The sympathy of the world will be extended to Japan and particularly the people of Kobe whose city was severely damaged by earthquake this week. Nature can strike in a capricious and arbitrary way. It does not distinguish between the affluent and the poor or the developed and undeveloped. But its fall-out does. None is immune from human suffering, but the history of century’s earthquakes and many other natural disasters shows that more affluent societies usually get proportionately fewer deaths and injuries. This is because the infrastructure in those societies is that much better. Buildings and transport links are built stronger. Emergency services are more sophisticated; they can rescue more people more quickly and treat them better.
Aid usually comes more quickly to the stricken part of the nation. That said, no matter how affluent a nation is, present technology will not match the awesome forces of the movement of tectonic plates. Japan has invested awesome sums in earthquake prediction, setting up a system of under-sea and coastal monitors. The theory is that a big quake comes after a series of small ones. That apparently did not help this week. It is true that the bulk of Japan’s earthquake-prediction system is geared at the Pacific plate and Tokyo rather than the Philippine plate which caused this week’s quake, none the less, earthquake prediction seems a very risky insurance policy. Indeed, California _ which is also on a major fault line _ has abandoned the philosophy, instead spending the money on improving building control, building better buildings and strengthening existing ones.
Alas, both Japan and California are vexed by a paradox about living in a major earthquake zone: the certainty that a big earthquake will happen but no certainty when it will happen. It leads to an attitude of putting the matter out of mind that may be warranted on any particular day but is certainly not warranted in the long-term. The result is that there is no long-term plan to gradually move cities on the fault line. In Tokyo the problem is compounded by thousands of buildings up to three storeys which are not especially earthquake proof. The potential loss of human life is the core issue. A secondary issue is the financial implications of a major Tokyo quake, though this may be the only thing that causes Japanese authorities to address the core issue. A major quake in Tokyo would cause a major world-wide recession as Japan pulled back its investment abroad to repair the damage at home.
Interest rates would spiral and property values in places where Japan has even modest investments would tumble. Australia would not be immune from such shockwaves. The value of seemingly esoteric pure research in geology and other sciences, in this context, would be hard to over-estimate. It is work that nations not especially earthquake-prone, like Australia, can also share in.