Wake of the Solar Tide

-Pritam S Rana

The recent series of earthquakes in North America has had a tremendous psychological impact on the common populace. The April 4 temblor that hit Southern California also known as the Easter Quake resulted in the loss of some three lives and a hundred or so endangered. It created a fissure some fifty miles long and six feet wide, according to radio reports. The area falls on San Andreas fault line adjacent to the major tectonic division between the North American and Juan de Fuca plates. The US border town of Calexico in Imperial County, Southern California. Television stations aired damaged buildings and terrified people running for shelter.  The January 12 Haitian calamity shook the ground for most Americans and the world when suddenly 200,000 poor people died in vain at nature’s sudden magnum opus.

The Roland Emmerich directed quasi-prophetic  movie written by Harald Kloser has magnified the negative mood. The movie released in 2009 depicts a cataclysmic end of the world after a spate of geological events following a similarly themed series on the History Channel. Scholars cited the Bible, Nostradamus, Mayan literature and the classic Chinese fortune book I Ching to foretell the end of human civilization. Only a few wealthy and connected people survive this chain of events through their ticket to the modern day concoction of Noah’s Ark and mechanical Kraken.  The Christmas  2004 Tsunami which destroyed coastlines in the Indian ocean rimmed littoral states and the recent wake of solar tides or some yet unknown phenomenon leading to heightened seismic activity along the North American rim reminds the world of 1883 Krakatoa eruption. The named explosion changed the face of the island landscape and created multiple islets of a single volcanic orifice. Hawaiian islands formed due to similar volcanic events. Egyptian high priests reportedly spoke of Atlantis beyond the Straits of Gibraltar ruled by ten kings. After apparently some major geospatial movement, it lies buried beneath the Atlantic Ocean waves barely visible as under-ocean ridges in Atlas. The Ancient Greeks and Romans also believed meteor showers or literally fire engulfed and destroyed vastly developed super culture and civilization. The ancient cities of Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were also destroyed by volcanic ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Nepal too remains on the borderline of Indo-Australian (now Indian) and Eurasian plate. Building standard code must be enforced to minimize casualties in case something like the 1933 earthquake hits Katmandu. Civil defense rehearsals must be on the regimen. An important lesson from 1933 earthquake was the then Maharaja Joodha Shumsher’s refusal to accept foreign aid in order to avoid per capita debt on the Nepalese people. His Excellency Shree Teen’s birthday is on April 19^th.

THE END

510 words

The author, a US based writer, is the great grandson of General Joodha Shumsher J.B. Rana, the Prime Minister and Commander in Chief during World War II. The late Prime Minister’s records are available at Geneaological Department of the Riordan Library in downtown Los Angeles in Who’s Who.