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What happened in Bududa was a mudslide not a landslide. These two defer but NTV’s journalist in the mudslide hit area kept on calling it a landslide, UBC and WBS all kept on mixing up both. All my heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their loved ones in the mudslides.
What happened in Bududa was a mudslide not a landslide. These two defer but NTV’s journalist in the mudslide hit area kept on calling it a landslide, UBC and WBS all kept on mixing up both. All my heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their loved ones in the mudslides.
The mudslides in Bududa have claimed lives of many and the number could still be rising. The coverage of this in the international media hasn’t been like the coverage in Haiti but the coverage they had created global appeal. Although I thought we deserved more coverage. The video I watched from NTV last night showed some shocking pictures. While watching the Haiti disaster one could see there was activity from the army and the rescue effort was visible. All I saw in the Video was dead bodies and wailing women. The rescue effort didn’t was not visible in the video and that brings into question the state of our media.
The technology we are using delays some of the footage. NTV showed the first footage of the mudslide at 9:40pm and then WBS TV was showing a helicopter and footage from another place. UBC also did not have any recent footage. I had to rely on Al-jazeera that had footage that our local media did not have. This would remind me of the time Al-Jazeera is the one that broke the story that Kony had skipped the signing of the first peace deal and that talks had been suspended. It was at 9:15pm and our local newscasts all had a story that the signing would happen the next day. The capacity here is still low unlike the media in Kenya. However the rural nature of this area then we must give credit for the effort shown by the local journalists.
For the government this is yet another test for disaster preparedness. There are conflicting reports that the people in around that area were told desert the area but they refused because they had not been offered an alternative. The second is that the government never told these people. Whatever the reports say, the land around the area are fertile and to tell them to leave and you don’t provide them with options then I would not be convinced if the government had a plan B.
Third point is that what happens next? The blame game has already started and the government probably about to mention there is limited funding. The minister of Disaster preparedness was trying to be humorous in front of the cameras about the issue. I couldn’t find it funny. We are going to see some high profile officials visiting the area and make close to empty promises. Its whole disjointed saga and in the next few days it will be very interesting the comments we will get from all these people.
For now we watch..........
