Catastrophe in Pacific - Watching a disaster unfold

IT was impossible to watch the tsunami sweep through Japan’s costal cities and towns yesterday without being deeply moved by the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people caught in its path.

The great, rushing tide of destruction demolished everything in its way and even if you could not see people struggle in the deluge it was obvious that we were watching the events, maybe even the very moment, that cost people their lives.

Watching people speed along a motorway trying to escape the tsunami only to see them trapped as the waters rose around them was harrowing. Those terrible scenes will not be easily forgotten. It was reality television, possibly a bit too real.

A person would have to have a very cold heart not to be moved or not to wonder how we might react if we were ever in a situation as threatening. Imagine if you were one of those caught in your car, on the school run say, as the wave surrounded you and swept you away.

The force, the destructive energy, seen so clearly was terribly sobering. The sight of a great wave of water and debris sweeping across fertile farmland, carrying away trucks, farm buildings and crops as if they were no more than a sheet of newsprint used to wrap chips reminded us in the sharpest way that we may harness nature but that we will never control it fully.

As ever in situations like these, early death toll figures are little more than estimates and they will probably rise for days, if not weeks to come. The scale of the event was incredible — several trains and their passengers are missing. It was a relief though when early tsunami warnings in other Pacific countries were downgraded.

We were able to watch as Japan struggled to cope with the tsunami because that society has such advanced and widespread communication systems. This technology revealed too how well Japan coped with the earthquake but could do little to protect itself from the surging waters.

Though yesterday’s events did not immediately appear to be on the same scale as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami — caused by a massive earthquake as well — it revives memories of that catastrophe which cost nearly 250,000 lives.

But yesterday’s minute-by-minute coverage must make us wonder how poorer, less-prepared countries or islands in the path of the tsunami might cope or if they could cope at all. Yesterday’s awful events showed how affluence is no protection from natural disasters but that good preparation minimised the impact of the earthquake across Japan.

Ireland very rarely faces natural disasters of any consequence so our perspective might be less informed that others. Japan is a wealthy, strong country and will recover from this catastrophe.

Maybe yesterday’s lesson is that we must, despite our economic situation, observe our obligations to the world’s poorest people, the people who endure these disasters alone and without a worldwide television audience and the support that can bring.