If we needed an event to remind us of the great danger that could arise from natural disasters, then the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 played the role well. The tragedy of the Asian earthquake, and the Indian Ocean tsunami that followed it, unfolded over the period of Christmas 2004. Viewers watched in horror as television screens across the world broadcast stark images of death and destruction as a tsunami struck the coastlines of the Indian Ocean. This was real. This was disaster brought into the living room. The response from the public was immediate and unstinting. But there was something else here as well. People had witnessed the raw power of nature at its destructive worst, and there was a thirst for understanding how it had happened.