I keep thinking about the Tsunami of 2004.
More than two hundred thousand people, most of them women and children, were killed in a matter of moments on December 26 that year, when a 9.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia triggered a massive killer wave.
It was all over the news for perhaps a month. And then it slipped into the past, for most of the world. In Indonesia the effects of the tragedy and the recovery efforts are still going on.
Now in Haiti, where at least one hundred thousand people have been killed by a powerful 7.0 earthquake, the vivid images of death and destruction are overwhelming. The urge to offer help is universal. Unlike the tsunami victims, most of whom were swept away, the dead lie in the streets of Haiti, where lack of infrastructure and resources is slowing even the most heroic efforts to bring relief and aid. The images of the dead and suffering survivors in Haiti are perhaps more dramatic than the photos of empty beaches of Indonesia. But once the rubble is cleared and the bodies are buried, I suspect even this horrific event will slip down in the news cycle.
It’s too much to take. Everyone does what they can. But if that’s not enough, what then?
Events on such a huge scale can lead to a feeling of powerlessness. And unfortunately the urge to blame rides shotgun in the rescue effort. But there’s no sense in blaming the victims, or religion, or the lack of it, for natural disasters.
All we can do is what the people in Indonesia, and New Orleans, and everywhere tragedy redefines the human landscape, must do. Pick up the pieces, help each other as best we can, and go on.
It doesn’t sound very heroic. But in real life, as in fiction, sometimes the only way to survive is to turn the page.