Floods in Queensland and Victoria

[Cypher]

Hey folks happy new year (bit late I know)

I havent been on the forums in quite awhile due to my mother progressing further into final stage bone cancer, and its not been a good start of the year. In all fairness on a personal level this is terrible for me but I wanted to also bring to the attention the disastarous floods of my home city Brisbane and the affects it has had and will have for Australia and every person living there. I have personally sold my old DJ decks and donated the money to the flood funds. I am hoping to get abit of awareness (as if the media hasnt done that enough already) and to stand still by the events that transpired the last weeks. Rest in peace to the victims of the 2011 floods may your souls know peace.

Donate to the flood relief appeal : Queensland Government

[LMAshton]

Sorry to hear about your mother's battle with cancer.


I think the media has done a pretty good job for the floods in Australia. It's the flooding in other countries that's been pretty much ignored. If you do a Google news search on flooding, Australia has nine of the first ten search results. Sri Lanka has one. Other countries aren't found until you go much deeper in the search results.

Sri Lanka. At one point, over a million people homeless, at least 200k hectares (or around 3.5% of Sri Lanka's total land) of paddy fields destroyed, 43 killed and four still missing. I was told that over a quarter of the country was under water at one point, although I didn't get this from an official news source, so not sure of the accuracy of that statement. Some areas in the east received more rain in a matter of a day or two than they normally receive in an entire year, so it's entirely possible that statement is accurate. There are food shortages (milk powder, for example) and rising food prices - bell peppers, for example, cost twice as much yesterday as they did two weeks ago. The areas affected by the flooding - the north and the east - are the same areas most affected by the tsunami six years ago and the war with the Tamil Tigers, which the people in those areas have not yet completely recovered from.

Oh, and Sri Lanka has had unusually cold weather, with at least four dying from the cold temperatures. Bizarre, to me, for a tropical country.

Brazil. 741 dead, over 400 still missing.

Indonesia. Thousands affected. I don't know much more than that.

Philippines. At least 60 dead.

Thailand. 38000 affected.

Malaysia. At least 3 dead, tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes.


While I do applaud the request for more awareness and for donations for the flooding in Australia, I'd rather expand that request for awareness and donations to include all areas affected by the flooding of the last few weeks, including countries which are going to have a very difficult time recovering from the flooding. The Sri Lankan farmers, for example, whose paddy fields were destroyed by the flooding may never recover economically from this disaster.

[Cypher]

I was actually aware of the other countries its very sad indeed, typical that the poorer countries recieve less media attention. They sometimes say people dont realize how bad a natural disaster can be until it hits home. I think the same goes for me, unfortunately in a society where news is spread in seconds instead of days you become desensitized.

[DelCan]

In the U.S. we are seeing the effects of the flooding in Austrailia and Brazil but I don't recall seeing anything about the other countries you mentioned including Sri Lanka. We have also had some very strange weather this year.