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Bahrain: Poetry Slammed!

Ayesha Saldanha · 17:27

This week Bahraini bloggers express their concerns about the country's electronic identity cards. With the school year about to begin, education is a hot topic. Be careful what you write when you send a job application – you might unwittingly become one of the new superheroes, The Employables! We finish with some strong opinions regarding the literary scene in Bahrain.

Too smart, or not so smart?

The Smart Card (an electronic identity card) is being phased in in Bahrain, but a number of bloggers have expressed their reservations about the scheme. Ammar thinks the project is doomed for failure:

So we started this Smart Card concept and we're full blast trying to get everyone to carry one. FOR WHAT?! No one has a reader yet, and the card is useless to anyone NOT carrying one; there's no address or anything on the front, and even the driving license part of it is not acknowledged by the traffic police. WTF?! Second of all, the process to actually get it is SO GODDAMN ANNOYING, AND the people working there are total IDIOTS! No, i'm not exaggerating; TOTAL FRICKIN' IDIOTS! And finally, can we really trust THESE PEOPLE with our data?! Keeping it private and safe? We are seriously screwed guys. And shouldn't we be thinking of fixing the other parts of the country still left in the dark ages before trying to advance? Go into the Ministry of Health and you'll see people still writing things down on pieces of paper. WHERE IS THE BLOODY TECHNOLOGY?! I wouldn't mind a 1985 IBM system at least, but NO! They don't even have that! WORK ON FIXING YOUR BLOODY PROBLEMS BEFORE TRYING TO ADVANCE; you can't run before you crawl, and shit, we're still on the verge of crawling. This is going to end up as such a HUGE disaster, I can feel it!

Mahmood is worried about the use of the Smart Card for political purposes, to further sectarian aims:

How is all of this going to affect us in Bahrain is anyone’s guess. My private guess is that it is going to be detrimental to our freedom - at best. Not because the card itself is a bad idea, not at all, things are moving in that direction the world over anyway. Its failure in Bahrain is the almost complete absence of its supporters simply because of the people who have been assigned to oversee it, and the clandestine organisation that is pushing it.

No project can succeed if it lacks the basic necessity of trust. This one, for all the potential good that it can otherwise bring, is destined to doom. Bahrainis simply lack the necessary trust to make it successful. Oh they will go and get that card issued, to be sure, because as we have seen with the CPR card that preceded it, no earthly transaction could be completed in this country without it.

What’s left to do but tell those who care to simply “brace brace brace” as this thing will come crashing down, or at least will never reach its full potential.

Unless of course full transparency is adopted and those who have hijacked this project for nefarious deeds are removed.

Education matters

With the new school year soon to start, education is on people's minds. Ammar wants change:

We have smart people in Bahrain; most of them just go brain-dead under our current system, we need our people to be challenged, strengthened, given the tools to promote and advance. We need that to get rid of the corruption, the unemployment, the shortages, the ignorance…

Please… Fix our educational system…

Yagoob is happy to be a teacher:

Teaching is one of the hardest jobs on Earth, we’ve all at some point in our lives have seen a teacher reaching the brink of insanity (or turning insane) in his/her quest to restore order in the class and feed you with information that you will either forget and never use in your whole life or the kind of stuff that will stick with you like a لزقة جونسون (a Johnson and Johnson’s band aid) for the rest of your life.

[…]

I’m a teacher trainer by day and a computer teacher at various institutes by afternoon and night, although I might add that I have had no studies in education other than a single ’train the trainers’ course I took earlier this year.
Working in these areas, the majority of the people you come across are there because they want to learn, the teachers fill in the appropriate forms and get them signed and switch around their timetables just to get to the training, whilst in institutes, putting it bluntly, they pay for it!

[…]

Luckily for me, whenever I mess up a lesson (and this happens a lot when you use technology and bloody Windows keeps crashing or the Internet is not connecting or even worse really slow) I can always rectify it with the next group I teach and once I get it right, I feel this soothing sense of satisfaction quite similar to the way you feel after drinking a cold glass of water in a month like this one.

