There may have been one terrible earthquake in Indonesia, but the tragedy in that island cluster is manifold. The horrors of the quake and tsunami of December, 2004 have not faded from memory. And the movement in the tectonic plates then had set up stresses in the two main faultlines that underlie the islands. Scientists had been predicting another earthquake since last year. For these islands, set at the vulnerable core of the Pacific ?Ring of Fire?, earthquakes are far from strange. But the worst phases are those in which the plates shift and move, causing earthquakes frequently. Indonesia had not got over its 2004 losses fully before it was struck again. But there was some readiness for disaster, since the growling and spewing of Merapi, the volcano, had been warning of imminent eruption.

The number of the dead will never be determined with certainty, since the people, growing tragically used to disaster and death, have been burying their kin quickly. The famous Prambanan Temple has been badly damaged, auguring a loss in tourism revenue in a nation already hurt in the same segment in 2004. It is to be hoped that repeated tragedies have honed relief-delivering efficiency, because the need for temporary shelter is urgent this time, with the skies uncertain and rainy. While relief in 2004 was efficient on many counts, the delivery of medical supplies left much to be desired. That too is a priority this time. A week before the earthquake, 30 nations around the Pacific and Indian Oceans participated in a test for a new tsunami warning system. The earthquake, deep in the walls of the Java trench, was undersea but did not set off a tsunami. But it underlined the pressing need for linked warning systems ? for earthquakes too. Earthquakes cannot be predicted with precision, or there is no internationally and publicly known system of doing so. Prediction would not eliminate damage, but could at least bring down the number of deaths.