I had been writing about my concern on natural disasters (e.g. here and here), specially stressed with earthquakes. My last entry was with Chile, now in early April 2010 a 7.2 earthquake shook Mexicali, Mexico , last week a 6.9 earthquake in Qinghai, China, and last night in Papua New Guinea.
Most of the dead tolls are our own fault. We support the growth of over-populated cities with lack of urbanism research and strategies. In addition we build low quality shelters, and so on.
Apparently most natural disaster are between the tropics.
But on April 14th, north European countries have been affected by the eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland. The airspace has been closed in most European airports for the danger that implies to fly through the ashes. The Europe flight grounded creates passengers inconvenience at different levels (I am lucky to do not be in such a situation) and millions of euros lost in direct and indirect industries e.g. carrier of goods, suppliers for airlines.
However and unfortunately all the media I read, except of the article from Alain de Botton, a critical reflection point is missing: nature is making the obvious explicit. We need to slow down our life styles and harmonize with the rest of life forms in the planet. We should be wise, instead to pretend to be smarter than nature. The price of our stubbornness is rising every day. Anyway, we keep making history.
What I am proud of is the positive attitude of most of the travelers. Social Networks are the best!
Screenshot of #getmehome in Twitter. Great attitude from people!