Ebtihal Salman is dreading the start of the new school year:

قبل شهر إن لم يزد بدأ إعصار العودة إلى المدارس باكتساح الإعلانات في الشوارع والمحلات التجارية، ورغم مرور سنوات على تخرجي من المدارس إلا أن هذه الإعلانات لم تزل تصيبني بالضيق، ويزداد الضيق كلما تذكرت أنك لا تستطيع الهرب حقاً من قدر “العودة إلى المدارس” مهما طال بك الوقت. فإذا كنتَ ولياً (أباً أو أماً) لطالب فعلى ميزانيتك لهذا الشهر و الشهر التالي أن تستعدا لمحنة استنزاف شديدة، حتى تتمكن من توفير كافة الاحتياجات المدرسية المادية لطالب العلم، ويؤسفني أن اهتمامك بتعليم طفلك سيجعلك فريسة سهلة ومستكينة لتجار القرطاسية والملابس والأحذية والحاجات التي لا تنتهي لهذه العودة. قلبي مع الأولياء الذين يجهزون أكثر من طالب ليعود إلى مدرسته.

A month ago, if not more, the back to school hurricane started taking over the ads on streets and shops. Despite the passage of years since my graduation from school, I still feel upset when I realise that I will never be able to escape the ‘Back to School' destiny forever. If you were a guardian (a mother or a father) of a student, your budget for this month and next will be getting ready for a huge dent - in order to be able to meet the financial obligations of this student of knowledge. It is a shame that your interest in ensuring the best education for your child will make you an easy prey for the traders on stationery, uniforms, shoes and the endless list of things necessary for the beginning of the school year. My heart goes out to parents who have more than one student going back to school.

New superheroes

Looking for a job? Think carefully what you put in your application. Sairafi is amazed at some of the CVs he has received recently:

Work has been taking too much of my time, but to actually make more time for myself i’ve started a mission this week, beyond ordinary…to create the next set of superheroes, also known as: The Employables

The Employables, in my mind are just like any superhero posse hanging out, with extra hip, extra cool abilities that are matched by no other! They’re here to save my company, to save this market, to save the country, and finally, to save the universe!

If i weren’t so objective about my unusual hiring process, i’d probably trash just about every CV that comes my way, i didn’t realize that a tiny ad in the GDN would get me all sort of potential superheros that by far leave Spidey and Batyboy look like cheesy amateurs living in a cookie jar. i’m pretty sure everyone has their CV story, i’m really not looking to outdo anyone, but i’ve managed to combine these talented individuals to create a group of superheros that would make the X-MEN look like sissies.

Lady AutoFire, don’t let her simple relaxed and feminine beauty fool you, this lady can pack a punch, sending her cv a good number of times to statistically guarantee a chance to be reviewed! unloading CV’s uncontrollably to by far drown her employer!

The Preacher, I had nothing good to say about him initially, but geared with ONLY his religious lecturing experience won me over, he will preach the rest of staff to success, and pray the company will be the next Google.

Ultimatum, no, he’s not Bourne, but he sure got me by setting an ultimatum for my response! By the end of his cover letter, I thought I was applying to his company!

Ms. Blaine, probably married to the illusionist David Blaine, she has the super-ability to make her CV disappear from my mailbox, I searched for a good five minutes till I realized her CV wasn’t attached.

Needy Many, Many, asked me to do “the needful” when it came to her application, I was a bit confused as to what “the needful” really was though? I suddenly “needed” her.

Poetry slammed

In these roundups I don’t normally quote from my own blog, bint battuta in bahrain, but this week I will, because I am amongst the bloggers who have written about poetry in Bahrain. My post described a discussion about the translation of an erotic poem:

I’ve discovered that it’s not such a great idea to discuss translations of poems in a public space. When I translate poetry, I always talk to the poet about the images and underlying concepts of the work. Until now, without it being a deliberate plan, I have always met the poets concerned in relatively quiet, private environments – their offices or homes. But last night I had a meeting arranged with a certain gentleman poet in a café, and I knew from the outset that our conversation was going to be difficult.

[…]

I was sitting with the gentleman whom I know, but not that well, in a very public environment. I like his work, and I respect him, and he always behaves very respectfully with me, but I had to wonder what anyone listening to us last night must have thought (and believe me, it was very easy to listen in). The poem we were discussing described, in an oblique way, the sexual act, so his explanation was littered with ‘members’ and ‘sperm’ and ‘climaxing’ and goodness knows what else.

