Guatemala: very large earthquake

I just spoke to a friend in Guatemala who says there's just been a very large seismic event -- at or over 7.2, is what local news says. No official reports of injury or damage, and no report from Guatemala's institute of Seismology. I'm hearing it was centered near the southern coastal area of Escuintla, 70 miles away from the capital, Guatemala City -- and that the quake was very deep, but they're not expecting tsunamis.

I spent the better part of the last month working on a documentary series in Guatemala. The area where this quake hit was heavily waterlogged from intense rains over the last few weeks, there was flooding and some small mudslides... I wonder if there will be reports of further damage of that kind, it's possible that a quake this strong would dislodge wet soil.

I've spoken to a number of people on the phone since the quake hit, and it was felt in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala City, and as far north as some of the small indigenous towns in the upper part of the department of Sololá.

The quake just happened within the past hour.

Update: Reuters says 6.8: Link (in Spanish). Ah, here's a CNN report (thanks, Seth Rosner). The quake hit at 3:29PM ET, 1:29PM Guatemala Time. People felt it as far away as Mexico and the capital city in El Salvador, and the activity even registered on seismographs 1,800 miles away (!) on Midway Island.

Early reports indicated some homes were damaged and people may be missing, journalist Patzy Vazquez told CNN en Español. Torrential rains have made telephone communication difficult, hampering efforts of rescuers trying to reach the region. The USGS has received no confirmed reports of damage or casualties, and no immediate reports of aftershocks, the agency's Rafael Abreu told CNN. As a precaution, authorities were evacuating high-rise buildings and homes that might be vulnerable to damage if there were any aftershocks.

(map image ganked from cnn.com)

Development porn: white, 1st-world photogs take most 3rd-world pics

A cluster of blog posts have popped up recently around the ethics of "development pornography," and the fact that most images we see of the developing world were shot by photographers (and presumably, video cameramen) who are not from the countries, classes, or ethnic groups they're photographing.

"Recognizing everybody’s communication rights in the information society is not mere slogan or campaign; it’s an integral part of social justice," say members of fair trade photography group Kijiji Vision, whose "mission is to reveal, support, develop and promote indigenous photographers from the majority world" while "making it easier for image buyers and the general public worldwide to access their work."

Here's a snip from one post on the "Technology, Health, and Development" blog:

In the past month there has been a slate of news from Reuters, MSF and others, surrounding imagery and how western media portrays the world. Imaging Famine is about media representations and was mentioned this week by a Reuters blog. This is nothing new, but the debate is good, and as the Reuters piece points out, they have covered the issues surrounding ‘development pornography‘ previously.

Another Reuters writer also picked up on this entire theme: Viewing the poor through Western eyes, I recommend the short read below and checking out the Kijiji/Majority World websites-

“Part of the reason for this kind of post-colonial choreography by INGOs is because they are still required to be the visual mediators of the poor world to the rich world. In Western society, our INGOs are inter-cultural gatekeepers. And you would often have for example, the young white INGO nurse talking passionately on television beside starving children...” Full story.

(...) Two other bits of related content from this week. First, Buffett (son of Warren) donated $730,000 to the journalism school at Nebraska to help student photojournalists record the wants of the world. And finally Together TV (yet another video outlet) has launched more video “in their own words”.

Cat Laine from the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) has a thoughtful post on the topic here, which ends with the following:

Another interesting thing that this brings up is the relationship of the photo’s subject to the photographer. In the post, they mention the following fact: “Upwards of 90% of the images of the majority world that are seen in the western media are produced by white photographers from the USA or Europe.”

When I was in Cap-Haitien, Haiti last summer, I took various pictures of people who were involved in the charcoal training workshop, as well as folks who were on site. I took a few shots of these 2 sisters. [At Left] is the pic they posed for me, a Haitian-American female.

[At right] is how the posed for Dan, an engineer who was also on the trip [a white American male] a few minutes later.

Via Africa Unchained.