Well, this puts things into perspective, doesn’t it? We moan and groan, we rush around and complain, we wipe our brow at the thought of all the things that we have had to prepare for Christmas and still have to get ready for the year’s end, and then, while we’re watching L-Istrina and wondering whether to push the buttons for Lm5 or for Lm10, and whether to wait until the car comes up for lottery, the largest tsunami on record strikes in the Indian Ocean.

Before we know it, the death toll has risen to 70,000 and counting, the economy is wiped out in the island resorts of the region, the orphaned children of tourists are left wandering bewildered, there is the risk of disease from bloated bodies that cannot be buried quickly enough, the world aid machine is flying out tonnes of food, blankets and fresh water and armies of aid workers, and we thank God that we are not among the dead or the surviving bereft.

At least, some of us thank God. I don’t. Thanking God for sparing oneself implies that He chose to cause suffering to others instead, and that is an ugly thought more in keeping with the vengeful and capricious Yahweh of the Old Testament. The temptation at times like this is to give in to the belief that there is no God at all, for these are the cataclysmic events that sorely test faith even if one has suffered no loss. Seeing it happen, and the dreadful suffering it has left in its wake, is more than enough.

Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Thailand, India, the Maldives, Indonesia and even Somalia on the African coast have been hit by this natural disaster, the worst in living memory. The United Nations are preparing for the greatest relief effort ever. The Vatican has given $6 million and called on Catholics the world over to contribute to the relief fund in money or in kind.

Though the disaster has occurred on the other side of the planet, it is impossible to ignore it, as we might have done some years ago, feeling that it is far removed from the reality of our lives. It is extremely difficult to grasp the full reality of what has happened – even those trying to cope with the results cannot describe the scale of the horror – there is a “human link” with Europe that has fired up our interest.

Many of those who have died were tourists from European countries. Thousands of other Europeans are still there, many of them unable to contact their families. There were 151 Maltese in the region when the tsunami struck and only one remains unaccounted for. It is perhaps shameful that, had our interest not been piqued by the presence of our compatriots at the epicentre of the catastrophe, we might have brushed the whole thing aside and only taken the most passing interest before starting again with our complaints about the amount of shopping we have to do and the piles of papers on our desks.

* * *

The mass tragedy conceals within it many tens of thousands of personal tragedies and much, much deep sorrow. Those of you who saw the front page story on yesterday’s edition of this newspaper will have been deeply affected by it, as I was. The photograph (reproduced on this page) was of a seven-year-old Swedish boy holding up a piece of paper on which somebody had scribbled hastily: Karl. Parents and two brothers missing.

He had been found alone and in shock when the waters subsided. Somehow, he had survived when a huge wall of water flooded the hotel room in which he was with his brothers, aged five and two, carrying him away and presumably drowning the other two and their parents, who were outside.

One minute that small boy was on holiday for Christmas in an island paradise, with his parents and brothers. The next minute, he is a confused and traumatised orphan in hell, even his siblings gone, and aid workers are reduced to releasing his photograph to the international media in the hope that some relative in Sweden will lay claim to him.

Now this is a story that clutches at our heart far more than the sight of hundreds of dead bodies and their mourning families in India – not because of race, creed or colour (we are more similar in colouring, after all, to Indians than we are to ash-blonde Swedes), but because, while we cannot relate to daily life in that part of the world, we can certainly relate to the idea of going on holiday and having a young family of five reduced to a single shocked orphan. I wonder what will become of seven-year-old Karl.

He is of an age when the trauma will have permanent effects.

* * *

They say that when you know you are about to die, suddenly and without warning, your life flashes before your eyes. I doubt this. When people are dead, they cannot very well report back as to their thoughts immediately before their unexpected demise, so it is idle speculation. Perhaps it is derived from the fact that when people are dying slowly in bed, their mind drifts back over their life and they relive crucial scenes and remember those who were important to them in their early years.

But not with sudden death – I don’t think so. When people know that death is an immediate and unexpected certainty, I think what they are most likely to feel is a mixture of panic and perspective. Those who know that they will be leaving small children alone and unprotected will almost certainly feel terrible panic and fear for what will become of them, rather than fear for themselves, but the over-riding feeling in a situation like this just has to be of sudden, clear-headed perspective.

If we are washed away by a giant tidal wave, or sitting in a car with failed brakes and heading for a sheer drop down a mountainside, or even in a plane that is about to crash, far from seeming crucially important, the things that we build our lives around and work so hard to maintain must fade away completely.

If you know you are going to be dead and gone in two minutes, nothing is important any more. Everything that was all-consuming suddenly becomes utterly meaningless.

If we could laugh in the face of impending death, I think that is one moment when we would laugh at our silly selves, having wasted so much of our precious lives.

* * *

How very difficult it is, with news pouring in about death and disaster of this magnitude, to come to terms with the small-minded reality of what counts as important in Malta. The price of a Maltese loaf increased by two cents this week, and it was a major news item in the weekend newspapers.

Fortunately, the death of thousands in the Indian Ocean wiped it off the front pages on Monday, as there it would most certainly have been otherwise. To a certain extent, the situation is much improved over that of just a few years ago, when the front page lead story would have been Maltese loaf goes up by 2c, followed by the secondary headline 70,000 die in Indian Ocean catastrophe.

* * *

If the people of Malta can afford to give Lm800,000 to charity in one day, then they can afford an extra 2c for a loaf of bread. In any case, they shouldn’t be eating it. Our children and women are the fattest in the European league tables (though we pale into insignificance next to the Americans) and our men are following not far behind. In this situation, cramming our mouths with more and more Maltese loaf is the last thing we need.

It should be a treat, like cake and biscuits.