[…]

The conversation was in Arabic, which I suppose gave it some distance for me, but of course made it all the more interesting to those sitting at neighbouring tables in the café. And this gentleman didn’t seem concerned at all. In fact not only did he speak loudly, but he happily threw my name into every sentence.

Butterfly attended a poetry recital a while back, and it left her unimpressed with poetry in Bahrain today:

المفاجأة انني اكتشفت فيما بعد ان الشاعر الذي لم أكن قد سمعت عنه من قبل يعد احد الشعراء البحرينين المعروفين ممن صدر لهم أكثر من كتاب وديوان شعري
هو نفس الشاعر الذي يقول في مقابلة له قرأتها على أحد المواقع الالكترونية بأن قصائده نوع من الفنتازيا الشعرية وبأن” قصيدته القادمة ستكون عن نوع من القوارض سمع صوته في غرفة نومه في ليلة من الصمت المطبق فحدد مكان تواجده و تبين أنه لا طعام أو بقايا له في المكان فأشفق عليه، وبدأ في التحري عنه إن كان ثعباناً أو فأراً أو صرصاراً فقط لأجل العناية به أو الإفراج عنه إن كان مزنوقاً. وعندما فشل وهو أخلد للصمت بدأت محنته أي الشاعر لأنه إذا تصرف الفأر أو الصرصار دون درايته في وقت هو يحدده فقد يرتكب حماقة بحق”. لا أعلم فعلا أي نوع من الشعر او الفنتازيا الشعرية تلك التي يتحدث عنها ولا أعرف كذلك سر ولع الشعراء البحرينيين بالقوارض والصراصير فقد سبق

وان قرأت قصيدة مماثلة واتحفظ هنا على كلمة قصيدة وأضع تحتها ألف خط لشاعرة بحرينية تتحدث فيها عن تجربتها مع صرصار فاجأها ليلاً

في كل الحالات فهناك خلل ما .. أما انها فعلا فنتازيا شعرية أو ان المشكلة تكمن فيني لأنني لا أستطيع تذوق الشعر البحريني المعاصر

The surprise was when I discovered later on that the poet whom I had never heard of before is considered to be one of Bahrain's renowned poets, who has had a book and a book of poems published. He is the same poet who said in an interview in an online publication that a poem is a type of poetic fantasy and that his next poem will be about a type or a rodent that he heard in his bedroom on a quiet night. He pinpointed the place where it was and realised that there was no food or any leftovers in the place. He started sympathising with it and started investigating whether it was a snake, rat or cockroach, just for the sake of caring for it and freeing it if it was trapped. When he failed and the creature became silent, the poet's crisis began as the rat or cockroach could have found a solution without the poet's knowledge, leading the poet to commit real stupidity. I really don't know what type of poetry or poetic fantasy he is speaking about is and I also don't understand the secret behind the obsession of Bahraini poets with rodents and cockroaches.
I had previously read a similar poem - and I have strong reservations against using the word poem - by a Bahraini poet, who speaks about her experience with a cockroach, which had surprised her at night.
At any rate, there is a problem somewhere.. and it could either be in the poetic fantasy or in that I cannot comprehend contemporary Bahraini poetry.

Storm-swept seems to have a similar opinion about Bahraini poetry, and parodies it:

تعال و شوف شعراء البحرين , احنا مو مفتكين من هالحكومة يجون لينا هالشعراء و ياذونا بعد !!
الواحد منهم مو فاهم ويش يقول و يبانا احنا نفهمه …
و كل ما تقول له شي … قال لك : انت متخلف و ضد الثقافة …
يا اخوان احنا صدق ما نفهم واجد بس مو شديه … تحطون قصائد ما ليها اول و لا اخر …
و الله قصائدكم اصعب من قصائد أمرء القيس …
بالله عليكم و يش تفهمون من قصيدة ( الغرباوي ) الشاعر البحريني المشهور اذا قال لك قصيدة مثل :

تفاحةٌ حمراء …
تفاحةٌ حمراء …
و بانكة مترامية الاطراف …

يا اخي ويش جاب تفاحة حمراء الى بانكة ؟
ويش هالوصاخة … معذور اكيد قاعد يكتب قصيدته في الحر …

Come and see Bahrain's poets. We are not having a break from the government and now poets come to add to our miseries!!
Some of them don't understand what they are saying and expect us to understand them…
And every time you tell him something, he says: “You are backward and against culture…
We really don't understand that much but not to this extent…You write poems without a beginning nor an end…
I swear that your poems are more difficult than those of Imru Al Qais….
By Allah, what do you understand from the poem by Al Gharbawi, the famous Bahraini poet when he says:

A red apple…
A red apple…
And a widespread fan…

My brother, what has the apple got to do with the fan?
What is this rubbish? He must have an excuse as he surely was writing his poem in the heat.

