The killer tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004 was of frightening proportions: Some 160,000 people are already counted among the victims in Indonesia’s Aceh Province, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia, and Maldives, in Asia alone. Although this disaster is dwarfed by the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, in which some 600,000 people perished, this tsunami is perhaps the first truly “global” catastrophe.