But, one thing that distresses me is the human indifference to the power of Mother Nature.
It is often said that people speak about the precautions after a disaster but it is not appropriate so far as I am concerned. I would be happy to go back to the period when I was happily riding my bicycle along the almost empty roads of a small town, with nothing threatening around me.
In last fifty years materialistic progress is unmatched and innumerable machines and gadgets have been added to the list of the things which add to our comfort but we have to pay for them hugely and vicariously.
What is our significance on this globe that itself is nothing more than a speck orbiting like million others, some smaller and some bigger, and some enormously bigger, around a star called sun which itself is a slightly bigger shining speck in the vastness of this unfathomable universe.
During the tsunami, yesterday, 11th of March, 2011, houses, cars, boats, ships, and airplanes, etc. seemed like the piles of garbage being washed down the drain, if I may say so. How helpless, with all their technologically proud achievements, the Japanese seemed to be? Millions of people have become homeless and hundreds have lost their lives and the rest of the world is sincerely sympathizing with the people of Japan. Of course, I do sympathize with the Japanese people and I wish to extend a helping hand in this time of distress.
But, one thing that distresses me is the human indifference to the power of Mother Nature. Rationalists will say that it is a natural process and earthquakes can’t be avoided and there is no denial at all, but, we can at least think rationally. The people who lost their lives must have done decades of hard labour to establish their households, shops, and businesses in the coastal towns of Japan but all vanished in a few minutes. Fifty nuclear power plants in a country that experiences earthquakes almost every day! I fear that a slightly more powerful earthquake would make the entire nation a nuclear bomb out of control.
After yesterday’s disaster, there is a threat and a probability of radioactive leak from one of the nuclear plants in Japan. While writing this article, I am watching the breaking news on CNN and it says that the area of ten kilometers around that nuclear plant has been ordered to be evacuated. This is definitely not the design of Mother Nature!
How beautifully Rabindranath Tagore has said, “If you have acquired a thunderbolt for yourself, you must earn the right arm of a god to be safe.” He had foreseen what we are seeing today.
I feel that in a year or two India, and the other nations around the Indian and Pacific Ocean are going to face a much bigger disaster than we saw yesterday in Japan.
It is quite praiseworthy that a few hundred people lost their lives whereas millions of houses were destroyed. Had it been India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or other smaller counties in the sub-continent, millions would have died. The earthquake measuring 7.00 on rector scale would be enough to bring the cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Karachi, and Dhaka to the ground, for they don’t have Japanese expertise with them in the context of constructing multi storey buildings.
Mega cities and metropolitan cities should be discouraged and smaller towns and cities scattered over areas away from the disaster prone zones should be thought about.
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