I know it’s a little late, but I thought I’d put this on my blog since I am writing this article for the school newspaper (with all the sources double checked ). So, here it is:

If you are looking at a map of the world, it would be better if you throw it away because the Indian Ocean earthquake, which generated the tsunamis, has changed the map of the world.

The tsunamis destroyed thousands of lives on the morning of December 26th 2004, the Boxing Day. It killed over a hundred thousand people and turned millions homeless.

Needless to say, this disaster was one of the most noxious tragedies that man has experienced.
These destructive waves of over fifteen feet, hit the coasts of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India at a magnitude of 9.0. It even reached the coastline of Africa, which is 2800 miles away from the epicenter.

The ones that have been affected by it can only feel the real effect of this atrocious happening, but the least that we can do is spend a few moments and think about how much they have suffered.

I wasn’t aware of the term ‘tsunami’ and the outcome of it, but after this tragedy, I saw the worst of the evils of nature.

The most horrible this is that, we can’t punish anyone for this disaster, as it was a natural calamity.
As heartless as it may sound, I wasn’t bothered to know what had really happened. I saw the news on the TV and heard words and phrases like “tsunami” “killed” “devastated” “thousands of people” “rescue mission” etc.

I was aware that something terrible had happened but I didn’t even take a moment to think about those men who had lost their lifelong savings in the tragedy, those women whose houses were shattered and families ruined, those children who were calling out to their parents but never got an answer back.

After a week of the disaster, I saw some videos online, which opened my eyes. I was shocked and guilty at the same time. Shocked, thinking how anyone can go through this. No one should have to. It wasn’t fair. And guilty because I had ignored the incident for so long.

One of the videos that I saw was taken in Penang, Malaysia just before the tsunamis had hit. In the video, there are men, women and children, playing around, laughing and enjoying the sun on the beach. They see waves approaching them and expected them to merely touch their feet. They giggled as the waves drew near them. But after a few seconds, the giggles turned into silence for a few seconds and then, into cries.

They attempted to run away, but there was nowhere to go. Water had trapped them from all sides. There was no way to escape. And the ocean swallowed another group of innocent people.

There are thousands of other families that the ocean gulped in and the worst thing is that they had no idea that it was coming.

The head of the Indonesian province’s justice ministry, Teuke Darwin said, “They didn’t make the connection between earthquake and tsunamis. Our grandparents, and their grandparents before them, have never experienced such a thing. They used to think a tsunami was a Japanese television series.”

I believe that we should, as a minimum, think about the survivors who have lost everything to the disaster and do something to help them, even in the smallest ways.

You can make donations and help the survivors lead a better life, if not the best. Some of the links are:

www.redcross.org
www.store.yahoo.com/redcross-donate
www.careusa.org
www.theirc.org

The least we can do is to donate and help the fate stricken people rebuild their lives and perhaps, shape their future.

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