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Devastating hurricanes........but not in the USA

The media is full of the effects of the hurricane Sandy on New York and other parts of America.    That it has been devastating cannot be doubted.    But what is significant - and such clear evidence of how the media is so very West-centric, especially in reporting on countries such as the USA, the UK and a handful of other countries - that other countries have in the last days also suffered greatly from hurricanes which have slammed into them.    The Philippines, Haiti and Vietnam.  

"As Hurricane Sandy lashes the East Coast of the United States with wind and rain, Southeast Asia is dealing with the trail of death and damage from a powerful storm that has killed at least 30 people in the region over the past few days.

Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight, the state-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported."


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 "The storm had already killed 27 people when it swept across the central Philippines during the second half of last week, causing flash floods and landslides, according to the Philippine National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. Nine people remain missing, the council said Monday.

East Asia is buffeted for several months a year by heavy storms that roll in from the western Pacific Ocean. In August, a big typhoon, named Bolaven, killed more than 60 people on the Korean peninsula."

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 "Before turning its sights on the United States, Hurricane Sandy left a fresh disaster in Haiti, killing dozens and flooding cities and farmland. The storm set off fears of renewed challenges, including spiking food prices and a new cholera outbreak.

Sandy lingered over Haiti for three days, dumping sheets of rain on a flood-prone country where some 370,000 survivors of the January 2010 earthquake still live in makeshift homes and tents.

Government officials said at least 52 people died and 15 were still missing after the rains swamped wide swaths of land, particularly in the south, an important crop-growing region. News agencies reported that at least 18,000 people were in temporary shelters."

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