The tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, to which
more than 225 000 deaths had been attributed by the United Nations’ six-month
review in June 2005, elicited a worldwide humanitarian relief effort unprecedented
in its scale; individuals, firms, non-governmental organisations and governments
rapidly marshalled billions of dollars of assistance. Even as reconstruction was
barely underway, however, many observers could not escape concluding that
many of the dead, the injured, the displaced, were victims primarily because they...
