One thing about nature is that nothing is so sure than unsure
There are lots of stories about renewing current pandemics, and many tales about the possibility that the virus is changing more lethal, but there might also be many other roads, what can happen when a virus is advancing or transforming. That means that viruses can transform into harmless and turn back to dangerous form. The real thing is that we can be sure about that sometimes in the future.
So when we are trying to predict things that happen in nature in the future, we are facing things, that history is full of predictions, what is not becoming true. And many things, what happened, but whatever predicted before. One of the most famous cases was the explosion of the volcanic island Krakatoa(1). When volcanic island explodes it doesn't usually happen without warning. But as you know, there is a possibility, that there is no visible volcanic activity before the explosion. If the volcano erupts underwater that thing can cause the magma chamber empty that nobody notices that thing.
Or the explosion would follow the same formula with, Mount St. Helens(2), there was no visible volcanic activity before the explosion, and sometimes people have asked, "what if Mount St. Helens would be the island?". The lucky thing about that case was that this mountain was at dry land when it exploded in 1980 during that famous explosion that mountain lost most of its size and it was followed intensively. So only one person died in that case, because of evacuation.
There are two types of explosions. One is that the mountain over the sea level explodes, and in this case, the level of destruction depends does that explosion cause a tsunami. There is a possibility, that when the landmass is starting to slide to water, that thing causes a tsunami. The explosion itself is, of course, powerful and in the case of Mount St Helens shows that destruction could be total and near that kind of case should not go, because pressure could destroy ships. But the dangerous explosion is happening when a magma chamber under the volcano is collapsing. That thing causes a tsunami.
When that island exploded in Sunda Strait in 1883, that case caused a massive Tsunami, which killed many people. People knew about volcanoes, and they knew that volcanic islands could explode. But still, the case of Krakatoa came as a surprise. The same way people knew that the eruption of underwater volcano or earthquake in the rift valleys at the bottoms of the sea can cause a tsunami.
And the location of those rift valleys is well known. The Marianna Trench (3) is the deepest place on Earth. That place is locating on the south-west side of Japan, and tsunamis are quite common in that area. But for some reason, Japan has built nuclear power plants near the coastline, and on 16 March 2011 tsunami destroyed the nuclear power plant at Fukushima(4).
People cannot claim that they didn't know that there could be a tsunami in Japan, which hits the nuclear plant. And people couldn't say that they didn't know that volcanic islands were dangerous. Krakatoa was not the first exploded island in history. The explosion of the island Santorini (Thera) in the Mediterranean sea destroyed the entire Minoan culture in the Greek islands, and people should know that volcanic islands can explode. The eruption of Santorini is also called as Minoan eruption(5)
But when the Krakatoa erupted a couple of weeks, somehow people would not react to that thing. They didn't notice that the magma chamber below the island empty. And the collapse of that chamber caused the tsunami. The process in the case of Krakatoa was the same as Thira, and people couldn't claim that they didn't notice that eruption, but for some reason, those people didn't go to upper places. The last case, when Krakatoa caused destruction was in 2018 when part of Anak Krakatoa collapsed(6). And as you know that the 2018 tsunami was not the first in Sunda Stright, which is one of the most active volcanic areas on Earth.
And if we are thinking about this pandemic, we cannot say, that we didn't know that there is a possibility that pandemics would become true. Aviation is the thing, what extends viruses and bacteria most effectively, and we cannot say that we don't know about that thing. Remote working is no problem if we are talking about viruses and bacteria. Virtual business meetings don't deliver organisms. But holiday trips cannot make virtually, and this is the problem.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St._Helens
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Trench
(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption
Comments
Post a Comment