Greetings and welcome to this special edition of Denison Forum's Daily Article podcast,

titled The Latest on the Russian Earthquake and the Pacific tsunamis.

I'm Chris Elkins' narrator, voicing today's special edition daily article written by

cultural theologian, Dr. Jim Denison.

One of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded struck yesterday in Russia's far east,

triggering tsunami waves in Hawaii and Japan, and prompting warnings and evacuations

across the Pacific. The 8.8 magnitude earthquake off Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula ranks among the six strongest on record.

Such quakes are capable of producing deadly tsunamis.

Accordingly, nearly 2 million people were asked to evacuate in Japan and Russia's Kyrill Islands in the Pacific.

Hawaii was braced for the most severe impact, but the alert level

there was downgraded to a tsunami advisory just before 5 a.m. Eastern time, allowing residents to

return to their homes. There were reports of flooding on the big island, but no reports of widespread

damage. Other alerts were issued for the California coast, Alaska and Peru, as well as in

China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Mexico. Such concern is warranted. A tsunami in 2004 caused

230,000 deaths, and a 2011 tsunami caused $243 billion in damage. At this writing, casualties from today's earthquake and

tsunamis have not yet been reported. If, in fact, casualties are not high, we will obviously

have cause for gratitude. But in that case, there would be a cloud with this silver lining.

The more we are warned about natural disasters that do not come to pass,

the more desensitized we can become to such warnings and thus unprepared when a real crisis strikes.

For example, an emergency alert in 2018 warned Hawaiians,

ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii seek immediate shelter.

This is not a drill.

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