Nature's Violence
Yet another tragedy, in a country already beset with endemic poverty and ongoing assaults from nature in her unfortunately-situated geography. Traumatized survivors tormented by the vision of seeing their children washed away in a nauseous sweep of ocean in heightened turmoil. They are those many portions of humanity who reside in the recesses of geographic danger, in coastal areas whose very existence against the forces of nature are transient and unpredictable.Another cyclone descended on Bangladesh. Yet another disaster of unimaginable proportions. A million families left homeless, without shelter or food. Three thousand people dead at last count, but still counting. People occupying any sliver of land, however improbable, like the shifting silt islands providing temporary, unstable living conditions, hundreds of them, where people settle in the middle of the country's rivers.
One despairing man described how he had rushed to rescue two of his young cousins, 13 and 5, by tying them to a palm tree as the cyclone rushed in. These two children were among a mere handful of survivors from over 70 children living on that island. Another man lost his wife, two sons and two cousins: "The body of one of my sons was found hanging from a tree. The other is still missing. Probably, he was washed away into the sea."
The survivors are trying, desperately, to survive this latest of nature's onslaughts in their vulnerable geography. They wait for help to arrive. All their homes have disappeared. Their potable well water salt-contaminated. There is no food to sustain them. An international rescue effort has been mounted. The relief efforts led this time by Saudi Arabia which has pledged $100-million in aid.
American vessels are steaming to the disaster zone, with helicopters to help in evacuation. Seven million people have been severely affected by the storm. UNICEF feels that 50% of them are in dire need of food, shelter, clean water and medicines. Aid agencies are slowly making their way through the debris to the frightened survivors.
Subsistence-level Bangladeshi fisherfolk, with no advance warning of the oncoming storm have been lost at sea. Hard to believe that a nation with so few natural resources, with a people so susceptible through their birthright and conditions of life, could possibly sustain many more of nature's violent objections to their existence.
The only bright area of thought here is in the demonstrated fact that people world wide are concerned and actively engaged through their governments and aid agencies in attempting to ameliorate, however much they can, the agony of a country where disaster has been imposed time and again by neutrally brutal nature.
Labels: Environment, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, November 20, 2007
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