Nature's wrath

By Maria Millers 'We admire nature when it is beautiful, photograph it when it is picturesque, and seek refuge in it when we need peace. But flood, fire, earthquake and storm remind us that beneath its beauty lies a power that cannot be negotiated with.' Spring arrives this week and with it the smells, sounds and sights that lift the way we feel after a long winter. We are filled with new energy and the idea of fresh beginnings. The days are getting longer and warmer, the air carries the scent of wattle, blossoms and daffodils and those deciduous dormant trees as Robert Frost reminds are getting ready to unfurl their green gold leaves of spring: Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. But this gentle and benign image of nature was shattered last Wednesday by the catastrophic floods on the Nepal-Tibet border, reminding us of the raw power of nature. This catastrophic event appeared to be almost of biblical or apocalyptic proportions and has reminded us, with terrible force, of something modern civilisation often prefers to forget: nature is not always our friend. There is the danger of imagining the natural world purely as landscape to photograph, admire but also to subdue, conquer, exploit. And only when events like the present disaster occur do we remember that we are living inside nature and not standing outside it. For Poet Alfred Lord Tennyson the question was how to reconcile a world that contains extraordinary beauty and apparent purpose with a natural world that is violent, destructive and completely indifferent to individual suffering. In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Lord Tennyson: Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law— Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed— The Nepal disaster appears to have been triggered by a glacier breakaway, unleashing enormous, quantities of water, ice rock, mud and debris obliterating towns, villages, farms, schools bridges and other infrastructure. It will be a long time before the scale of the human loss can be counted. And then there is the economic cost. A disaster that destroys trails, bridges, roads and accommodation doesn't just destroy physical infrastructure. It can wipe out the community's primary income source for months or years. Remote Himalayan villages often have limited agricultural opportunities because of altitude and terrain. Tourism provides an alternative livelihood that can be much more lucrative than subsistence agriculture. This area in the foothills of the Himalayas has increasingly become a magnet for the intrepid, adventurous and the foolhardy. But also for pilgrims. The disaster struck at a period when the Himalayas were unusually busy with two different pilgrimages. Many were older or middle-aged people undertaking a once-in-a-lifetime journey from places as far afield as the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, but also devout locals. This is one of the most dramatic disasters of the current year—and perhaps the one that best illustrates the raw power of nature. But there is also broad agreement that climate change was the catalysing force. Nepal's glaciers are said to have lost 1/3 of their volume over the last 30 years, as seen by the extreme events like heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides becoming more common. In 2023, UN Chief Antonio Gutteres warned that, 'The rooftops of the world are caving in'. To many it may seem that this year has had more natural disasters than in previous years, as images of storms, floods, wildfires and earthquakes are streamed from across the world into our homes. But the scientific picture is more nuanced Not necessarily more disasters overall, even though it may appear so, but it's because the number of recorded disasters has risen enormously over the past century, and also because we now detect and report smaller events much more consistently. However, that doesn't mean the underlying risk isn't increasing. There is very strong scientific evidence that human-caused warming is making certain types of extreme events more likely and/or more severe. And disasters are increasingly hitting the heavily populated, highly developed world. There are simply more people, buildings, roads, power infrastructure and wealth in vulnerable locations than there were decades ago. Consequently, a weather event that might once have caused relatively little damage can now become a catastrophe. Also the fact that multiple events can happen simultaneously and be in our news feeds within hours amplifies their impact. The psychological impact of this is to make the world appear more dangerous and disaster-prone than it did, say, 30 years ago. Many have noticed that there have been major earthquakes over the last year. Earthquakes occur because of tectonic stresses in the Earth's crust, not because the atmosphere is warming. Likewise, there's no convincing evidence that we're experiencing some global climate-driven increase in volcanic eruptions. Nevertheless, there has been an increase in volcanic activity in the Pacific Rim nations. Only a couple of weeks ago, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the Flores region of East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. It barely received any coverage despite being so close to Australia, resulting in 100 deaths and 180,000 evacuated. The 14/15 August Flores earthquake was a very substantial event, and its relatively low profile in Australian media is somewhat surprising given Australia's proximity to Indonesia. The earthquake wasn't in Jakarta, Bali or Java and so that reduced its relevance. Indonesia is geographically close to Australia but psychologically quite distant in Australian news coverage unless Bali, Australian tourists, terrorism or aviation are involved. Poems about storms, floods or earthquakes remind us that sometimes the landscape moves, the river rises, overflows its banks and floods. Winds cause destruction and damage, ignite fires that destroy all in its path, and it is only then we suddenly remember we are living inside nature, not standing outside it. And that our actions matter too Many poets through the ages have written of the insignificance of humanity in the face of nature's power. From Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, who with his crew was facing a ferocious storm that leaves them stranded and those famous lines: Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. Or Ted Hughes writing about a wind so ferocious that it seems capable of destroying not only the speaker's house but the landscape itself and shows that no matter how advanced or inventive we human beings are, we're still at the mercy of nature's unpredictable and merciless whims. This house has been far out at sea all night, The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills, Winds stampeding the fields under the window Floundering black astride and blinding wet Till day rose; then under an orange sky The hills had new places, and wind wielded Blade-light, luminous black and emerald, Flexing like the lens of a mad eye. And as we see how nature can suddenly unleash its destructive power but should also remember it has the another irresistible and equally destructive power –the power of time, change and loss. The first lines of Robert Frost's poem Nothing Gold Can Stay capture fleeting moments of youth and then go on to point out how life brings ageing, grief and the inevitable decline. Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay Sometimes it seems we ignore our human vulnerability and our insignificance and forget that nature cares little about our ambitions and often reminds us of that. Woorilla Poetry Prize submissions close on September 30, 2026.