Japan's earthquake/tsunami

Like millions around the world, I’m watching and reading news coming out of Japan with a sort of helpless sympathy. What to say in the face of such devastation?

The full toll of the massive earthquake and tsunami likely won’t be known for days or even weeks. Thousands of people are still missing. Survivors are cut off from rescuers, electricity, food and aid. The infrastructure damage is mind-boggling – and rather scary such as with the unfolding malfunctioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

I wonder though what the reaction from the world will be over the coming days. Certainly there is the immediate awe and morbid curiosity, but such feelings are rarely sustained for long. What will be our attention span for this tragedy?

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami saw such widespread devastation affecting so many countries – and the response was immediate and relatively long-lasting. Thousands of people from around the world volunteered with relief efforts and aid agencies were flooded with donations.

But since then there have been other massive disasters – Katrina’s floods, earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan. But for those removed from the epicentre, how long did it take before our attention strayed to the next big story, or simply returned to the focus of our daily lives?

And there is the on-going political upheaval in Northern Africa – headlines about which are already competing with the stories from Japan.

Japan is not an impoverished country. It is responding to this disaster with highly-trained, highly-equipped personnel. The world’s help is not so desperately needed as it was in Haiti where the country’s pre-existing political and economic deficits threw the country to its knees.

Certainly, there are organizations like the Red Cross which are already active in Japan and which are accepting donations which can be earmarked “Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami”. I’m sure these will be appreciated and put to very good use. And yet I don’t expect that aid organizations like the Red Cross will receive the same sort of support and investment that they have over their work in other places.

I’m not judging here or saying people don’t care. I’m just wondering about our capacity to sustain sympathy for far-away suffering.