Catastrophe and Man

For forty days and forty nights Noah’s ark drifted upon the raging waters of the Great Deluge. God’s intent was to cleanse a sin-laden earth of its corruption. In that terrible calamity, He afflicted all living beings. And yet, in the very moment when humanity seemed on the brink of extinction, God discovered Noah. Only Noah’s family was spared from annihilation. At God’s command, every species upon the earth found at least one representative within Noah’s mighty ark. Thus, amid unimaginable peril, the great multitude of living creatures was preserved.
 
At last, after forty relentless days of flood, Noah’s ark came to rest upon Mount Ararat. God let light dawn again upon the world. The clouds parted, and the rainbow appeared. God told Noah that He would never again drown the earth. However mythical this Biblical tale may appear, whenever we think of deliverance from disaster, it is Noah who comes first to mind. Though Noah had foreknowledge of the impending deluge, he yet remains the eternal symbol of man’s struggle against overwhelming catastrophes. In Noah’s story, God is portrayed as the architect of calamity; in reality, it is Nature that assumes that role.
 
Man’s relation with Nature has always been double-faced. On the one hand, Nature is the cradle and sustainer of human life. On the other hand, it remains profoundly indifferent, often merciless, to human fate. Innocent men or divine-like children — none are spared her blows. When a coal mine wall collapses, it does not pause to mourn the innocent lives or grieving families crushed beneath. Nature remains equally unmoved in the face of human joy or disaster. To the vilest murderer and the noblest benefactor, her gaze is the same: impartial, cold, immutable.
 
When the city of Bhuj in Gujarat was in a single instant transformed into a crematorium, many declared it was the result of the sins of the rich. To lessen this burden of sin, pujas and rituals were performed. But in truth, Nature places no value on human notions of sin or virtue. Just as man has no concern for the moral codes of an ant colony, so too, compared to the vast and timeless universe, mankind is too trivial for Nature to care about human morality. Thus, to declare rashly that a dreadful earthquake is the fruit of collective sin is folly. Disasters do not unfold by divine decree, nor by the weight of sin and merit, but through the uncompromising laws of physics. A scientific mind, more than a spiritual one, can mitigate the fury of disaster. Noah’s ark is a metaphor — the real story lies in scientific foresight and preparation for impending calamity.
 
It took one hundred and twenty years to build Noah’s ark, which endured merely forty days of storm. The lesson is clear: preparation for disaster cannot be the whim of one generation or a few visionaries. It requires sustained dedication across long spans of time, borne by the responsibility of an entire society.
 
Geologists discovered that before earthquakes, animals display strange restlessness. In Bhuj too, such agitation was reportedly seen days before the quake. Architects observed that many of Bhuj’s concrete buildings were old and structurally fragile. Indian geologists noted that the subcontinent shifts four inches every century, while beneath the crust, violent movements of molten lava continue. Any schoolchild can tell us the earth has not yet fully cooled — and therein lies the root of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.
 
Japan, prone to earthquakes, has learned to build homes in special ways: giant concrete buildings are balanced upon massive iron balls, which absorb tremors and preserve stability. Even concrete structures, if built scientifically, can withstand seismic force. The Chinese had their wooden houses; in medieval Europe, churches had bells designed to ring furiously at the onset of tremors, giving townsfolk precious moments to flee under the open sky. Such examples show us that early warning, or preparedness, lies within human reach — if only man remains devoted to science and to Nature. One then asks: if our country’s many geologists could deliver lengthy speeches after the Bhuj earthquake, were they asleep before it struck?
 
In a poor nation like India, forced to rely on foreign aid in times of crisis, the dream of widespread earthquake-resistant construction is almost impossible. In a land where one-fifth of the people live beneath open skies, to imagine scientific housing for all is a fantasy. We had only hoped for a warning — that half-asleep men and women might have escaped beneath the heavens and at least survived, even if only to witness with their own eyes their homes, built with lifelong labor, reduced to rubble in an instant.
 
Every year, this land endures flood and drought. These are natural disasters, inevitable anywhere. But when floods result from poorly built dams of earth and cement, or from the absence of embankments, or when engineers recklessly release dam waters drowning villages — then it is man-made calamity. Similarly, neglected rivers, scarcity of drinking water, outdated irrigation systems — these are not purely “acts of God.” In every disaster, a portion of the blame rests on man.
 
History bears testimony. In the mid-fourteenth century, the Black Death wiped out a quarter of Europe’s population. In the sixteenth century, the earthquake in Shaanxi, China, claimed ten lakh lives — legend says not one living soul remained in the city. Pliny describes the stench of Athens when even birds fled its skies. In Constantinople’s so-called hospitals, decaying bodies lay stacked wall to wall. In London’s dreadful nights, silent carts carried heaps of corpses. Lucretius writes of Greek coasts where, in the dark of night, fires were lit to cremate the dead brought from plague-stricken towns. After Lisbon’s earthquake, streams of blood flowed from church doors. In Tokyo, many died in their sleep. In Egypt, citizens abandoned homes, leaving their dead within. Through every age, civilization has faced such catastrophic blows — and yet, mankind has risen again. Disasters, whether natural or partly man-made, have forced societies into new beginnings. These were not expiations for sin, but reckonings — consequences of human choices, however indirect.
 
The people of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro burned their forests to bake bricks, and their civilization perished through repeated droughts. In medieval Europe, royal expeditions sent ships to plunder Asia and Africa, enslaving countless black men. In 1347, twelve ships arrived in Sicily from the Black Sea, most sailors already dead, others oozing blood and pus. Thus began the plague that spread like wildfire across Europe.
 
Even today, in this scientific age, our own flaws — gross or subtle — draw disaster upon us. We may not always know whose fault it is, but each calamity leaves scars upon civilization. Indifferent Nature avenges herself. Man’s ambition to conquer her, to bend her for his gain, provokes her harsh rebukes — and these rebukes are catastrophes.
 
The historic city of Bhuj now lies almost erased. The government cannot even count its dead. Only the story of a lone infant rescued alive from beneath a pile of corpses lingers as eternal memory. Of those who survived, we cannot say if they live truly — or if they must wander the rest of their lives as ghosts among the living. Who will know if they are given proper care? Upon the ruins of the dead rises new civilization — for without that, the wheel of time would halt.
 
In times of darkness, man’s duty is to bind together awareness and reason, to drive away doubt and chaos, and to choose paths of preparedness for the future. Upon the ruins, Bhuj will rise again — or perhaps, under another name, another city will bloom on the same soil. No catastrophe, however fearsome, can stop the chariot of civilization. For life’s one eternal truth is its ceaseless flow.
 
And those who remain alive — their duty is to be, like Noah, the savior of humanity against disasters yet to come.