How a sense of scale helps us to deliver the story

You might wonder why we race to get the latest updates on the numbers from disaster zones, but that sense of scale is important

As families across the UK were waking up on Sunday morning, the horrific news began to trickle in from Sri Lanka – and for the rest of the Easter weekend, the death toll continued to rise.

Notifications alerted us that the death toll had risen to 138, now to 207, then 290 – with hundreds more injured. Families have been changed forever, marked by this senseless morning of violence, much of it targeting Christian worshippers.

As with the recent attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, Sunday’s events were gratuitous in their brutality – singling out religious devotees at perhaps their most vulnerable, in prayer and contemplation, seeking peace and tranquillity in holy spaces intended to offer solitude and safety.