Editorial: Now let's see man's power at full effect

Opinion

Every so often, when scientific man believes he is master of all he surveys, nature delivers a reminder of her power. The devastation wrought around the coast of the Indian Ocean these past few days has been one of the most powerful reminders of all time. It was a release of tectonic tension - nothing more than a good sneeze in geological terms - but the earthquake on the sea floor radiated waves that raced across the ocean and washed high and mighty onto every exposed coast. The people caught on those coasts would have been like ants in a child's water play. The lucky ones have been swept to safety, the drowned bodies of the unlucky are still being discovered. The death toll on the populous coasts of Sumatra, Thailand, Sri Lanka and southern India could exceed today's worst estimates.

Such is our modern hubris that even an event of this magnitude was not immune to the claim of human cause. Conjecture was heard, blessedly briefly, that this might be another manifestation of the damage industrialisation has done to the global climate. More modestly, an accusation is gathering force that the stricken countries should at least have had some warning. Some earthquake-prone countries, notably Japan, have sophisticated tsunami warning systems. Why not all?

Everyone is wise in hindsight. It would be easy to scoff at excuses of Asian officials who say that until last Sunday the risk of a tsunami hitting their coasts seemed as remote as the drowning of Manhattan in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. But, of course, it was. Disasters are fortunately rare and they come in unpredictable forms. It would have been possible to imagine this tsunami but it would be equally possible to imagine myriad other natural disasters. Countries can be expected to prepare for those most likely. This one arose from an earth movement of a magnitude that seems unlikely to recur in the same region for centuries.
In any case, an effective tsunami warning system plainly requires more than meters in the ocean. The quake in the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day was big enough to register round the globe. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii detected it and sent a tsunami warning to 26 countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, within 15 minutes. But the warning was not relayed to the people in the fishing villages and tourist resorts. Had an alarm been sounded, the people at Phuket, for example, would have had 15 minutes to find refuge. In Sri Lanka they would have had two hours.

But again, precautions seem easy in hindsight. In practice, any warning system is prone to cry wolf. Not many undersea earthquakes produce a tsunami of dangerous proportions. If a public warning was issued every time a sizeable tremor was detected, it would soon breed complacency. Sadly, the only reliable warning of this sort of disaster is the moment the water recedes from the beach, leaving fish flapping on the sand and people with too little time to run for high ground.

The aftermath looks from this distance as terrible as that of any hurricane or earthquake and the destruction is more widespread than those wreak. A tsunami can carry the force of an earthquake or a volcanic eruption many hundreds of kilometres further in all directions, multiplying the damage the same event might have done had it occurred on dry land. The scale of the international relief effort will need to be correspondingly greater.

The zone of this disaster stretches to at least 10 countries, many of them poor. They will need immediate help to restore supplies of fresh water, medical services and sanitation. Beyond that, millions will have to rebuild their homes and their livelihoods. The organisation and co-ordination of relief on this scale will test the capabilities of the United Nations and other international agencies. Already they are saying some of the affected countries may have to be left to help themselves. That is not good enough. This has been a calamity that crosses borders and deserves a global response. The best way to meet this awesome reminder of nature's power would be an equally awesome demonstration of the human capacity for collective resilience.