Disasters are good story material

I don't believe anybody in our world has missed hearing about the devastating Tsunami which hit the Indian Ocean rim this week.

Looking at the amateur videos which have been aired sinsce then, the wave didn't seem to be more than 1 or 2 meters high. It swept in and was gone whithin a couple of minutes. So the damage and loss of life, seems to be completely out of proportion to the time it took to cause it.

This type of disaster always seems to hit the poorest of people, who have no way of proctecting themselves.

Once the remaining tourists are back home, it will take the people who survived, quite some time to get back on their feet. They will need a prolonged period of help to make up for their losses.

During which time the tourists will remain away. They will only come back when the collective opinion perceives the area to be safe.

On the other hand, it will surely not take long until the first scam e-mails, using this disaster background as a story, appear.

It was the same with Iraq and other other conflicts. So I recommend you to keep an eye out for this type of e-mail and recognise it as a scam.

Please send any e-mails which you may receive to Crime-Online