Cicero's Songs

I have blogged on the subject of Earthquakes a few times over the years, the last time was during the General election last year. The fact is that several major cities: San Francisco, Istanbul and of course Tokyo, stand in areas of occasionally severe seismic activity. In fact the earthquake that hit Japan was not the one that they expected: along the Kanto fault beneath the City of Tokyo itself, but rather along the plate boundary, somewhat out to sea from the Japanese archipelago. Nevertheless the 'quake when it hit was huge: probably the largest in recorded Japanese history, a possible 9.0 on the Richter scale. As I feared in May, the devastation- largely caused by the tsunami that followed the earthquake itself- has indeed dominated the news agenda. In fact the wall-to-wall coverage of dramatic footage: the quake, the tsunami, the aftermath, and now the explosions at the nuclear stations that have been wrecked by the catastrophe has formed a weird kind of disaster porn. It is ...

Just over a year ago a gigantic earthquake hit the fault between the Indian and Burma tectonic plates. At 9.3 on the Richter scale it was the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. A few minutes after the quake had stilled, the first tsunami came ashore on Sumatra, before spreading out across the Indian Ocean. Along a huge section of coast the surge of water flooded ashore- often for many miles. The US Geological Survey initially recorded the casualty toll as 283,100 killed, 14,100 missing, and 1,126,900 people displaced- one of the most destructive natural disasters ever recorded. The Boxing Day Earthquake reminds us that the unexpected can come from many different quarters. Humans seem remarkably good at ignoring long term danger- until, that is disaster strikes. There are several events that may at the time be considered "black swan events"- that is that they are inherently unpredictable- arguably 9/11 was one such event. However this is not so with many...