More debates and discussions from Bahrain next week!

0 comments · »»

Caribbean: Bracing for Hurricane Dean

Janine Mendes-Franco · 14:09

The Caribbean blogosphere is abuzz over the impending arrival of Hurricane Dean, the first official hurricane of the season:

Steve's Dominica reports:

“Dean will be passing over us around 6am on Friday. We'll start to feel the winds from midnight tonight…”

Steve manages to venture out, however and posts a photo of how the storm is shaping up, adding:

“You could see people were taking Hurricane Dean seriously, boarding up windows. Up at the top of the hill, the gusts of wind hinted at what is to come.”

As the storm moves closer, Living Dominica says:

“I know that I am going to have to sit through hours of howling hurricane winds tomorrow, and the thought brings tears to my eyes. I feel like a small child abandoned and unprotected at the thought of this storm.”

Cheese-on-Bread, blogging from Barbados, takes a more practical approach and posts some helpful hurricane preparation tips, urging everyone to “stay safe”:

“The weather has definitely changed from the sunny skies we had earlier today…”

Living in Barbados offers some useful information on the storm's projected path and estimated wind speed, as well as how Bajans are preparing for the possible hit:

“At home, all of our shutters are down and windows closed, movable objects are indoors, and we hope that neighbours have done something similar. The airport closes at 9pm tonight and should reopen at 9am tomorrow; flights by the US airlines had already been cancelled from earlier in the day. Lots of business closed in mid-afternoon and road works were suspended and warning signs removed, in case they became missiles in the expected high winds. Reports indicated that people were rushing to hardware and grocery stores to stock up on essential provisions. Category 1 shelters were advised to open.”

My Barbados Blog posts a comprehensive list of the varying storm watch levels in the different islands, while Notes from the Margin writes:

“Join me in saying a prayer tonight for our friends in St. Lucia, Martinique and Dominica who are really looking down the business end of this storm.”

As expected, the weather was fairly subdued on Barbados this morning, according to Pull! Push!. His most recent update says:

“It's just after 7:30 in the morning. The skies are still overcast, it's raining and strong breezes and sudden gusts of wind, are both putting in an appearance. I have heard that the ALL CLEAR has been given.”

Mighty Afroditee, who has lived through the havoc Hurricane Ivan wreaked on the Cayman Islands, blogs about the whims of Mother Nature and hard lessons learned:

“An air of expectation hangs over the island, as worry furrows the brows of those bent on preparation. Ivan (the “Rat Bastard”) has left his mark. Madame decided to humble me with the threat of Dean. She has dispatched another one of her Enforcers to remind me of her far reaching capabilities, especially since my kind have abused and neglected her in so many ways. She is now bent on vengeance.

Yet, as I track each breath of movement from this probable usurper…I know that I am not alone. Dean and his whereabouts dominate the topic of all conversation, as we all get ourselves into a state of preparedness. Supermarkets are packed; cars are moved to higher ground; information is being disseminated like wildfire; plywood and shutters are being off loaded and inspected at individual residences…and it all gives me a strange sense of detached pride for my island and its peoples. Ivan was a hard lesson learned but, we learned our lesson. No one wants to be caught off guard again.”

And Pwoje Espwa, blogging from Haiti, says:

“If Hurricane Dean keeps coming as predicted we will be in a heck of a lot of trouble. We are doing what we can to get ready. Saturday and Sunday look to be miserable days. Keep us in your prayers, please.”

Belize-y-Livin' has a bit more time to prepare, but it does not do much to allay her fears:

“Dean is supposed to pick up force and hit here as a category 4 hurricane on Tuesday morning, which means there is plenty of time to change path, as it often does. Yet I am still nervous. Some people say this is going to be the worst hurricane documented in Belize while others claim it will change course. I'm not sure what to think.”

