Why can't we predict natural disasters?

By K Ramanathan Iyer

Thousands of precious lives have been lost in the recent massive earthquake in China. As the quake struck during the day time, several school buildings were destroyed burying hundreds of kids beneath it.

An entire generation has lost in the killer quake in several villages. If this is the case in China, which is technologically advanced than India and at par with most developed countries like US, Uk etc, what would have happened to India if the epicenter was here?

With so much of advancement sin technologically, the precision of earthquake prediction is still eluding the scientists. Natural disasters never come informed. Though we have been partly successful in predicting Volcano eruptions, cyclonic storms and weather conditions, predating natural disasters like Tsunami and killer earthquakes beyond certain points in Ritcher Scales, has not been possible by the experts leading to widespread destruction and deaths.

Yesterday, I was watching the movie Terminator III where the machines once made by humans to safeguard themselves become hostile to human and intimately responsible for the end of the universe. Are we heading to that condition slowly but steadily?

We make nuclear bombs to terrorize our neighbors but have failed to find a solution to cancer, which is killing millions across the globe for the past several years. We make medicines to increase the sexual urge, but failed to find a viable solution to the diseases like HIV/AIDS, etc. We find solution to develop brighter brains aka smarter kids, but failed to direct the minds to develop something beneficial to human beings like finding solution to food crisis being haunted by several poor countries. Why should we use the technology more for destruction than for the construction part of it? If we had developed a viable mechanism to predict the earthquake well in advance, we could have saved hundreds of thousands lives from natural disasters.

Also the disaster management system should be effective in a country. The recent destruction caused by the heavy storms in Myanmar is a classic example of lack of coordination between technology and authorities concerned. Though India has claimed that it has fore-warned the nation of the killer gale, the country witnessed total destruction with thousands losing lives and properties. Here the government was responsible for not heading to the warning, so people suffered.

I think we should form a world body for disaster protection under the aegis of UN which should work towards protecting our earth from natural as well as man-made disasters.