To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body it is starvation of the soul the dweller in the body.
The nature of catastrophe is after all reasonably unvarying in the way it ruins destroys wounds and devastates. But if something can be learned from the event - not least something as profound as the theory of plate tectonics - then it somehow puts the ruination into a much more positive light.