Late 2010, early 2011 Queensland was affected by devastating floods in 75% of the state, a number of people lost their lives and many others lost their homes and livelihoods. We had updates on the television and in the papers 24 x7, thousands of volunteers showed up to help clean up the city of Brisbane and millions of dollars was raised to help everyone affected.
Since then we’ve had earthquakes in Christchurch, a tsunami and earthquakes in Japan, mudslides in Brazil, earthquakes in Turkey, flooding in Thailand (which is only now starting to recede) and more recently flooding in Italy that has ravaged the towns of Monterosso and Vernazza as well as the city of Genova. The combined media coverage on all of those events has come nowhere near the amount of coverage we saw with the floods in Queensland, I know that people what to know what is happening in their own region but I am disappointed that the level of coverage for recent events has been lacking. Thank heavens for the internet is all I can say.
If you want good information including photographs and regular updates on what is happening in Vernazza and other parts of Liguria, Italy please check out Nicole’s blog Cultural Comments as well as the SaveVernazza site which also has information on how to make donations.
If you more interested in what has been happening in Thailand, a little closer to home for me but a destination I have never had the privilege of visiting, you can get information from various news sites but I like the Huffington Post and the Soi Dog Foundation. The Soi Dog Foundation is an organisation working hard to save dogs and cats affected by the flooding in Bangkok, a worthy cause for an animal lover like me.
Two Black Dogs 