In March 2011 the eyes of the world turned to the Pacific, where an earthquake and tsunami devastated cities along Japan's northern coasts only weeks after a major earthquake caused billions of dollars in damages in Christchurch, New Zealand. At the same time, Haiti was still reeling from the January 2010 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and the airline industry was still recovering from the 2010 eruption of a volcano in Iceland that sent clouds of ash billowing across Europe, disrupting global air travel for weeks.