BRITAIN is fortunate not to be situated near the unpredictable tectonic plates that cause catastrophes such as the Asian earthquake.

That's why such events are difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend.

Plane crashes, disasters at sea and terrorism are all within the scope of our imagination. But the earth swallowing entire countries is, for most of us, a completely alien concept.

Nevertheless, we ask you today to pause for a moment and imagine the full horror of the cataclysm that has engulfed Kashmir.

Of course, some of our readers will have no difficulty in doing this. We have in mind the 1,000 Worcester residents who are at this moment anxiously waiting for news of loved ones.

As the death toll mounts, there will be many households across the Faithful City today enduring the agonies of uncertaintly. Our thoughts are with them in their time of trial.

But as the days unfold, relief efforts - spearheaded nationally and locally - will undoubtedly start to gather momentum. This newspaper therefore requests that you support them.

For we live on a shrinking planet, a global village. As the 16th-Century poet John Donne wrote:

"No man is an island, entire of itself... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Four hundred years of troubled human history later, these words ring just as true.