West Indies Cricket Blog wants Dean to go home, while both Barbados Free Press and Barbados Underground have turned down requests from international media to be interviewed about how their fellow islanders have been preparing for Dean's arrival:

“Message For CNN’s Mark Garrison…

Mark, we’d love to give you a live on the air blogger’s broadcast from Barbados Free Press as you asked, but unfortunately that would be the end of my real job, my wife’s job and the bank would probably call the mortgage too. You see, Barbados Free Press is a blog dedicated to exposing corruption in our government and we have to remain anonymous or our families will be made to pay.”

Living in Barbados acknowledges the reasons for the two blogs declining CNN's request, saying:

“It will be interesting to see how the North America news develops its view of a ‘crisis' on the island…Hurricane seasons comes around every year, but each time it's a different roller coaster ride.”

6 comments · »»

Malagasy bloggers rally for Madagascar's children

Lova Rakotomalala · 11:50

lingua → zht · zhs

The Malagasy blogosphere was quite active on humanitarian efforts these past two weeks.

It all started when Jogany at the purplecorner.com invited the Malagasy blogosphere to get involved in a virtual fund raiser: a blog-a-thon where participants would write 1 post every 30 min, 24h non-stop to raise fund for orphans in the villages of Vontovorona, Mangarano and Anstirabe.

The theme? Fairy tales. Storytelling is an important aspect of Malagasy culture, especially tales from our ancestors. Many of those traditional Malagasy stories are at risk of being forgotten, so such efforts are important for keeping them in the general public’s mind.

Another humanitarian effort for helping the children in Madagascar will take place in Paris on September 15th. Pokanel is organizing a cultural rally where participants will be divided in groups named after Malagasy ethnic groups. Each group will compete in a cross between trivial pursuit and a treasure hunt in the middle of the beautiful monuments of Paris.

Pokanel has gained some notoriety thanks to creative writing, a deadpan humor and “outside-the-box” ideas such as posting a Paris Hilton photo as a banner for their “help the Malagasy Children” project.

The decision to arbitrarily assign groups a tribal name is also an interesting way of diffusing from the start any ethnic issues. Ethnic tensions are a recurrent problem in the Malagasy blogopshere.

On a related note, a generous initative outside of Madagascar caught the attention of Malagasy blogger Harinjaka.

After hearing about the windmill engineered by Malawian teenager William Kamkwamba, a group of TED members have volunteered to support William and his family in a constructive manner. Harinjaka wrote:

“William, if you read this entry, just know that you are such an inspiration for many of us in here in Madagascar!”

1 comment · »»

South Asia: Slaving in the Middle East

Rezwan · 10:37

lingua → jp · bn · zht · zhs · es

South Asian migrant workers (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal) have a notable contribution in the developments of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region. But the abuse and exploitation of these workers is shocking and serious issue. Migrant workers fuel the engine of the economy but they are exploited, abused, discriminated against, and rarely receive government protection.

There are numerous stories of human rights abuses. Just to give some examples:

Thousands of labors sell their belongings to go to Gulf countries for their dream job. Drishtipat reports how they are being exploited and come back with a broken heart.

Hundreds of Nepali workers in Qatar have been driven from the country for demanding better pay from their employers. United We Blog posts a shocking firsthand experience of a young Nepali student returning from America. He describes the inhuman treatment he received in Bahrain International airport because he protested the mistreatment of the deported Nepalis by the Gulf Airlines staffers.

In Kuwait, almost 60% of its 3 million population are migrant workers. Expositions of Arabia Blog chats with an Indian worker in Kuwait who claims he is underpaid.

In United Arab Emirates guest workers make up 85% of its population (reports IHT). Here people from the subcontinent earns about $1 an hour working in scorching 43 degrees heat. Their contracts are critiqued as servitude. While there are hotel rooms that rent for $1000 a night for the prosperous people, these migrant workers rise before dawn in guarded camps like an army base, work for six days a week at guarded sites. There are thousands of heat exhaustion cases of workers each month in one medical facility alone. The Government is under pressure to improve the working conditions and crack downs on Employers who does not pay them.

Human rights watch also has a report on abuse of workers in UAE titled “Building Towers, Cheating Workers“.

