UN to designate November 5 "World Tsunami Day"
Japan drafted a resolution to UN General Assembly to have November 5 designated as World Tsunami Day to raise awareness of the threats of tsunami the world over.
The draft resolution pointed out that UN's world development targets include reducing damages of natural disasters and emphasized the importance of the international community sharing the risks of tsunami and providing for an early warming system. The resolution quoted an anecdote told in Japan over generations - "The Flames of the Rice Field".
The anecdote goes:
In 1854, a villager Gohei living way up on the hill felt the ground shake and saw the seawater fast receding offshore. He sensed an approaching tsunami and thought he should warn other villagers. Out in the rice field were stacks of sheaves just harvested.
Not aware of any other means of warning other villagers of the danger afoot, Gohei set fire on the stacks of sheaves.
The villagers spotted the fire and all thought Gohei's house was on fire and rushed up the hill to fight the fire. They found Gohei and his house intact but saw down bellow the entire village gulped by a huge tsunami. Gohei's quick wit at the expense of his year's labor saved all villagers.
The anecdote found its way into school textbook and enlightened school children from 1937 to 1947. Lafcadio Hearn, an international writer naturalized Japanese assuming the name Koizumi Yakumo, wrote a story based on the anecdote titled "A Living God". More recently, in 1993, a primary school in Colorado, U.S.A. used a sub-reader titled "The Burning of The Rice Field".
In his speech at the commission UN Ambassador Yoshikawa of Japan remarked that, disastrous as it may seem, tsunami can be countered to a degree with intelligence and stressed that those with little with tsunami should bear in mind they might be involved in one away from home.
The resolution is jointly drafted by 88 countries including Southeast Asia and South America and there is a fair chance that it passes the general assembly within this year.