Monday, October 24, 2005

2005: Year of Natural Disasters

The year 2005 will be remembered as the "Year of Natural Disasters".

The year started with the Boxing day tsunami which affected the SE regions. The worst affected areas were Sri Lanka, Thailand and Bandar Aceh.
I can still remember seeing the aerial views of Bandar Aceh before and after the disaster.
It was heartbreaking to see how these people lost everything and had to start and build their lives again.


Then, we had Hurricane Katrina which affected New Orleans and the Gulf coast.
It is ironic that during the G8 summit ( before Hurricane Katrina happened) President Bush did not put global warming as its No 1 priority. We can only hope that recent events may change his way of thinking ( well...we can only hope right??!
At the present time, Hurricane Wilma is sweeping across Florida. ( have u guys ever wondered why all these hurricanes are named after woman's names??? )
Could all this be a result of global warming??

We also had the South Asian Earthquake..which had devastating effects on Kashmiri and nearby rural, mountainous regions. Relief aid is still trying to reach these people. Winter is approaching and because of difficulties in distributing aid some of these people may die of cold and hunger.

There have been many discussions on global warming and what we can do about it. World leaders and normal people like you and me should try to understand why these disasters are occuring more often than ever. I think only through understanding the causes of these disasters will we able to tackle and find ways to prevent it. And possibly save lives.

Let us all try to do our bit to save our planet in any small way we can.

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