29 October 2007

The Child of Krakatau

Well, building bridges across the Sunda Strait was always going to be an interesting engineering challenge and not just because any bridge built there would be straddling one of the world's most active earthquake zones! The planned bridge would run within some 50 kilometers of the volcano that has arisen from where the old Krakatau volcano once stood and for want of a better name it has simply been named the Child of Krakatau.

It is one of those funny in a bizarre coincidence sort of a way. I watched a national geographic program on the Krakatau eruption a couple of weeks ago. The sentiment seemed to be that the Child of Krakatau, although not currently as big as its parent, had similar explosive potential and that in and of itself should be a frightful thought for anyone living in Southern Sumatra, Lampung, or West Java. The bizarre coincidence is that the watch alert on the Child of Krakatau has been raised as volcanic and seismic activity of the past week has seen a huge increase, which if the seismologists are to be believed is indicative of a possible larger eruption in addition to the multiple minor eruptions to date.

I can accept that nature is a powerful force and do not need to have this proved to me again. Is it just a simple case of the natural order of things where the earth restores balance to itself? Perhaps it is an inconvenient truth but what we should never forget...

perhaps we should be a little nicer to Mother Earth and She might be a little nicer to us!

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