Haiti 2010 Earthquake

Question 1

Formation and Magnitude? (Date, mag, epicentre, focus and plates)

Answer 1

• 12th January 2010
• Magnitude 7 on Richter Scale
• Epicentre 16 miles west of capital Port-au-Prince
• Shallow focus only 5 miles deep
• North American and Caribbean plates (conservative boundary)

Question 2

Key stat in terms of mag 7?

Answer 2

5 times more deadly than any other magnitude 7 earthquake.

Question 3

Vulnerability?

Answer 3

• Poor quality infrastructure
• LIC with average GNI per capita of $766 (poorest country in NH)
• 3 million live in capital city with majority in slum conditions
• geographically isolated as remote island so hard to receive aid

Question 4

Primary impacts?

Answer 4

• 230,000 deaths
• 300,000 injured
• 250,000 houses destroyed
• main prison damaged so 4000 inmates escaped

Question 5

Secondary impacts?

Answer 5

• 52 aftershocks of magnitude 4
• 1.3 million made homeless
• 1 in 5 jobs lost
• Worst cholera outbreak in recent history with 820,000 cases and over 10,000 deaths
• 500,000 still homeless when rainy season began in march
• over 32,000 still living in camps 15 years later

Question 6

Short term responses?

Answer 6

• $13.5 billion pledged as aid but only $6 million reached the public
• 810,000 placed in aid camps
• 4.3 million provided with food in following weeks as 1/3 lost all food supplies

Question 7

Long term responses?

Answer 7

• NGOs such as habitat for humanity trained 6,600 in construction skills e.g. flexible bamboo
• Seismometers installed to improve monitoring and predication
• Support for unemployed people via cash for work schemes as 70% became unemployed

Question 8

Comparison with Christchurch? (2011)

Answer 8

• 185 dead in Christchurch, 230,000 dead in Haiti
• 6,660 injured in Christchurch, 300,000 injured in Haiti
• 100,000 properties damaged, 250,000 damaged in Haiti
• $52 billion damage cost in Christchurch, $7.8 billion damage costs (120% of GDP in 2009)
• magnitude 6.3 in Christchurch, magnitude 7 in Haiti

Question 9

Japan? 2011

Answer 9

• magnitude 9 with 40m tsunami but 15,900 deaths in comparison
• due to better warnings and defences as better developed