I'm back at base. Thoughts on the disaster

[kalypso_v]

OK, I'm home, I'm fine, I'm beginning to work through the backlog. But I've got to say something about how horrified I am by the earthquake and floods, even if there's nothing very constructive I can say. I came in and heard something about an earthquake on the radio yesterday, and I asked my mother "Where?" And she said "Everywhere." And the

Comments

[vilakins]

The Sri Lankan team are playing here and heard after their one-day match on Boxing Day in which we beat them by 7 wickets (which I now feel bad about). They had a meeting and decided to stay, but they cancelled tomorrow's game for a five-day period of mourning. Many have their immediate family with them, and I believe the others' families were all right, though two had mothers affected by the disaster. I think they'll have lots of sympathy from NZers and the Sri Lankan community here.

[vilakins]

I've just heard they've decided to go back. I think it's the right decision. I'm surprised they didn't make it before, but perhaps they wanted to wait till they could think about it more coolly.

[kalypso_v]

Good, I think it's for the best. No one could concentrate on cricket in these circumstances. I'm a bit surprised England and South Africa don't seem to be wearing armbands.

[sollersuk]

Irony department: when the news broke I had just been re-reading a book on the impact of the end of the Ice Age on the Far East, discussing a) gradual, inexorable sea rises; b) sudden surges from melt water pouring out from areas that had been dammed by ice; c) tsunami, some of them caused by earthquakes resulting from the weight of ice coming off. The author was looking at legends from precisely that part of the world about terrible, overwhelming floods that destroyed everybody who didn't get high up the hills.