Hope and Preparation
Just over a month ago, here at the end of the world, the earth moved! Stop smirking I mean that literally, the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates shifted and the earth literally moved. The Rictor Scale measured a 7.1 earthquake with the epicentre just south of Christchurch along a fault line that nobody knew existed. According to one report the last time this particular fault line is thought to have moved was about sixteen thousand years ago and it made up for this lack of movement by condensing it all into about two minutes and shifted up to five kilometres in places instead of a slow four millimetres a year. A month later and the aftershocks just keep coming with reports of up to one hundred aftershocks in one day. But the most miraculous fact about this is that to date there has not been a single fatality.
There is a poem by William Congreve which ends “...Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.” The earths temperature is rising the polar ice caps are melting faster. The humanoids have scorned “Mother Nature” she has unleashed her fury and the earth is reeling while she screams. Tsunamis have engulfed Samoa and Fiji, earthquakes have flattened parts of China and Haiti may never recover. Aeroplanes are grounded trapping travellers in foreign countries while Iceland’s unpronounceable volcano erupts, spraying ash and rock kilometres into the air. Pakistan is caught between the wraths of two weather systems and drowns, while mudslides swallow shanty towns and squatter camps in Mexico, Brazil and China. Hurricanes batter the American coast line; tornados tear through the middle while across the ocean the end of the world shudders in fear.
What amazes me is why people are always so surprised by the destructive force of these natural disasters, there is so much information and technology out there that proves and explains all of this yet we chose to ignore the obvious. The only continent that does not have any fault lines or volcanos is Africa, but we can’t all live there can we? There just isn’t enough room! So we chose to live elsewhere knowing that tectonic plates move causing earthquakes and tsunamis. We chose to remain knowing that hurricanes, tornados, typhoons or cyclones can rip us or our homes up effortlessly. We chose to holiday at the base of a volcano knowing it could erupt at any moment. We make these educated choices yet we still say to ourselves that such things will never happen to us. We lock our doors at night, carry pepper spray in our handbags; we never leave our children alone with strangers and never wonder down alley ways alone. We take all the precautions we can to prevent injury to ourselves or loss of property by unnatural means but chose to ignore the inevitable. At some point in your life you will be or will know someone who is affected by the wrath of Mother Nature and the revenge of Mother earth.
A couple of weeks ago the Mauritian came home and told me that scientists are heading up Mt. Taranaki “just in case.” I shrugged it off as an uninteresting interesting fact and continued with preparing supper. But later that night I thought about it and I realised I was choosing to ignore a very real possibility. Mt. Taranaki is the mountain that dominates the view from my back yard. It is a view that is ever changing with the light and the weather and it is one that I never tire of admiring. It is also a dormant volcano surrounded by fault lines that are constantly moving. The scientists are heading up Mt. Taranaki to investigate any possibility of an eruption and if they can predict the when, where and how and prevent any fatalities. The last time this “sleeping Giant” erupted was over two hundred and fifty years ago and now the plates have shifted dramatically. The changes on the surface are the obvious ones, the changes underneath are the unknown. I of course cannot do anything without adding a little bit of drama and my thoughts that night were no different and I realised that we were completely unprepared for any disaster, let alone a natural one on the scale of an erupting volcano no more then fifty kilometres from my home. So the next day I took action and started putting a family survival kit together. I am proud to say that my family will neither go thirsty or hungry should a disaster occur. Neither will any minor injuries go untreated, but we may collapse with exhaustion trying to carry it. I now need to strip it down to just the bare essentials.
Among all this destruction is a lesson we haven’t learnt yet, perhaps we never will. So in the meantime I continue to live out my life hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
There is a poem by William Congreve which ends “...Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorn'd.” The earths temperature is rising the polar ice caps are melting faster. The humanoids have scorned “Mother Nature” she has unleashed her fury and the earth is reeling while she screams. Tsunamis have engulfed Samoa and Fiji, earthquakes have flattened parts of China and Haiti may never recover. Aeroplanes are grounded trapping travellers in foreign countries while Iceland’s unpronounceable volcano erupts, spraying ash and rock kilometres into the air. Pakistan is caught between the wraths of two weather systems and drowns, while mudslides swallow shanty towns and squatter camps in Mexico, Brazil and China. Hurricanes batter the American coast line; tornados tear through the middle while across the ocean the end of the world shudders in fear.
What amazes me is why people are always so surprised by the destructive force of these natural disasters, there is so much information and technology out there that proves and explains all of this yet we chose to ignore the obvious. The only continent that does not have any fault lines or volcanos is Africa, but we can’t all live there can we? There just isn’t enough room! So we chose to live elsewhere knowing that tectonic plates move causing earthquakes and tsunamis. We chose to remain knowing that hurricanes, tornados, typhoons or cyclones can rip us or our homes up effortlessly. We chose to holiday at the base of a volcano knowing it could erupt at any moment. We make these educated choices yet we still say to ourselves that such things will never happen to us. We lock our doors at night, carry pepper spray in our handbags; we never leave our children alone with strangers and never wonder down alley ways alone. We take all the precautions we can to prevent injury to ourselves or loss of property by unnatural means but chose to ignore the inevitable. At some point in your life you will be or will know someone who is affected by the wrath of Mother Nature and the revenge of Mother earth.
A couple of weeks ago the Mauritian came home and told me that scientists are heading up Mt. Taranaki “just in case.” I shrugged it off as an uninteresting interesting fact and continued with preparing supper. But later that night I thought about it and I realised I was choosing to ignore a very real possibility. Mt. Taranaki is the mountain that dominates the view from my back yard. It is a view that is ever changing with the light and the weather and it is one that I never tire of admiring. It is also a dormant volcano surrounded by fault lines that are constantly moving. The scientists are heading up Mt. Taranaki to investigate any possibility of an eruption and if they can predict the when, where and how and prevent any fatalities. The last time this “sleeping Giant” erupted was over two hundred and fifty years ago and now the plates have shifted dramatically. The changes on the surface are the obvious ones, the changes underneath are the unknown. I of course cannot do anything without adding a little bit of drama and my thoughts that night were no different and I realised that we were completely unprepared for any disaster, let alone a natural one on the scale of an erupting volcano no more then fifty kilometres from my home. So the next day I took action and started putting a family survival kit together. I am proud to say that my family will neither go thirsty or hungry should a disaster occur. Neither will any minor injuries go untreated, but we may collapse with exhaustion trying to carry it. I now need to strip it down to just the bare essentials.
Among all this destruction is a lesson we haven’t learnt yet, perhaps we never will. So in the meantime I continue to live out my life hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
WOW Mantha that is hectic a volcano on your doorstep! MY advice RUN...a good excuse to get fit hehee!
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