There’s nothing like a natural disaster to put things in perspective. When I heard about the earthquake and tsunamis I reacted in the way most people probably do: “Gosh that’s terrible,” but it’s a long way away.
But I’ve just got back from India and have a very good idea of the conditions people are living in and how dreadful something like this would be. A news report on Channel Ten here summed it up horirbly. The finacial reporter said investors were dumping aviation, tourism and insurance stock. Nice. The worst part was the glib comment at the end that went like this: “However, insurance companies are not expecting a wave [sic] of claims as most of the victims were uninsured.”
Then I remembered a friend of mine on Koh Samui from whom I still haven’t heard and my friend had an SMS from honeymooning friends of his who saw the wave but were okay. Two people from their hotel are missing still though. It makes whinging about flight delays pretty petty I have to admit.