LOST FOR WORDS

I didn’t pen a blog yesterday. From early afternoon to late evening, like the rest of Spain, I had my eye on the TV and ear to the radio to catch the latest update on the unfolding tragedy at Madrid’s Barajas airport.

It started out as an “accident” with some 20 people injured and developed over the hours in to a full scale tragedy with over 150 dead. The worst air disaster in Spain in over two decades.

Spanair was already in crisis ahead of the crash having slashed costs, staff and routes to stay airborne. What effect this catastrophe will have on its future remains to be seen.

For me the most disturbing part of yesterday was late in the evening when young TV reporters with cameramen attached by an umbilical cord chased grieving friends and relatives through Las Palmas airport in search of a quote. If in my grief I had been confronted in such a manner then a hard punch to the reporter’s face may have communicated some of the pain and anguish I was feeling.

Have we become so immune to sorrow and suffering that we need a tearful and hysterical quote to camera to tell us how people are feeling in such awful circumstances?

It sadly appears so. I could weep!