Recent Natural Disaster

The earthquake in Haiti, the floods in Pakistan and China, and the forest fires in Russia contributed to making 2010 an exceptional year for natural disasters. More than 300,000 people lost their lives and damages of up to $13 billion dollars were incurred. In fact, in the year 2010, the world witnessed a total of 950 natural disasters, making it the second worst year in history, after 1980.

To many of us that are fortunate enough not to be caught in a natural disaster, we will never be able to comprehend how devastated people were when they survived one. More often than not, we will only be able to calculate the number of lives that were cruelly taken away and how much economic damages have been inflicted by the disaster. We will never be able to relate with those who might have lost their loved ones in a natural disaster or survived one, only to know that everything that was once his was gone.

One good example is the earthquake in Haiti. An estimated 230,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. These numbers may be just numbers to us. But to the Haitians, these numbers means that they have to see dead bodies lying all around, witness buildings collapsed and having to endure the pain and agony, alone.

Another example is China. China is facing its worst flooding in more than a decade. Weeks of heavy rain have swollen rivers and caused damage, landslides and bridge to collapse across a swathe of the country. According to state media, 928 people have died because of the seasonal bad weather and another 477 are missing.

The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide indications of advancing climate change. Have we done our best to alleviate the pain and sufferings of people who survived the cruelty of fate?

We have a part to play. Helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases could reduce the ferocity of these natural disasters. Instead of doing nothing or trying to sympathize with those who unfortunately got caught in a natural disaster, the most practical way is to help them by doing everything that we can to reduce the severity of the natural disaster and help them by providing them with basic necessities.