Today in the Indian ocean

As you're probably aware, there was an earthquake under the Indian ocean the other day. It was an 8.9 on the Richter scale, which... well, I can't even imagine it. Had the epicentre fallen on dry land, there would have been visible waves traveling through the earth. As it was, it fell below the sea.

Any coasts facing that sea were swamped, including Sri Lanka. Mercifully the wave seems to have abated by the time it got to Bangladesh, which is desperately poor and only about two metres above sea level at any point. Now, of the seven people who study third-year Physics at my college, one is from Sri Lanka. There was a fair bit of communication between us all until it was established that she was safely in Bavaria at the time, and that her family live in Columbo which was relatively sheltered, being on the west side of the island.

Now, what inspired me to write about it was the news coverage. Statistics with varying levels of reliability came up at various points: 100 000 killed in Indonesia, 900 killed on the small strip of Thailand on that coast, dozens of islands still cut off from communication. There's one that kept being returned to, across all channels. One Briton is currently known to be missing.

My first reaction is one of leftist indignation. This isn't as bad as when the news will carefully report extradition proceedings for Britons or Australians in Guantanamo and make no mention of the 200 being held incommunicado without charge or trial. It still gets under my skin, though. Being British doesn't make someone special, as if their well-being is more valuable than that of the poor bugger who lost his house. At least, it doesn't to me. It's natural that when you hear about something like this that you think of those you, personally, know. Does that justify the One Briton syndrome, though? I don't think it does. If if did, then we really ought to be hearing a lot more about India- after all, people of Indian extraction are a significant slice of the British citizenry, typically two or three generations distinct from the land that's now ankle-deep in seawater. Sri Lanka is no stranger to us either. And yet, we keep coming back to this holidaymaker. Don't get me wrong, I wish her the best of luck and I really hope she's OK. The thing is, I feel the same about those who get ten seconds of camera pan as a crowd, too.