We live in the era of hype, but sometimes events take place whose importance is impossible to exaggerate - such as the earthquake and tsunami that struck south-east Asia on December 26th, writes Déaglán de Bréadún.
After the first few days it seemed like the biggest catastrophe since Hiroshima. But even that nuclear holocaust was dwarfed in scale as the casualty figures kept rising. The tsunami was Biblical and there are few stories to compare with it outside the Book of Genesis.
Just like Noah's Ark, ships and boats were "lifted up above the earth" while outside, "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life" passed away. Fortunately the tsunami lasted only a short time before receding, whereas the Biblical rains continued for "forty days and forty nights. . .and the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days".
But the after-effects of the tsunami could last a very long time. I recently visited Thailand and saw at first hand the devastation caused in fashionable tourist resorts such as Khao Lak and, to a lesser extent, Phuket.
The physical damage will be relatively easy to restore. The real fall-out, to borrow an expression from the Hiroshima tragedy, is the effect on tourist confidence. Even seasoned travellers cannot avoid a twinge of nervousness on arriving at a holiday resort whose name was synonymous with disaster just a short time ago.
But when you sit down at your beachside table and the waiter comes to take your order, the nervousness subsides. After all, it looks so darned peaceful out there. The sea is quiet and the scenery is drop-dead gorgeous. One feels like an intruder on the beauty of this picture-postcard setting.
A research team led by Prof John McCloskey from the University of Ulster in Coleraine has warned about the possibility of a second major earthquake in the region. The last event of comparable magnitude in South-East Asia was the volcano at Krakatoa, off the coast of Indonesia, in 1883. Even that wasn't in the same league as December's tsunami.
There is no agreed casualty figure but the final toll of dead and missing in the region was close to a third of a million. But even as we mourn the dead there is some consolation to be derived from the counter-wave of human sympathy and generosity - a benign tsunami, as it were - which swept the world in the following weeks. Just as a great wave uncovers things that lay hidden on the seabed for years, the tsunami, for all its negative and tragic consequences, also revealed unsuspected reserves of kindness and idealism in humanity itself.
It was an unexpected pleasure, during a visit to the devastated Thai resort of Khao Lak, to meet several Irish people who were giving up their free time to help the rebuilding process. Many kitchen staff in the local hotels died when the waters burst in upon them as they prepared Western-style breakfasts and buffet lunches for the guests. Now Richard Madden, from Clonee near Dungarvan, Co Waterford, is training local women to replace them. "Yesterday we had colcannon: cabbage and potatoes are cheap in this country," he says. Mr Madden, a chef at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Prague called Banditos, was holidaying in Thailand. The eight women in his class lost a total of 36 immediate family members in the disaster.
Another Irishman, Daithi Neilson from Balally in the Dublin district of Dundrum, is an electrician who has now branched out into house-building, helping to reconstruct the dwellings of local people swept away in the giant wave. And Sheera Dalton-O'Neill, from Tallaght, is teaching English to local children.But if there is charity and altruism in the wake of the tsunami, there is also a certain amount of recrimination. The earthquake and consequent flooding could hardly have been prevented, but perhaps people could have been warned to get off the beaches and take to higher ground.
At time of writing a case is being pursued in a New York court by the Tsunami Victims' Group, representing the families of several dozen European victims who claim the Thai authorities failed to issue sufficient warning of the approaching wave. The outcome could have huge consequences for the tourist industry.
One group which reportedly sensed that something was wrong and headed immediately for the higher ground was Thailand's nomadic community of sea-gypsies, the Moken or Morgan, who live on remote islands along the Andaman Coast. It is said that when the sea-gypsies observed the sea retreating to such an extent, they knew it was time to flee from "the wave that eats people". At any rate, their casualty rate is said to be very low.
The Moken depend on fishing, diving and general ocean foraging for their livelihood and each spring they hold a ceremony celebrating the sea and asking for its forgiveness. Maybe we could learn something from this remote community that has remained so close to nature.