Underneath

As a natural disaster researcher, there is nothing more painful than seeing a scenario you have been warning about come to fruition, and unfortunately, yesterday, it happened again. A peaceful night along Indonesia’s Sunda Strait was shattered when an ongoing eruption from Anak Krakatau triggered two tsunami. With no warning, the waves slammed coastal villages and inundated beaches, sweeping away homes, businesses, cars, and hundreds of people. According to the latest report from the Associated Press and BBC, 220 are confirmed dead with more than 840 injuries and many more missing. Roads are wiped out preventing emergency responders from reaching some areas where victims could be trapped, making the true scope of this disaster unknown. Tsunami are perhaps most common in this region and this latest disaster comes just days before the anniversary of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunamis, a mega disaster that killed 250,000 people across 14 countries. My heart goes out to the people of Indonesia in this wake of this tragedy. As always, the people of this one nation prove to be resilient beyond normal capacity. I admire their ability to overcome these disasters and I can only hope we learn from this and grow to prevent this heartbreak in the future. The world is watching, Indonesia. We love you and we stand with you.

The most beautiful thing you will look today

Maybe Foreign Language Wouldn’t Be So Foreign