Tsunami Killer

Tsunami Killer

Tsunamis used to be the stuff of Japanese folklore. But they
swept into millions of real lives in coastal south and southeast
Asia in the morning of Dec. 26.

In a country where even patently man-made events like railway
accidents are put down to the will of Lord Vishwakarma, as the
rail minister did recently, it may be too much to expect evasive
action when nature vents its fury on this scale.

Countries on the Pacific rim are, however, part of a tsunami
warning system, and it took the killer waves two to three hours
to reach the Indian coast from their point of origin. An early
warning system could conceivably have detected the arrival of
tsunami and put out warnings to people in coastal areas in time,
but in fact neither India nor Sri Lanka are members of the
international warning system.

Delhi must not be squeamish about asking for international aid
wherever necessary -- the stakes are too high and this is the
wrong place to stress national self-reliance.

After all, New Delhi itself is providing aid to Colombo and
the Maldives, so there cannot be anything intrinsically wrong
with it. We must inevitably join up with international tsunami
warning systems in order to get that little bit of advance
warning, the next time a disaster like this strikes.

-- The Statesman, Calcutta