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Catastrophe and Crisis

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Submitted By morgancarlos
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I read this sad story of a courageous woman from a magazine sometimes ago. It was just a short news article in one of the local dailies. The story keeps on ringing in my mind up to today. I feel that the whole nation should stand and honor this woman for her courageous actions she portrayed on this fateful day. It happened that in the year 2007 in the city of Orina in India, a town that had over 100,000 people. It was raining heavily, and life was almost coming to a standstill.
Everyone in the area woke up in shock after finding pools of water moving at alarming speed sweeping everything it came across. It was around 8 in the morning. Before even people realized what was happening, the water level started rising, and there was no accessible route to escape. People quickly rushed out of their houses and water was unfortunately found themselves stranded as the water level continued to rise above the level of their waists.
At this moment, the rain was still slowly falling, and everything became a menace. After about an hour, the town was full of water and people were trying helplessly to come out of the water. Water was gradually rising, and there was nothing else visible but water. It was a moment of darkness as people started drowning one after the other. The aged people and children were the most affected. Everyone was screaming to save his or her own life. There was neither gender nor tribe; the language was the same; Save a life at whatever cost.
One young lady rose up from nowhere, amidst dead bodies floating on water. Death was inevitable, but she did not give up. She continued to cry, pray and move. As she was moving, she would kick hard the bodies of dead people who just a moment ago used to be her friends and neighbors. She swam, swam and swam and only hope kept him going. As she continued to swim to no direction, she saw a lone palm tree standing in the middle of nowhere and reached for it. She slowly climbed to the top and relaxed. She looked at her son who was crying of hunger, hopelessness and fear. She gently kissed him and smiled. It was a happy and sad moment, now she was relaxing on top of a tree without anything to eat. The rain was now over, but the levels of water were still rising. She looked at the palm tree and only pegged her hope in its roots. She closed her eyes and thanked God. She was among the few who were rescued by the emergency response team.
One concept illustrated here is that crisis is not only based on a decision but also on abstraction. Every crisis starts as a channel of events and then is becomes a catastrophe. In this case, the flood began as constant rains but was trapped in the poor drainage in the area. The ocean broke its banks and resulted in floods destroying the property and causing violent deaths. The force of the waves joined that of the water from the lake and was uncontrollable. It is hard to control the nature but if people refrained from residing in areas that are so close to water bodies, there would be less damage.

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