Earthquake in Italy: many feared dead

The BBC has reported that up to thirty people are missing after a hotel in central italy was hit by an avalanche which was apparently "triggered" by an earthquake. Despite an obvious tragedy, the problem with incidents like this is that there is no way of securing justice from what happened. The question to ask is, why though?

What happened

The Telegraph newspaper reported that Italy was hit by four earthquakes in four hours on Wednesday.

Consequently, the regions of Abruzzo, Marche and Lazio were hit by heavy snow. As a result of the avalanche, the roof on the four-star spa hotel partly collapsed on Wednesday night with snow burying the hotel as a result. The head of the mountain rescue team, Antonio Crocetta, said "there are many deaths". The quakes were so strong that they caused buildings in distant Rome to shake.

Examples of other natural disasters

This of course is not the first natural disaster to occur; there have been many in recent times. The WorldVision website stated that about 150 major natural disasters affected millions of people in 2015 alone.

From an earthquake in Nepal which killed 8,800 people, to a heat wave in India which claimed 2,000 lives, to floods in Mozambique, killing at least 200 people, the list goes on. The high number of natural disasters continued into 2016. From an earthquake in Taiwan (February) which killed 116, to hurricane Sandy which killed 13 people and wildfires in California, the occurrence of natural disasters showed no sign of stopping. Even the AOL website went on to say that 2016 was "one for the record" due to the amount of natural disasters that occurred.

No justice

The problem, however, with a natural disaster is those who have been negatively affected can seek no form of justice. If it was a murder case, the culprit would stand trial and, if guilty, be sent to prison.

As a result the grieving families would feel vindicated that something has been done. The problem with a natural disaster is that often it is simply claimed to be an 'act of god'. It is as a result of this that the victims and their families will often feel hard done-by. There is simply nothing that can be done as is unfortunately the case with the latest natural disaster to hit Italy.