Nature's impartiality, man's inhumanity: reflections on terrorism and world crisis in a context of historical disaster

This paper compares the terrorist outrages of 11 September 2001 in New York City and Washington to the Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755. Both events occurred, literally out of the blue, at critical junctures in history and both struck at the heart of large trading networks. Both affected public attitudes towards disaster as, not only did they cause unparalleled destruction, but they also represented symbolic victories of chaos over order, and of moral catastrophism over a benign view of human endeavour. The Lisbon earthquake led to a protracted debate on teleology, which has some parallels in the debate on technological values in modern society. It remains to be seen whether there will be parallels in the reconstruction and the ways in which major disasters are rationalised in the long term. But despite the differences between these two events--which are obviously very large as nearly 250 years of history separate them and they were the work of different sorts of forces--there are lessons to be learned from the comparison. One of these is that disaster can contribute to a perilous form of self absorption and cultural isolation.     

The florence floods—What the papers said

The floods of 1966 in Northern Italy provoked varying reactions from officialdom and the press. Political and administrative problems received as much coverage as the environmental effects of the disaster, but learned opinion gained a new, if rather temporary, status in the newspapers of the time. In retrospect, economic recovery seems to have occurred more rapidly than predicted in the gloomy forecasts of the time, although a clear picture of the disruption caused by the floods     

UNSATURATED FLOW THROUGH SOLID WASTE LANDFILLS: MODEL AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS1

ABSTRACT: The movement of precipitation water infiltrating through the material (refuse) of solid waste landfills is examined via numerical solution of the equations of continuity, and motion (Darcy's Law). The solution of the equations is obtained by a fully implicit, finite-difference scheme. Both unsaturated and saturated surface conditions are considered, making the scheme suitable for real-time simulation of net precipitation and moisture redistribution events. A sensitivity analysis showed that for unsaturated surface conditions the solution is primarily affected by hydraulic conductivity and capillary diffusivity, and is relatively independent of the space and time steps. In addition, the precipitation averaging process is shown to be critical in the correct computation of moisture transport during the time period where the transition from unsaturated to saturated conditions occurs. The model presented herein is suitable for analysis of water movement through landfills, and the design of bottom collection systems.