Case Study: Haiti 2010 earthquake
- Created by: sxshx05
- Created on: 28-04-22 12:24
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- Haiti 2010 earthquake
- Factors increasing vulnerability
- Poor & unregulated building codes - little earthquake resistance
- Only 33% had access to clean tap water
- Poorest country in western hemisphere - 70% live on < $2 a day
- Lack of education on what to do in response to an earthquake
- Long history of ineffectual/unstable governments
- High population density
- Location & geography of Haiti
- Lies on a lateral slip plate boundary
- Tropic of Cancer
- Caribbean Sea
- Port-au-Prince built on and around steep slopes making buildings more prone to collapse due to mass movement
- Very faulted limestone makes ideal conditions for landslides as a result of tectonic activity
- About the earthquake
- Magnitude 7.0 on Richter scale
- Quite shallow with only a 13km focus
- Epicentre 25km SW of Port-au-Prince
- Impacts
- Short term
- Affected over 3.5 million people
- Initial death toll of 220,000 - however more likely 316,000
- 1.6 million left homeless
- 300,000 injured
- 105,000 homes destroyed with another 190,000 badly damgaed
- Underwater landslides triggered a 3m high tsunami
- 60% of government/administritave buildings destroyed & 25% civil servants killed
- 19 million m3 of rubble left in Port-au-Prince
- Long term
- $8.5 billion dollar damage to Haiti's economy - 5.1% contraction
- In 2018 there were still 1.5 million people living in refugee camps.
- Country's small GDP is spent on continually recovering from natural disasters instead of improving social/economic development
- A result of this is a low literacy rate (61%) & low life expectancy (62 years)
- Set the country back 125 years in development
- Short term
- Responses
- NGOs
- 'Architects for humanity' set up Haiti rebuilding centre in Port-au-Prince intending to rebuild communications, centres of education, hospitals & housing designed to withsatnd future earthquakes
- International Health Partnership has been sending doctors & nurses since 2010 to deal with cholera epidemic
- Majority of donations was from global public, however due to lack of media coverage its been deemed to little.
- Intergovernmental Organisations
- The UN refugee fund donated $21million in 2015 to help aid with the cholera epidemic
- Foreign Aid
- Any outstanding international debt was cancelled by donor countries in early 2010 (however has risen to $400 million since)
- NGOs
- Other hazards that have worsened the situation
- Cholera epidemic
- Hurricane Matthew
- Haiti has ideal conditions for hurricane formation: trade winds influenced by Coriolis effect carry moisture over Atlantic to tropics where warm water (28°) causes air to rise & the formation of a very low pressure zone leading to a hurricane.
- Factors increasing vulnerability
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