An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 occurred in Haiti, a country in Central and South America, yesterday, which is the biggest earthquake in the Caribbean in recent years. The Haitian capital Port-au-Prince was in ruins, the presidential palace collapsed and thousands of people were killed in the earthquake.

With the occurrence of two major earthquakes in Tangshan and Wenchuan, China people's painful memories of that earthquake are getting stronger and stronger, so we feel the same way about this earthquake in Haiti. More importantly, eight members of our peacekeeping force in Haiti were buried in this earthquake. Their fate is closely related to the people of China. At this time, the earthquake in Central America has become the same proposition all over the world. More than 60 international rescue teams from China boarded the plane at 20: 00 on June 5438+03 to participate in the rescue work in Haiti.

If we say that in today's world, there is still a force that can make people of all countries stand together, then this force is the cohesion of human beings in the face of natural disasters. The so-called civilization does not mean that it will pile up materials and show off its wealth. High-rise buildings may be vulnerable to natural forces. But nature can't conquer human love and mutual assistance. With the progress of civilization, mankind began to understand that the process of conquering nature itself is a process of helping and supporting each other. Sometimes this process is difficult, because danger never occurs often. For example, efforts to deal with the greenhouse effect have been repeated and divided; But sometimes this process is also very fast, because when disasters and deaths happen, we suddenly find that as individuals, we are still very fragile.

Therefore, it is the disaster that makes us learn to be grateful and watch. Gratitude is the responsibility of international cooperation. We all remember that after the Wenchuan earthquake, rescue teams from many countries in the world went to Sichuan to participate in the rescue work. After the Wenchuan earthquake, Aleksi, then Prime Minister of the caretaker government of Haiti, and Douste, Minister of Industry and Commerce, also went to the Haitian Trade Development Office in China to mourn the people who died in the earthquake. This shows that the earthquake is not only a national tragedy, but a weak link in the world system. For example, Haiti, where the earthquake occurred, is densely populated, and 60% of the houses in the capital are at risk of collapse because of obsolescence.

Watching is both mourning and prevention. We haven't done enough in this regard. From a technical point of view, in recent years, the international voice of disaster prevention and mitigation is getting higher and higher. Whenever a disaster occurs, governments and scientists all over the world will put disaster prevention and mitigation on the agenda as an important policy. However, disasters are not common, so the progress of disaster prevention and mitigation will be ignored as life returns to calm. Without the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, it was impossible for the affected countries to establish a tsunami early warning mechanism at an extremely fast speed. However, due to the limitation of the level of economic development and the fact that the Caribbean is not often invaded by natural disasters, the prevention mechanism is correspondingly backward.

Without gratitude, we will not feel the same when the disaster comes; Without vigilance, we will not become stronger and more supportive. Gratitude and watchfulness are signs of social maturity, and they are also what we have learned in the face of disasters.