Editorial: Ready when disaster strikes

Two words that have a lot more resonance now than they did a year ago are "earthquake" and "tsunami".
Following the September and February Christchurch quakes and their many sequels, and March's Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis, New Zealanders couldn't be blamed for responding in a whole new way to such disaster concepts.
Auckland's 2.9 quake last Friday, for example, probably spawned many more column centimetres than it would have a year ago.
We also looked at Taupo's 6.5 Tuesday quake through a different frame of reference than we might otherwise do.
It was barely felt in these parts, but, as volcanologist Brad Scott told The Daily Post, the Taupo Volcanic Zone would have soaked up the quake's energy around the epicentre, while further along the plate boundary it was felt quite strongly.
Then yesterday morning, warning came of a possible tsunami.
It's been nearly seven years since the Boxing Day tsunami killed 230,000 people. In that time reports of ocean earthquakes and potential tsunamis have registered higher in the collective consciousness, new alerts and warning systems have been put in place along the coastlines and beach residents have hatched escape plans.
Then, on March 11 this year, a new horror - as an undersea earthquake launched a watery wall of death at the Japanese coast, killing at least 15,000 with another 7000 missing.
So yesterday's tsunami warning wasn't underestimated by Kiwis, though it eventually came to nothing.
The challenge is to not let this becomes a boy-cries-wolf situation.
This week's quake and potential tsunami may seem small beer, but as emergency worker Phil Parker said in yesterday's front-page story, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be prepared for the next disaster when it comes.