Editorial: A week dominated by tragedy

It has been 20 years since the Cave Creek disaster claimed 14 young lives. Pictured are workers fixing the fallen viewing platform.

It was one of those moments that sticks with you.

I know exactly where I was on April 28, 1995.

And I remember my reaction when I heard the shocking and heartbreaking news report about that morning's tragedy.

But let's just jump back quickly to the present.

The past week has been riddled with news of tragedies historic, historical and all-too-present.

On Thursday, the coroner's report into the 2012 hot air balloon tragedy at Carterton was released, making 19 recommendations. One of the 11 dead was former Rotorua Lakes High student Alexis Still.

On Friday, Whakatane teenager Raiden Howden was killed when he was struck by a vehicle. Early the next morning, Rotorua 21-year-old Elisha Areli was found dead in his car which had struck a tree. Then, on Saturday night, another teenager died in the Eastern Bay in a single vehicle crash near Whakatane.

On Saturday, Anzac Day, on the centenary of the Gallipoli landings we remembered the thousands who fought and died.

And since Saturday we have read, seen and heard of the devastation in Nepal after an earthquake killed thousands and the death toll has continued to rise.

There are, of course, countless smaller, personal tragedies occurring all the time.

Friends and families of two Australian men scheduled to be executed in Indonesia overnight will be going through their own hell right now.

But the event of April 28, 1995, was no small, personal tragedy.

Fourteen people died when a viewing platform on a cliff collapsed in Paparoa National Park on the West Coast. The Cave Creek disaster shook a nation that hadn't yet been hit with the Christchurch earthquakes or Pike River mine disaster. It was the biggest single loss of life since Erebus and the Wahine before that.

I shed a tear for 14 people I didn't know when I heard the news that Friday while studying in my student flat.

The best thing that can come out of any of these tragedies is that lessons are learned and repeats are avoided.

Because to needlessly repeat the disasters of the past, for lack of action, diligence, wherewithal or motivation, would give new meaning to the word tragedy.