Non-Saudis make up 35 percent of Saudi Arabia's labor force. An estimated 2 million workers are from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Human rights Watch publishes a 135 page report “Bad Dreams: Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia“, which depicts how many of the immigrant workers are abused and treated as slaves.

Some of the frightening and troubling findings of the reports are:

* Sexual abuse and rape of women migrant workers, both in the workplace and in Saudi prisons by Saudi male employers.
* Migrant workers from Bangladesh, India and Phillipines were forced to work ten to eighteen hours a day, and sometimes throughout the night without overtime pay.
* The pay is very meager (e.g. $133 for a month and 16 hours of work daily)
* Hundreds of low-paid Asian women who cleaned hospitals in Jeddah worked twelve-hour days, without food or a break, and were confined to locked dormitories during their time off.
* Migrant workers experienced shocking treatment in Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system.

Abdol Moghset Bani Kamal writes in Countercurrents that Migrant Workers are the slaves of the Twenty-First Century. He highlights on the plight of Pakistani workers in the Middle East region especially Saudi Arabia.

Unheard Voices: Drishtipat Blog asks:

What we, the average citizens, can do about this? The issue of the migrant workers has been unaddressed for a long time. Documentaries have been made, HRW reports have been published but nothing much has changed.

The Human rights blog suggests ways to protect Bangladeshi migrant workers.

What are the locals of the Gulf region are thinking about this issue? Bahraini Blogger Esra'a raises some questions in a post in Mid East Youth:

What baffles me the most is that we simply don’t really understand that if it wasn’t for these migrant workers, we will be … well, nothing, right? Who else do we expect to do our work for us? Who else is constructing? Who else is cleaning our toilets? Who else do we take our anger on when we’re feeling miserable? Who do we laugh at and ridicule? They are extremely hard working, and if anything we should only feel thankful towards them. Instead we abuse them, discriminate against them, imprison them, and to top it all off we make infamous jokes where the words “Sri Lankan” and “Indian” are synonymous with “stupid” and “valueless.”

8 comments · »»

Bangla blogs: It's all about Taslima

Aparna Ray · 09:08

lingua → bn · hi

On August 9th, the firebrand Bangladeshi author-in-exile Taslima Nasrin was attacked by a group of MIM (Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen) activists during a function held at the Press Club in Hyderabad, India. The MIM claimed that the author had made offensive statements against Islam during the book release function, thus inciting the attack. The group have also lodged a police complaint based on which a case has been lodged against Taslima under Section 153-A (inciting enmity between different groups) of the Indian Penal Code.

Bangla author Taslima Nasrin being protected from hecklers at the Press Club in Hyderabad. Photograph:Noah Seelam/ AFP

Bangla author Taslima Nasrin being protected from hecklers at the Press Club in Hyderabad. Photograph:Noah Seelam/ AFP

On the other hand, the attack has been strongly denounced by the media and public and the government has been criticised for its soft approach towards the attackers. The incident is quickly taking on a political dimension. With local elections round the corner, experts say that the MIM is likely to use it as a tool to mobilise Muslim votes.

The attack has created ripples in the Bangla blog world as well. The Hidden God strongly denounces the attack on the author. He says:

“তসলিমা লেখালেখির মাধ্যমে নিজের মত প্রকাশ করেছেন তাই কেউ যদি তার প্রতিবাদ করতে চায় তবে তাও লেখালেখির মাধ্যমেই করা উচিত । এভাবে অসামাজিক কাজকর্ম করে নয় “

Taslima has expressed her views in writing so anyone wanting to protest against her views should also do so through writing and not through anti-social acts such as this attack on her.

Kazi Alim Zamal too has strong words for the attackers. Also, he feels that the Indian government should grant Taslima her request for citizenship.

Other bloggers like Arif feel that the ban on Taslima should be lifted in Bangladesh and she should be allowed to return to her country of birth. In the comments section of the same post, various bloggers like Bhaskar, Balai etc., have agreed with Arif's point of view and also added that adequate security should be provided to Taslima, who has a fatwa on her life issued by Islamic fundamentalists.

6 comments · »»

Peru: Online Earthquake Coverage

Juan Arellano · 01:16

lingua → jp · pt · zht · zhs · es

Photo of cracked highway taken by Alberto Arévalo and used under Creative Commons license.

