Tsunamis, the word that recently becomes familiar to us all, are generally seismic sea waves caused by undersea earthquake, landslides, volcanic eruption, and large meteorite impact in the ocean; though the last seems to be very rare.

Along the history of tsunamis, Indonesia is the one and only region which had been hit twice for two different reasons: On August 26th 1883, the island volcano of Krakatoa (Krakatau) exploded with devastating fury before sinking to the ocean floor, and triggered tsunami waves which height reached over 40 meters above sea level. It killed over 36,000 people, and wiping out a number of settlements, including those in Sumatra and Java. As the explosion was heard in 3000 miles away and the ashes were blown to New York City, the catastrophe had affected the global community. After the explosions, only 1/3 of the volcano remained above sea level. They were a few small islands marking the prior cone of the volcano and some small new islands of steaming pumice and ash to the north. One of the small islands was "Anak Krakatau" which can be translated into English as "Krakatoa's Child" which is at present a very active young volcano, which at some point in the future might burst out with the similar violence as Krakatoa. While we were not yet to worry about Krakatoa's Child, on December 26 2004, a massive earthquake followed by tsunami had befallen on Indian Ocean and killed about 300,000 people in a dozen countries - two-thirds of them in Indonesia.

It is no wonder then that people in this region are now in a great fear for another tsunami attack. The fear reached its peak when last midnight (local time) an earthquake, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, struck the region around the Indian Ocean and triggered the tsunami alerts. The worst hit happened to Indonesia's Nias, a small island on the west of Sumatra. The International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii had confirmed that there won't be any tsunamis after the earthquake. However, the quake itself had destroyed 80 percent of Nias. The means of communication there are simply cut out, the airport is not functioned, and there is no electricity. Thousands of people escaped to higher areas, but more than 500 households were destroyed along with the people still buried under the ruins. Vice President Jusuf Kalla estimated that the victims would have been around 2000 people. While 400-500 tsunami victims in Aceh are waiting to have their prostheses, this tragedy will seem to put an addition on the waiting list.

Some argued that it was merely natural disaster which went out of hand; while others said that it was a mere effect of human mischief, such as the oil exploitation which damaged the earth. I am an outsider with no authority or capability to judge, but surely there must be an explanation for this so called natural phenomenon. Is there any way we could prevent this from happening? We could fight terrorism, we could change the wrong to right (not all though), but what can we do against natural disaster?