I was awakened just after dawn by the person who had duty that morning telling me there had been an earthquake measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale in the Indian Ocean, and that a tidal wave had already hit some coastal areas. I was told that about over 1,000 people were reported dead. An 8.9 earthquake is an extraordinary event. We knew that there had been a tidal wave. We also knew that first reports in major disasters normally underestimated casualties. The reason is simple. In a really bad disaster, the first thing to go down are communications. The areas...