A case study of a natural hazard – the Haïti Earthquake in the
Caribbean (LEDC) Where? The earthquake happened in Haïti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Haïti is an old French colony on the Island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. It owes its existence to subduction of the North American plate under the Caribbean plate. Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haïti was the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Over the past decade, it has been hit by no less than 20 large-scale natural disasters. The 2010 earthquake exposed just how vulnerable it had become. Why?
Port au Prince is on a fault line running off the Puerto Rico Trench,
where the North American Plate is sliding under the Caribbean plate.
The fault line is a strike slip fault,
the Caribbean
Plate south of the fault line was sliding east and the smaller Gonvave
Platelet north of the fault was sliding west.
There were many aftershocks after the main event.
When?
January 12th 2010
Background
|
Haïti
Development indicators – FACT FILE
GDP -
$1,200 per person, 207th in the world
GDP growth rate 2010
–
MINUS 5.6%
HDI (Human
Development Index) -
0.404, 145th in the world
Population -
9.7 Million
Population below
poverty line -
80% |
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Responses
Many countries responded to appeals for aid, pledging funds and
dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel.
Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport
facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the
earthquake, which slowed rescue and aid efforts. There was much
confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems
with prioritisation of flights further complicated early relief work.
Port-au-Prince's morgues were quickly overwhelmed with many
tens of thousands of bodies having to be buried in mass graves.
As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation
became priorities.
Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid
workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed.
Management after the
quake.
The US raised $48million to help Haiti recover after the earthquake.
The EU gave $330 million and the World Bank waived the
countries debt repayments for 5 years. The Senegalese offered land in
Senegal to any Haitians who wanted it!
6 months after the quake, 98% of the rubble remained not
cleared, some still blocking vital access roads.
The number of people in relief camps of tents and tarps since the
quake was 1.6 million, and almost no transitional housing had been
built.
Most of the camps had no electricity, running water, or sewage
disposal, and the tents were beginning to fall apart. Crime in the camps
was widespread, especially against women and girls. Between 23 major
charities, $1.1 billion had been collected for Haiti for relief efforts,
but only two percent of the money had been released One year after the
earthquake 1 million people remained displaced, 6 months after the quake
98% of the rubble was still where it fell.
These have grave consequences for the long term development of
Haïti. Aid
The Dominican Republic which neighbours Haiti
offered support and accepted some refugees. Medicin San frontiers, a
charity, tried to help casualties whilst the USA took charge of trying
to coordinate Aid distribution.
|
||||||||||||||
Think about it |
||||||||||||||
Coolgeography.co.uk by Rob Gamesby is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. |