the fire service managed to suppress the blaze with the help of local people, but it still came as a stark warning as to the vulnerability of the city. The culprits will be on trial soon, both here and across the border, which will hopefully send a warning to other “firebugs“.
All of these events have given me some insight into the frontier mentality that still exists to a small degree here. We live in a country with extremes of climate, many poisonous animals and huge distances between settlements with very little natural resource along the way. Perhaps I notice this having come from the UK, that, despite sharing ethnicity and culture, couldn’t be more different.
Glad you guys are ok, this has been a major news story in the UK. Hope King Kevin is holding it all together for youse all!
Love to Regan and the cats, Ed and Sam
Here is an excerpt from Dorethea Mackellar’s poem…
My Country..written at age 19.
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me! ”
If you live in Australia you understand, drought, floods, bushfires, heatwaves. They have always been with us….but the ones at the moment, are at a brand new level.