What do we do to prevent disaster?

With the dead still unburied, with the eyes of the missing watching from their photographs, we can only feel shame for their fate and for our own responsibility. Without getting into the discussion on the chaotic construction of homes in forests, and whether there was a civil defense plan for Mati or not (issues which must, of course, concern us immediately), we face one bigger, merciless question: What can each of us do to prevent such a loss of life in future?

It is easy to get emotional now, as we face the horror, as we consider human frailty in the face of nature's force, whether this be flooding in Mandra or fires at Mati. It is, however, one thing to feel pain for victims when we see what has befallen them, and another to be truly concerned with the life of our neighbor, and with the country's good, so that each day we ask ourselves what we did to avert catastrophe....