With an airplane exploding, bridges collapsing, and a nuclear plant shutting down, it has been a summer of disasters. Around the globe since May, no continent has been left untouched — whether by fire, flood, tornado, airplane crash or a collapsing mine. Disasters, clearly, do not take summer vacations. As someone said, there is no cure for nature, but neither is there for human oversight. What this summer has seen is the strongest of nature, and the weakest of human prevention.
Nature has its effects, but most horrifying disasters are stamped with human incompetence and mismanagement from beginning to end. A train derailing in the Congo, bridges collapsing in Minnesota and China, mines collapsing in Russia, China and the United States, and an airplane crashing in Brazil, not to mention one catching fire in Okinawa, are all human-made disasters from start to finish. These tragedies do not just happen; they are caused.
The annual monsoon rains in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan cannot be stopped, but are predictable. What nature wreaks, humans make worse through overbuilding, deforestation and poor construction of dams and levees. The United Nations reports that 500 million people are hit every year by extreme flooding. The storms this year, especially in North Korea and China, were unexpectedly severe, yet since last year, very little had been accomplished in preparation. When human preparation is in place, nature's havoc can at least be lessened.