Beyond the compassion that I feel for the victims of the December 26 tsunami, I have also been fascinated by the geographical event. Scientists have been waiting for this for years. Can you imagine that the movement of those plates actually happened while we were witnesses to it? In the geological timespan, that's pretty historical! Here are some links to some (francophone) websites with great explanations of geological phenomenons and interesting maps.
- Notre planète, un site sur la géographie et ses divers domaines.
- La Terre, un autre site d'explications
- Une carte en temps réel des séismes sur la planète/ a real-time map of earthquakes on the planet.
Maybe the only way I can deal with this is to try and understand why Nature had to unleash its force there and then.
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Dans une récente émission télévisuelle d'analyse télévisuelle appelée Arrêt sur images, ils signalaient que le nombre de mort dû à la catastrophe, environs 150 000, était égal au nombre de mort par mois dû au sida en Afrique.
J'ai été très impressioné par les forces de la nature, mais la nature de l'homme n'arrête pas de me surprendre.
Ludovic
I am not sure if I understand how this particular earthquake is special, save the human loss. There have been many an earthquake that happened within our lifespan, a few of them being quite strong (like the one in Armenia in the 1980's or more recently in Iran). This particular one just happened to be underwater, which caused it to affect such a large geographical region.
On that note: however huge the devastation may be from the human perspective, it is miniscule from the geological standpoint. As a mental exercise, imagine what the world would be like if everyone suddenly stopped thinking of Mother Nature in human-centric terms. Astrology, religion and other plebeian aspirations would instantly loose their significance. The world would become a much more straightforward, although not necessarily 'better' place.
vt
As a mental exercise, it is enlightening. Yes, in geological terms it's a glitch. In the immensity of the universe, we're only a bleep. It's important to realise that we are not the reason for the existence of the universe. But then we have to negotiate the fine line between relativism and total nihilism.
I'm not shocked by the number of dead, but struck by the fact that in other cases, there are human mistakes, and human solutions. But in this case, the simple breathing of the planet's core caused those deaths and being a believer, I need to understand. And to me, this is historical in the scope of countries (geographically and through tourists) that were touched, because this (as September 11th) illustrated a reality we forget all the time: there IS no "other end of the world" now.
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