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...