The Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan Research Paper

The Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan - Research Paper Example Telecommunication towers fell and a number of landslides followed the incident with hundreds of students and children trapped in their schools. â€Å"Two chemical factories in Shifang were destroyed, spilling 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia, officials told Chinese state media.† (Hooker and Yardley, 2008, para. 4). Nature showed up its worst against mankind and the country incurred huge losses of life and economy as a result of the act of nature. What remains to be explored is whether nature has been unfriendly towards humanity or there is some personal involvement of humans in bringing about such harshness in the attitude of nature towards it. Nature itself issues warning signs to man before the arrival of disasters. It is man who has been more often than not ignorant. The ignorance shown by man often leads to disastrous consequences. This paper aims at evaluating this statement in relation to a case study of the earthquake of Sinchuan. (Smith, 2008) has described how nature tends to warn mankind of upcoming calamities in his paper titled â€Å"Rumor and the Sichuan Earthquake†. As the name of his report implies, Smith has explained how nature causes animals to exhibit warning signs to humans when they expect an earthquake, yet many of us fail to realize the gravity of the matter and ignore the statements of those who realize the matter considering them rumors. Nature tends to protect its inhabitants through natural processes and animals’ apparent curiosity is one of the wonders of nature meant to help out the humans. Days before the earthquake broke out in Sichuan, animals were noticed to behave in an awkwardly fashion. Animals belonging to various species were seen running away from the city. Referring to the history of cases when mankind has benefited from the predictions of animals, Smith explained how animals helped people evacuate the area when they sensed the earthquake in Liaoning, which broke out on the 4th of February in 1974.