The images of the tsunami are overwhelming, the grief incalculable as the death toll rises to 80,000 and beyond.

As many as a third of the victims have been children, unable to withstand the force of the monstrous waves that struck without warning.

Amid this carnage, some of the leading media outlets in the United States have focused undue attention on the fact that some Westerners have died along with tens of thousands of Asians.

“Many Tourists Are Killed,” read the subhed on the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times. (Its main headline drew attention to the high percentage of children who died.)

“Apart from the huge death toll,” Seth Mydans reported for the Times (using a version of the aside-from-that-Mrs.-Lincoln construction), “it was the presence of large numbers of foreign tourists that distinguished this disaster from the many floods and typhoons that take a heavy toll in the region every year.”

He might as well have just said: Rich white folks are dying, too, as he listed all the European countries that had lost people.

To his credit, he was quick to add that “those numbers are tiny, though, compared with the devastation suffered by the mostly poor fishermen, farmers and laborers who populate the low-lying coasts of these South Asian and Southeast Asian nations.”

On Wednesday, the Times played the same harp, with a front-page story by Craig Smith entitled “A Tragedy in Asia Affects All Corners of a Closer World.” While this peculiar ode to globalization acknowledged the “calamitous scale” in Asia, it dwelled on the thousands of tourists, mostly from Europe, that were still unaccounted for. “Only 100 Europeans have been confirmed dead so far,” it said, with about 3,000 missing.

But that pales, if I can use the word, in comparison to the Asians who have perished or are missing.

The Times wasn’t alone.

CNN devoted space on its homepage two days in a row to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model who managed to survive.

Now I know that people like human interest stories. But to focus on those with white skin suggests that some lives are more valuable than others.

Thai Villagers Say Wealthy Tourists Got Higher Priority

Ban Nam Khem, a poor fishing village hemmed in by expensive tourist resorts on the Thai coast, wasn't missed by the devastating tsunami waves, but its people complained that aid efforts are bypassing them.

Sorawat Kraipao, 42, manager of a fish processing company, was bitter as he pulled what was left of his furniture from his wrecked home. He said wealthy foreign tourists had gotten much more attention - and help - than the village's Thai and Burmese fishermen.

"Help? It was slow in coming," he said. "As for the tourism, the authorities gave that higher priority. Here it was quiet. The problem was everywhere, but they focused on the tourist areas. The people here, our lives don't have the same meaning as theirs."

On the Internet, desperate searches for info on loved ones

All convey the aching desperation of people from Italy to the USA seeking news about family or friends caught in the disaster.

Web sites have become the lost and founds for a disaster that has left thousands of people unaccounted for, including 2,000 to 3,000 Americans and thousands more Europeans and other foreign visitors.

On a BBC News site, Cheryl Boehm of Houston searched for her father, Jesse Adams. "He is an American citizen and is retired living on South Pattaya Beach. Please contact me with any information as I have no way to find or communicate with him right now! Please help me find my Dad!!"

On the same site, Jaclyn Higgs of California pleaded for help in finding her family. "I am desperately trying to contact my four-year-old son Aidan Ashburn-Higgs and his father Jeffrey Ashburn who both flew into Thailand on Sunday. I have not heard from them since they left the airport in San Francisco. If you see this, please let me know you are safe."

Counting the dead is not an exact science