The death toll for the earthquake in Peru has now ascended to 337 in Ica. The number of wounded stands at 827. This number had not yet been published in the Lima newspaper, El Comercio or RPP, at the time of this article. However, with the assistance of the blog World Wide Help, the number has been confirmed. They received internal reports from Indeci and UNDAC/OCHA (a United Nations agency). An earlier report from WWH said, “Peru Quake: Update - 37 dead, 300 injured“.

The Los Angeles Times reports an approximate count: 330 dead as 7.9 quake rocks Peru.

A magnitude 7.9 earthquake shook southern Peru on Wednesday, killing at least 330 people and injuring more than 1,000 others in the cities of Ica and Pisco and sparking tsunami warnings for the Pacific coast of South America and the distant Hawaiian Islands

Wikipedia already has an article about the event: 2007 Peru Earthquake, as well as WikiNews, which has information about the quake: Several earthquakes strike Peru; Tsunami warnings issued.

The site Now Public has also been reporting the news: Massive 7.9 Earthquake : Lima, Peru, in which some of the comments are some translations from the blog of the newspaper El Comercio from eyewitness accounts . The newspaper La República published an online special that complied news about the earthquake.

Blogs have also played an important part in informing about details and diverse experiences about the event.

Some recount their experiences precisely when the earthquake struck. Estalla Mi Alma [ES] posts some of the video that she took of the traffic chaos caused by the earthquake. Niña Goya [ES] was quite shaken:

Estaba con un amigo tomando frapuccino en Starbucks, de pronto empezo a temblar todo, pense que el local se caía, todos salieron corriendo, olvide mi cartera, deje mi postre a la mitad, los postes se tambaleaban, se fue la luz y regreso al toque, todo se mecía, todo se volvió un caos (es que todos chaparon sus cañas, no saben q es mejor no manejar cuando pasa algo asi!!!!!!!!!), empezo a temblarme las rodillas y las manos, por un momento quise llorar (es que solo pensaba en mis bebes)….que tal susto el que pasó medio Peru esta noche.

I was with a friend drinking a frapuccino in Starbucks, when all of a sudden everything began to shake. I thought the store would fall on top of us, and everyone left running. I forgot my purse, left my dessert halfway eaten, the posts trembled, and the lights went out. They came back on shortly after, everything was in chaos (everyone was scared and they don't know that it is best not to drive when something like this happens!!!). My knees and hands began to shake, and I almost wanted to cry (when I thought about my babies)…what a scare that half of Peru went through that night.

MiGeo [ES] is a blog written by Miguel A. Vera León, a geology student in Lima. He warns his readers to take internet warnings with a grain of salt.

Recomiendo tener cuidado con avisos a través de correo electrónico o servicios de mensajería afirmando que ocurrirán réplicas iguales al sismo. Esto es falso. Si bien es cierto que pueden ocurrir réplicas, es muy raro que tengan la misma magnitud que el sismo original. Cabe señalar además que no es posible predecir un sismo, por lo que quien quiera que esté inventando estas supuestas noticias sólo está tratando de alarmar sin sentido alguno.

I recommend that you are careful with warnings that arrive in email or SMS saying that aftershocks with the same magnitude of the earthquake will happen. This is false. It is true that aftershocks can take place, but it s rare that they are of the same magnitude of the original earthquake. It is also important to note that it is not possible to predice an earthquake, and the people who are making this news up is only trying to alarm the people needlessly.

In addition, El Blog de Morsa [ES] provides information on ways to help those most affected in the city of Ica by providing websites, telephone numbers and email addresses for those interested. Pospost [ES] writes about the destruction in the city of Pisco, and includes videos from television coverage. In addition, X-Blog [ES] writes about the reaction of President Alan Garcia and his comment regarding the crash of the telephone system.

Images have also found its way onto Flickr in the account of Alberto Arevalo and Christian Vinces. Videos from television coverage can be found at Daily Motion and YouTube. However, a user-taken video by jesus862 shows worried individuals running out from stores and affirming that it was in fact, an earthquake.

For more links to posts about the Peruvian earthquake, visit Globalizado and the article, “Earthquake in Peru: 337 Dead and 827 Injured.”

Eduardo Avila also contributed to this article.

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