CHINA QUAKE

“Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe.” - Germaine Greer

The earthquake in China is the latest news of a disaster to hit our newspapers and TV screens. More human lives lost, more pictures of destruction and devastation, faces paralysed by grief and fear. The death toll stands at over 12,000 and there are thousands more reported missing. No doubt, the death toll will rise over the next few days.

The images of bodies covered with sheets lining streets as rescue workers dig through schools and homes turned into rubble by China's worst earthquake in three decades makes for a terrible scene. The survivors dig in the ruins in a desperate attempt to rescue victims trapped under concrete slabs. There are varying reports of the magnitude of the quake, some as high as 7.9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake struck Monday afternoon and the epicenter was in Wenchuan county. Tuesday has seen a massive rescue and relief operation begun. The number of casualties is still unknown as the quake tore into urban areas and mountain villages. The quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976.

All this in the wake of the Burma cyclone that has claimed thousands upon thousands of lives, while in USA tornadoes and hurricanes cause damage and claim lives as well. The earth is sick and we humans continue heedless of its cries of pain and the shudders of its disease-ridden frame. We have become immune to these news items and we plod on with our lives steeped in routine and mindless concerns over non-issues. What will it take to galvanise people into action?