The MH17 tragedy is an eerie combination of the worst ingredients of a global disaster: innocent lives snuffed out, overwhelming loss and grief, the suggestion of terrorism and the threat of war.
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Chaos rules the site where 298 lives came to an abrupt and violent end. Access to the area is too difficult for those trying to investigate on behalf of grieving nations, and yet, too easy for hostile militants. The horror of MH17 is not safely tucked away in the foreign news segment of a nightly TV bulletin.
There are too many personal connections for it to be "out there". Passengers on board the flight came from nine different countries. Each person's sudden absence is touching every person they ever knew. Other connections are not relational but are the sort that remind us that it could have been anyone on that flight.
A Bendigo Dutch couple took an MH17 flight on June 13. Jim Amsing had never been in a plane before and paid special attention to the aircraft's progress across Europe. He watched the aircraft fly over the spot where the doomed plane was shot down five weeks later. It is a sobering thought, that tragedy could strike anyone at any time.
