Word: rann
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...South Australia, Premier Mike Rann warned: "Everyone has a responsibility to care for the elderly and children who were the most vulnerable." He also had to explain why the state's power supply had collapsed as tens of thousands of residents turned on their air conditioning...
...standing among local Israelis. Has party leader Mark Latham alienated the influential Jewish community? Whittaker's asked to get a journalist to check it out. What about a response to the federal government's suggestion that it might have to ship radioactive waste offshore because South Australian premier Mike Rann opposes plans for a dump there? "Rann deserves a pasting," is the verdict. It's decided to put more journalists onto the possible outbreak of citrus disease in Queensland. "Could be the biggest disaster in Australian rural history," says Mitchell. But the best contender for the splash is shaping...
...devastation on both sides of the highway: the TV images and newspaper pictures didn't prepare me for this mutilated landscape. The epicenter of the earthquake lies in Gujarat's western-most region, where the cotton fields of Saurashtra give way to the dusty plains of the rann, an 18,000-sq-km expanse that once was a marshland on the shores of the Arabian Sea but is now practically desert. The sparse vegetation is more brown than green. This inhospitable terrain is home to the Kutchi people, former nomads renowned for their hardiness. They, along with Gujaratis from...
...drought since 1998.) In Anjar, I spot a group of urchins drinking bottled mineral water. Even the barren earth has turned bountiful: geologists report that the quake has created a new "river," a 100-km channel of fresh water from a subterranean lake is snaking its way across the rann. Hindu priests immediately pronounce this to be the Saraswati, the mythical holy river that disappeared into the ground thousands of years ago. Here and there, there are reports of new ponds bursting to the surface, but just as quickly disappearing...
...speaks Kutchi, the local dialect, and understands very little of my Hindi, so our conversation is hit-and-miss. We get off to a bad start. I ask her name. "Balia," she replies. Her son's name? "Balia." And her husband's? "Balia." He is apparently somewhere in the rann foraging for food while she seeks charity by the highway. The pickings are slim. In 15 days, she has scored two olive-green blankets and a small bag of rice and lentils from a passing aid convoy. Her husband has come up with some onions. I offer to drive...