Monday, March 28, 2005

Quake: Malaysia news Vs International news

A massive quake has occured off the coast of Sumatra with tremors being felt more than 300 miles away in Kuala Lumpur and our government controlled television studios are quiet about it. TV1 - crap football. TV2 is blank and TV3 is playing NBA tapes.

The only way to get news of this event is through international news channels like CNN, CNBC and BBC World - all of which requires subscription and the installation of Astro satellite dishes. Not cheap for fishermans living in coastel regions!

Imagine that, BBC newsreaders are reporting from White City in London but our studios are mum!

I would not be surprised that if a tsunami do occur this time and if it does reach Malaysia's coastal town - scores of people will die! All because of our media inability to issue warnings.

Instead, Malaysian bloggers who are the ones collating datas of friends, relatives and other sources, feeding people with information through Petaling Street.

You can watch BBC News 24 live coverage here.

Update: USGS has raised the earthquake magnitude to 8.7. TV3 has some live reports last time I checked. 4am local time here I think I am going offline.

2 comments:

graceshu said...

tune in to nvt7, my news network has got a pretty decent coverage.

Jon Choo said...

Yeah I missed that. By that time ntv7 switched off. TV1 was playing music with slideshows of buildings and only TV3 left with news on. I wondered what the coverage was during the Boxing Day tsunami? Was it that bad?