The scale of this disaster exceeds modern experience. The loss of life is likely to far exceed the numbers talked of so far. The discipline, calm and response ofย  Japan’s authorities and people evokes the admiration of all the world. Over forty countries have mobilised to send support. Yet nobody knows how big this disaster actually is or what its consequences will be.

What we can now see is the effect of a major natural event on modern life, with its high population density and technological infrastructure. We need to reflect that these events occur at intervals and will go on occurring. Volcanoes, earthquakes and impacts from space are not things of the past. They are of the present, with many massive ones in the future. We are now called upon to plan better and invest more. Japan was among the best prepared of all the nations on earth, but still the effects are beyond normal understanding.

It is a peculiar irony that we engage in war to kill and destroy with a rationale which somehow articulates that we and we alone, control the powers of destruction. What we control, in the scheme of things is, for the most part, neither here nor there, when the real and natural powers are unleashed for comparison.