The Cruel Earth
The event currently afflicting Haiti right now is an incredible wake-up call for the region about the very real dangers of earthquakes, that these can occur at any time and have no season, and how preparedness, ranging from proper building codes and planning regulation to having the right emergency facilities in place, is critical. It has shown how unpredictable and devastating an earthquake can be, and, since it occured so close to home, that earthquakes aren’t remote events occuring only in the south Pacific.
But there are several elements that we need to understand, and appreciate the progress we’ve made as a nation, certainly in the 103 years since our own temblor, in January 1907, in terms of our own engineering and planning of buildings and infrastructure, and even our economy and capacity to mitigate against such a humanitarian crisis post-disaster.
As bad as things are here, Haiti is proof-positive things could be worse. There’s a reason why we have planning regulations guiding developments. There’s a reason why we have a new and revised building code, and now we have more reason than ever to enforce this. If you look at the damage, it’s from building collapses and from structural failures; it’s not from landslides or secondary natural hazards emanating from the primary earthquake.
We have a central disaster relief organization in the ODPEM. We have engrained in our culture the need for block and steel construction, a legacy learned from the 1907 quake; even squatters build with block and steel here!
But Haiti is another case altogether. It wasn’t even the worst earthquake in the Caribbean in the last 5 years – a M7.4 earthquake struck off Martinique on November 2007. But the confluence of the poor structures and poverty led to a perfect storm of suffering there.
Engineering works. 2 major cities exist on or near fault lines: San Francisco had the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 (another M7 quake, 63 dead), and Tokyo had a M7.1 quake just last August (no casualties, and a baseball game continued afterwards!); Kobe, Japan was whacked with a M7.2 quake in 1995, with 6400 dead). Compare that to the 100,000+ dead in Haiti. Same magnitude or worse earthquake in all cases, the only difference is engineering.
The world now needs to come together, first to help Haiti right now, then move on in helping Haiti rebuild itself properly. Enough of the political upheavals there and making excuses for not helping them, or, at best, half-hearted efforts at assisting them.
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18 Responses to “The Cruel Earth”
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I’ve got some Haiti earthquake tragedy news to share. God, this has been a terrible disater. I’d been keeping an eye on what’s been going on because I had family there. Since the 13th, I’d been waiting to hear when the aid and relief I knew we could offer would be released and given to the Haitian community to treat the Haiti native people and tourists there. To keep other people informed because I was lacking a good source of information rather than the same videos of reporters and 30 second videos on CNN and my local news I built a website from the ground up for it and got it fully working yesterday. For more details on the tragedy please just follow the URL attached to my comment. This really has been a tragedy in Haiti and those that want or need to know more should check it out. I’ve listed some resources whereby people can donate as well. God bless and please keep the people in Haiti in your prayers and hope for their survival or do more than hope, help them.
I love haiti! I see hope and smile on so many faces today!
Why do you call the Earth cruel? When I look at the pictures there is very little steel in the buildings.
Further, if there is such high concentration of people in each (shanty)town you are bound to have a much higher toll in the event of catastrophe. Note that hundreds of earthquakes occur each year but few cause devastation.
Earth not cruel at all.
wow go figure
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Do you really think this is true?
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The government is to blame, though, just not in the way that you think. Property rights in Haiti are nearly non-existent, which makes it impossible for anyone to own a business, and create enough capital to build anything more complicated than an a-frame shack. The actions of the Haitian government, and governments around the world, have practically guaranteed the continued poverty of Haiti.
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I agree! If they had better infrastructure, the damage would have been less and many lives would have been saved.
well i’m sure some of it is natural ,but i saw a program on 1 of those learning channels,countries today have these special low-frequency,antennas,which emit radiowaves at the ionisphere and they bounce back to earth and also creat a bubble in the ionisphere…well these waves create a change a change in the jet streams and with these radio waves ,they can create floods-tsunamis-earthquakes-hurricaines-tornadoes-droughts..and they can do it all over the world..at any time…and they cannot trace which country is doing it…russia was supposed to have,had the first antenna,back in 1989,but now there are 145 of them,all across the world,our government is getting so good at using them..that they are now using them to conjur up elrctric storms,during air-to-air military strikes in order to play havoc on the computer systems of today’s military equipment..!..but all our diplomats care about is dead-beat-dads-pedophiles-and raising taxes..!..good luck to all of us poor/common americans.
I was paraphrasing Barack Obama’s words. Death is cruel.
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