Earthquake in China kills 398 people

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28635027

The death toll is probably likely to rise. Let's hope that those injured get treated quickly and effectively. Thoughts go out to those families that have been ruined by this.

On a secondary note, why has this story got barely any coverage in the media? I was watching Sky News for an hour or so this morning and it didn't get mentioned once! I had to search quite hard to find it on the UK BBC website.

Here is the DM story:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2714714/Huge-earthquake-measuring-6-5-Richter-scale-southern-China-kills-150-leaves-1-400-injured.html#comments

Again, very few comments and it was never anywhere near the top of the page, as the comments have said.

This is also the first mention of this event on TSR! :mad:

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

Michael!

Original post by Autistic Merit

The simple answer is. People over here don't really care.

It's horrible but it's the sad truth. There are many stories out there that the media deem more relevant to their readers so they take centre stage.

An example of this is that there are bombs that go off across the world pretty much every day. We only ever hear about the ones that the media feel like telling us.

Reply 2

Ellie_May :)

I was amazed by this too - BBC had tweeted once about it on their breaking news page. The toll started off at just 26 people and it's still going up. Hopefully China can recover quickly, luckily it didn't happen in an LEDC!

Reply 3

Snagprophet

Original post by Autistic Merit

On a secondary note, why has this story got barely any coverage in the media? I was watching Sky News for an hour or so this morning and it didn't get mentioned once! I had to search quite hard to find it on the UK BBC website.

Because it:

A) Happens fairly often in China compared to other places
B) There have been similar incidents which larger body counts.

Reply 4

tgwktm

Original post by Autistic Merit

china gets a lot of fairly large earthquakes so unless a really big one happened then i wouldn't expect major coverage on the bbc or similar really.
china itself is an NIC so should have the technology/finance etc to recover eventually, compared to many LEDC's that stuggle to recover on their own at all. the area in which this happened has a HDI ranking of 0.6 roughly so is not the most developed, china's levels of development vary majorly. However countries that experience these events frequently are more used to them and will be able to respond better than unexperienced countries.

Reply 5

Autistic Merit

Original post by Snagprophet

Because it:

A) Happens fairly often in China compared to other places
B) There have been similar incidents which larger body counts.

It's the only earthquake this year that has killed more than 30 people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_the_2010s_(by_death_toll)

According to the list above, it has the 7th highest death toll for an earthquake during this decade. I know the article hasn't been edited to add it in yet.

inb4 Wikipedia anyone can edit, unreliable etc.

Reply 6

Ana81

Because theres so many Chinese people a few dying wont interest people.

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Reply 7

RoyalBlue7

Original post by Ana81

Because theres so many Chinese people a few dying wont interest people.

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Crazy...

There are so many humans on the planet...why should I moan about the death of one person - my mother?

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Reply 8

Ana81

Original post by RoyalBlue7

Crazy...

There are so many humans on the planet...why should I moan about the death of one person - my mother?

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Why would you moan a about the death of people you don't know? people die every day I could be gone tomorrow I'm sure you wouldn't cry. It's not a huge disaster where thousands have died.

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Reply 9

K1996s

Original post by Ana81

So unless it effects you its not relevant and you dont care? Does it shock you to find out people aren't all as self centered as you?

Reply 10

LaughingBro

Caucasian media only features anti China/Chinese bashing; never anything neutral or positive. Racist much?

Reply 11

Temporality

Original post by Ana81

It's considered a tragedy when people have their lives set out for them and they die prematurely...

Reply 12

Ana81

Original post by K1996s

So unless it effects you its not relevant and you dont care? Does it shock you to find out people aren't all as self centered as you?

Clearly you didn't understand what I said.. Secondly do you cry every time someone dies? if so then you should be crying right now.. This compared to the Palestine issue isn't that big, the BBC aren't going to make a broadcast everytime a person dies as people have died since human life was created. You can go light a candle every time someone dies if you want to thats fine.

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Reply 13

RoyalBlue7

Original post by Ana81

But you said the reason was because there are a LOT of Chinese so it doesn't matter. Now you're got the right sense. Thank you :biggrin:

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Reply 14

Ana81

Original post by RoyalBlue7

But you said the reason was because there are a LOT of Chinese so it doesn't matter. Now you're got the right sense. Thank you :biggrin:

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Sigh..

Look at the population of China and the actual size of it.. There are probably people in China who dont even know this disaster took place. I was unaware till I came to this thread. Bottom line is its not the holocaust and in a country of a billion people or so I don't think 300+ deaths is going to make huge headlines. Fact is if my whole family died, most people wouldn't bat an eyelid.. to me personally it would be the end of the world.People are dying of starvation in Africa as we speak.. tell me when was the last time you heard about it on the news? its life my friend, sucks but that's how it is.

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Reply 15

RoyalBlue7

Original post by Ana81

So there's two reasons:

(1) The population is so large - 300 people dying is negligible. The greater the proportion the greater attention it gets.

(2) People do care only for their loved ones. The closer to home the greater the attention it gets.

Now in your initial post you implied only (1) but then you brought in (2) in your other posts. I accept (2) and now I see that (1) is also true.

Thank you for that :biggrin:

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(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 16

Autistic Merit

Original post by LaughingBro

Caucasian media only features anti China/Chinese bashing; never anything neutral or positive. Racist much?

I do agree with you here.

Reply 17

Ggmu!

Original post by LaughingBro

Caucasian media only features anti China/Chinese bashing; never anything neutral or positive. Racist much?

Even compliments are thinly veiled insults. When they bring the level of Chinese students they always have to say how 'opressed' they are etc.

Western, Caucasian media is like that about everyone but themselves but do it subtly enough to have claims by yourself and I, laughed off.

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