Saturday, March 17, 2012

Japanese Disaster vs. Haiti

Everybody is talking right now about the one year anniversity of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. And I mean everybody -- the BBC, CNN, local media, all major newspapers, the internet newsites, etc.

But earlier this year, on January 12, was the one year anniversity of the earthquake in Haiti. That anniversity received very little press.

Well, the Japanese disaster was a tragedy - 15,000 died. But Haiti had over 200,000 dead, ten times the number in Japan, and 300,000 injured. And 1.5 million were displaced, -- more than ten percent of the entire population. And after one year, one-third of those (520,000) are still displaced. Haiti was also hit later last year by a hurricane which affected many of the same people as the earthquake. And they also had a chlorea outbreak.

A report just released shows that half of all the humanitarian disaster funding in 2011 went to Japan.

So while we are thinking about Japan, let us not forget others around the world.

Update: The UN just released and interesting report on the discrepancies in disaster funding.