Australia's Torment
Australia has suffered immensely the last few years through environmental challenges. Years of drought have caused no end of problems for the country. The plight of camels for whom water shortages would be those of the animal kingdom most likely to survive under those adverse conditions, a good case in point. And now, after years of intolerable drought conditions, an ironic twist as flooding is devastating vast tracts of the country.
It is not just the huge numbers of properties affected by the flooding, tens of thousands of private homes and businesses ruined, and agricultural areas impacted so deleteriously. That people are losing everything of value to them is tragic. Similar situations are seen in other parts of the world, less able to fend for themselves but even wealthy, advanced countries like Australia are helpless in the face of such natural disasters.
Worse, the loss of life that leaves a timeless legacy of grief. Material possessions are replaceable. Human life is not. Where among the more than dozen people to have died in the flooding - and dozens more whose absence remains unaccounted for - a man witnessing his wife of 30 years and his thirteen-year-old son being washed away by the relentless floodwaters, even as rescuers managed to bring his younger son to safety.
13-year-old Jordan Rice from the city of Toowoomba, pleading with rescuers to take his 10-year-old brother first. And then, as his anguished father watched, the rescue rope attached to the family car snapped under pressure and his wife and older boy were swept away to their death. The helplessness of neighbours seeing a familiar body of another neighbour float past.
A child care worker in the town of Grantham refusing to leave to secure his safety, remaining behind and vulnerable in the family home in an attempt to stay with and save his wheelchair-bound mother. The home collapsed in the following deluge, killing Joshua Ross, his mother and her partner.
Billions of dollars of damage have resulted so far from the flooding in Queensland state. And that most certainly is a tragedy of immense proportions. One that will require Australia to rebuild itself as from the ravages of a war, or a powerful earthquake followed by a tsunami. Yet it is stories of people helplessly trapped in a hopeless situation that will become part of the historical folklore of tragedy.
The story of James Perry, clinging to the roof rack of his car as it swept down and forever away in the muddy, churning waters around Toowoomba, where a rescue workers with a helicopter had just winched his wife and the pair's 9-year-old son to safety before the family vehicle was swept away.
The dreadful sights and losses will remain inscribed as unassuagable grief in the memories of the survivors.
It is not just the huge numbers of properties affected by the flooding, tens of thousands of private homes and businesses ruined, and agricultural areas impacted so deleteriously. That people are losing everything of value to them is tragic. Similar situations are seen in other parts of the world, less able to fend for themselves but even wealthy, advanced countries like Australia are helpless in the face of such natural disasters.
Worse, the loss of life that leaves a timeless legacy of grief. Material possessions are replaceable. Human life is not. Where among the more than dozen people to have died in the flooding - and dozens more whose absence remains unaccounted for - a man witnessing his wife of 30 years and his thirteen-year-old son being washed away by the relentless floodwaters, even as rescuers managed to bring his younger son to safety.
13-year-old Jordan Rice from the city of Toowoomba, pleading with rescuers to take his 10-year-old brother first. And then, as his anguished father watched, the rescue rope attached to the family car snapped under pressure and his wife and older boy were swept away to their death. The helplessness of neighbours seeing a familiar body of another neighbour float past.
A child care worker in the town of Grantham refusing to leave to secure his safety, remaining behind and vulnerable in the family home in an attempt to stay with and save his wheelchair-bound mother. The home collapsed in the following deluge, killing Joshua Ross, his mother and her partner.
Billions of dollars of damage have resulted so far from the flooding in Queensland state. And that most certainly is a tragedy of immense proportions. One that will require Australia to rebuild itself as from the ravages of a war, or a powerful earthquake followed by a tsunami. Yet it is stories of people helplessly trapped in a hopeless situation that will become part of the historical folklore of tragedy.
The story of James Perry, clinging to the roof rack of his car as it swept down and forever away in the muddy, churning waters around Toowoomba, where a rescue workers with a helicopter had just winched his wife and the pair's 9-year-old son to safety before the family vehicle was swept away.
The dreadful sights and losses will remain inscribed as unassuagable grief in the memories of the survivors.
Labels: Environment, Human Relations, Nature
posted by Pieface @ 6:47 PM
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