antifaust

The continued focus of international media on the rising number of confirmed deaths in the Indian Ocean earthquake could be drawing us away from the real threat of disease and starvation currently affecting the survivors. The death toll could indeed double if international relief efforts fail to ensure proper sanitation, delivery of basic health services, clean drinking water and food to those displaced by the killer tsunamis.

I must say I am very pleased in the way the blogosphere, collaborative content sites like Wikipedia, del.icio.us, and Flickr are providing us with in depth coverage of the disaster. I was surprised how quickly Wikipedia came up with a comprehensive entry — complete with links to more sites — on the Indian Ocean Quake. (This made the advantage of Wikipedia over traditional encyclopedias apparent to me — it’s ability to inform us regrading current events.) People are also posting tsunami related links to del.icio.us and uploading related pictures to Flickr. Last year was indeed the year of “Citizen Journalist.”

Other tsunami related links

Note: I didn’t immediately post regarding the tsunamis because I was overwhelmed by the loss of life and it seemed like posting about it without saying anything but “this is a tragic event” would be echoing thousands of other blog entries. I didn’t find it necessary to blog about the obvious.

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