Tackling Disasters

One of the most overlooked and least appreciated achievements humankind has made in the past 100 years has happened in the last few decades: the advent of an early warning systems that alert the population at risk of imminent natural disaster as well as concerned emergency and rescue services before the people can run for cover or be rescued to safety. Such systems have greatly improved our ability to predict and prepare for natural disasters. The Bhola cyclone, for example, that hit Bangladesh in 1970 killed at least 300,000 people. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake-triggered tsunami killed some 230,000 in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. But it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that these days, such large-scale deaths and devastation have become a thing of the past.