The Hindu Business Line : In the aftermath of a disaster

IT IS just about a fortnight since the under-water earthquake rocked the sea off the coast of Sumatra, leaving mankind to count the terrible loss of life left in the wake of the huge killer waves that hit the shoreline of the landmass surrounding the affected area.

The extent of the area affected can well be imagined from the fact that the eastern coastline of the faraway African continent too felt the reverberations of the underwater cataclysm through the medium of the ocean, the disturbance travelling thousands of miles in every direction.

Relief work is now in full swing, and the dead are still being counted. There is every possibility that the final count of those who perished in the destruction wrought by the tsunamis will be more than 200,000, a scale of disaster which only the most sensitive and trained human mind can grasp with any approximation to reality.

When we read about a train accident which has claimed, say, 500 lives, we feel in our bones the "gigantic" scale of the event, and can perhaps comprehend the scale of the tragedy that has engulfed the lives of hundreds of families.

But the figure of 200,000 deaths in the matter of a few hours at the most (perhaps 100,000 instantly) is something beyond the scope of a normal human mind to grasp with any degree of real understanding and feeling, which actually reduces the associated mental exercise to just a statistical one.

What all this means is that mankind is less than zero when it comes to grappling with the raw forces of nature, forces which have their origins deep down in the core of the earth and are, therefore, related to the origins of our solar system.

While mankind can today calculate the path of celestial bodies trillions of miles away in space and arrange a rendezvous between them and his spaceships after five, six or seven years, he is totally clueless about how to prevent and control the tectonic movements of the earth's crust taking place below his very feet as silently and inexorably as his very own breath.

It can safely be said that man will never be able to do this for the simple reason that he will never be able to generate power and energy to the extent required to control such sub-terrestrial movements.

And yet he is already considering plans to colonise the moon tomorrow — and perhaps some other celestial body the day after! In other words, his brain can explore the workings of nature and even achieve physical feats which use the forces of nature without disturbing its working.

But, try as he will, he cannot control and influence the way nature works. If he does try to do so, as is the case (unwittingly) with the gradual warming up of the earth because of economic development, etc., what he in fact is doing is hastening the end of human civilisation.

If there is a God above — who is looking after the universe and not merely mankind — can we then say that all this is preordained, that no matter what human beings do today, the end of human civilisation is as certain in the next few thousand years as is the cycle of life for you, dear reader, and the writer of this piece.

As far as Mother Nature is concerned, we can only be discovers and users of her various attributes. But we cannot force her to behave in any other way than been preordained by the Creator, whoever or whatever He is.

For our purpose here, the truth emanating from all this is that tsunamis, and other natural cataclysms, have occurred in the past, are occurring today, and will continue to devastate human civilisation in the future.

We cannot avoid them; only minimize their impact to the best of our ability.

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

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