I recently read that Hawaii could one day be hit by a massive tsunami, but the story added that tourists (and presumably the locals) shouldn’t be concerned about this.
Of course, every day you’ll read a potential reason not to go somewhere. Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia and Lebanon are off some people’s itineraries at the moment because of bomb attacks at or near tourist sites. Paris and Belgium have suffered attacks this year. Exactly how or whether that affects tourist numbers remains to be seen.
When it comes to terror, I guess we can seek expert opinion and assess the risks, which are statistically quite low, even in places where you might think otherwise. These attacks may be terrible, but the lives they’ve claimed pale in comparison with big natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcano eruptions and tsunamis.
Will the “big one” hit San Francisco or elsewhere on the US east coast anytime soon? The 1906 quake and fire is said to have killed 3,000 people. These days, however, Building standards are much higher and emergency services are better trained and equipped.
Will Mount Vesuvius blow its top again? The locals have a contingency plan for that, because it’s been a reasonably regular thing since at least 79AD, when about 6,000 lives were lost, chiefly in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
There’s also a volcano in Yellowstone Park in California, with many dire predictions attached to it. Some reports say an explosion would claim up to 60,000 lives and cause a “nuclear winter”.
In recent times, nothing surpasses the tsunami that hit south east Asia in 2015, with the estimated loss of 280,000 lives. Add to that the thousands more who have died in cyclones and floods in the Philippines, South Asia and the Pacific islands, and you come quickly to the opinion that the world’s a dangerous place.
Where am I going with all this? Simply saying that stuff happens.
We can’t predict the next disaster — and that shouldn’t stop us from travelling (with sensible precautions, of course). After all, it could happen where you are right now. Time to move on, then?
