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An opinion
When people die or otherwise suffer from an earthquake, the survivors will invariably grieve. There are well-known stages of grief which we won't address here, except the stage of blaming the situation that caused the suffering. And when it's major uncontrollable force of nature which affects a large number of people, there can be collective grief, especially blame.
However, let's be clear about something. The disaster is the great loss we suffer. The earthquake itself is not the disaster, it's just an environmental phenomenon. So calling it a “Natural disaster” is a misnomer; an earthquake is neither a disaster nor even the cause of a disaster.
The cause, we postulate, is those who decided that people should reside in the earthquake zone. This is especially true now, when we have the technology and means to identify which zones are prone to earthquakes. And "those people" often include the residents of that zone. I know, because I'm one of them.
As I sit at my desk merrily typing his page, I know perfectly well there's a major earthquake lurking beneath which is long overdue. Maybe it will happen today, maybe next week, next year or a thousand years later. But like the millions of others living in this nice city, I choose to stay here despite the risk.
A disaster, then, is caused by the choices made by people in power and influence, maybe in the past or present, and/or people who are likely to suffer in the disaster when it happens.
Obviously the environment doesn't have power to choose; only people.
Having said that, to cope with grief we do need to cast blame on something for the disaster, and the earthquake is an obvious choice.
If only we'd cast anger at "those people" (sometimes including ourselves), who failed to avert an inevitable calamity.
I think that pretty much also covers tsunami, floods, typhoons/cyclones/hurricanes, extreme heat, volcanoes and other non-natural phenomena.
And a post script about casting blame on the blameless...
For mental comfort, there's a need to blame anyone or anything other than ourselves for misfortunes. We've received many emails to this site me saying, for example, they started a new job on Shakku, the work turned out to be awful and they blame Shakku for it. Or they married on Butsumetsu years ago, their marriage failed, and they blame Butsumetsu.