Budget Cuts and the Next Earthquake

The Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power-plant crisis were merely the latest recent events to remind us of the dangers posed by natural and manmade disasters. Before them were the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the earthquakes in New Zealand. They all underscore the need to develop prevention technologies-and yet Washington, in its frenzy over budget-cutting, seems not to have noticed.