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Why did the earthquake and tsunami occur in Japan? Was it the act of an angry God? No, it was the result of the movement and collision of the earth's tectonic plates - a process driven by the earth's need to regulate its own internal temperature. Without the process that creates earthquake, our planet could not sustain life.

Whenever an earthquake or tsunami takes thousands of innocent lives, a shocked world talks of little else.

Everybody has an idea of the tsunami of being a big wave. It is not a big wave. It is a huge amount of water that comes to land.

Very large scale disasters, especially those that have occurred in the developing world, have very long recovery periods.

People in Japan have experienced many tsunamis and various earthquakes throughout the ages.

Horrible things happen, but were they horrible? No, they were just circumstances of the world.

Being here, it is just impossible to imagine what that was like, when the tsunami hit.

Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all time low over the world.

Opinion has caused more trouble on this little earth than plagues or earthquakes.

The nature of catastrophe is, after all, reasonably unvarying in the way it ruins, destroys, wounds and devastates. But if something can be learned from the event - not least something as profound as the theory of plate tectonics - then it somehow puts the ruination into a much more positive light.