You get 100 dead in a Congo train crash, and 10 or so dead in a US bridge collapse.
No, I’m not making a point about the disparity of coverage – I’m sure you’ve all noticed that already, and there was video of the bridge (won’t be long I bet before there is of such incidents in Africa, and it will be interesting to see what that does to news values).
What interests me is what almost certainly lies behind the two incidents, whatever individual faults and mistakes directly caused them: crumbling infrastructure.
Surely even most American conservatives think that building and overseeing the maintenance of roads is government business, yet they are reluctant to put money into it. Apparently the governor here vetoed a big transport bill in 2005.
And you know that if you buy a whole heap of socks at the same time, they all tend to wear out at the same time. What happens if this also occurs with bridges, at a time when the US economy is shakey at best?
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