It is generally believed by many that natural disasters cause nothing but damage to properties and loss to lives. However, as for me, there is always positiveness to these catastrophes. They help people form tighter bonds as they offer precious post-disaster support to the ones in need and also trigger pre-disaster actions by both the governments and ordinary people.
There is endless news reporting how people around the world provide support to people who are suffering or just suffered natural disasters. People from everywhere take actions at these moments. Some donate money, some provide life supplies. Some even enter the scenes in person to provide their tiny support which becomes magnificent when merging together. Tons of medicine, food, clothes, construction materials, etc get delivered to the disaster scenes, helping people survive, overcome all types of difficulties and furthermore rebuild their precious homes. At these moments, no matter what nations, cultures, ethics, races people are, there is only one universal aim lying inside them – to help and to save as much as possible. Confronting disasters, people somehow manage to put aside barriers, bias, or even hatred they hold against others, but come as a whole into the great job of rescuing, which is highly positive and valuable to all humans.
In the meantime, the reflection on the disasters also provides humans previous experience not only on what and how to do after they occur, but also warn people the extreme importance of planning ahead, i.e. risk management, to figure out possible actions such as better city planning, incorporating disaster prevention sectors such as health, education, water, construction and transportation, etc, to reduce the loss any disasters can cause way ahead they take place. Above that, it forces governments and people to rethink how unreasonable their behaviour has been, how much suffering they have caused to the nature as well as how much waste and pollution they have caused in the name of development. Consequently, people would not only come up with means that help reduce the happening of some disasters, but also to look at all of them as part of the nature, trying to come up with a more sustainable way of living, which can also largely reduce the potential devastating outcome of any disasters.
No one would welcome any forms of disasters. However, if being dealt with properly both pragmatically and mentally, humans may not suffer as much as they have suffered from them any more. Natural calamities should be seen as opportunities rather than merely tragedies.