Managua, Nicaragua, in 1972 and Mexico City in 1985 both suffered major earthquakes after which the corrupt and venal government response prompted long-term change. The Somoza dictatorship seized more powers in the wake of the Nicaraguan disaster, but in so doing it strengthened the case for the Sandinista revolution that swept it away later in the decade. In the wake of the quake in the Mexican capital, made worse by corruption in the enforcement of building codes beforehand and in the distribution of relief and rescuing the trapped afterward, public dissatisfaction with the one-party government boiled over. (In one instance, the police provided support for a sweatshop owner who wanted to rescue his equipment from a collapsed building but not the seamstresses trapped inside; this concern for property and profit over human life is often one of the flash points for ensuing political conflict.) A seamstresses’ union, a housing rights movement for the displaced and challenges to one-party rule were among the results.

Disasters test regimes. Some fail the test. Incompetence, indifference and self-interest are easy to see in the stark light of an emergency. People whose lives have been thrown into turmoil are no longer cautious or deferential, and no longer accept the inevitability of a status quo that is already in disarray. Things that seemed impossible have already happened — in our case, much of the economy has shut down, much of the population has suspended its ordinary activities, and sweeping new social programs (canceling student debt, for example) suddenly seem within reach.