RE - Haiti Earthquake Flashcards
When was the Haiti earthquake?
4:35pm 12th January 2010
What caused the earthquake?
- Stress built along the conservative plate boundary
- Between the North American and Caribbean plates
What was reading on the Richter Scale?
7
Was the focus deep or shallow?
Shallow - this meant it caused severe shaking
Where did 80% of the population live?
In poorly constructed, high density concrete buildings
How many people were killed?
230,000
What were 5 short-term effects?
- 2 million affected
- 1.5 million made homeless
- 180,000 homes destroyed
- 19 million m3 of rubble
- 5,000 schools destroyed
What happened to everyday conveniences and communiction?
- Electricity, water, sanitation + communication were disrupted and destroyed
- Port and airport were largely destroyed -> hard to bring emergency supplies
How much did the damage cost?
$11.5 billion over 5-10 years
What were long term effects?
- Cholera killed several hundred, mainly children
- Storms and flooding (problems in camps)
- People were very poor (most earning less than $2 a day = struggling to cope)
What was the problem with homeless accommodation?
- There were over 1,100 squalid camps scattered around
- They had limited water and sanitation
- Many stayed for over a year
What were problems of responses?
- The government was unstable -> limited + chaotic search/rescue efforts
- The recovery was consequently slow
- There was a lack of doctors, hospitals and medical supplies - many died from disease
How did other countries help to rebuild Haiti?
- UN and USA provided security to keep law, order + a fair distribution of aid
- UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) raised over £100 million
What are positive outcomes of responses?
- 3/4 of damaged buildings were inspected
- 200,000 received cash and food for public use
