Risk Management: Earthquake Devastation to Haiti in 2010

Risk Management: Earthquake Devastation to Haiti in 2010

Introduction

A disastrous earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale occurred close to the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, on January 12, 2010 at 4:53 P.M. Several dozens of major aftershocks followed in the after weeks, gauged between 4.2 and 6.1 in magnitude. More than 30 to 50 percent of the buildings subsided and collapsed and smashed their residents in Port-au-Prince. The nearby towns of Léogâne, Carrefour, and Jacmel among many others were also destroyed. Approximately 250,000 people were slaughtered, 250,000 were injured, 1.2 million turned out to be homeless and around 3 million were severely impacted. (Farmer, 2010) An estimated one million children either lost one parent or became orphaned. The docks, hospitals, airport control tower, schools, hotels, government buildings and entire neighborhoods and towns were minced up in Port-au-Prince. This earthquake was the most terrible natural catastrophe in the history of the Western Hemisphere over the last 200 years.

Background

The Caribbean island homeland of Haiti has a long history very disturbing and tragic earthquakes and this is why the nation is pretty much familiar with weather related tragedies. In 1751, during Haiti's French Colony era, a massive earthquake struck Port-au-Prince destroying the city completely. After that in 1770, another tremor hit the same city leaving not a single building undistorted. On 7th May 1842, a massive earthquake destroyed Cap- Haïtien situated in the north of Haiti and on August 4th, 1946, an enormous earthquake measuring magnitude 8.0 struck the country producing a Tsunami that slaughtered around 1,790 people. But the destruction didn't end here; the nation had not so far recovered from the destruction caused by the shattering storms in the year 2008 that resulted in a thousand dead and around 1 million homeless, whilst a shocking 7M tremor hit the capital city Port-au-Prince and several surrounding towns, on January 12 at 16:53 local time. The gigantic earthquake's epicenter was around 10 miles southwest from the capital city at a depth of approximately 6.2 miles. (Walker, 2010)

Methods

The biggest ever recorded earthquake devastated parts of Haiti, together with the capital, on 12th January, 2010.The damage was extremely severe and appalling. The quake cut off the communication services as well, therefore detailed information at first was hard to come by. Early reports specified that numerous buildings collapsed which has left a majority of population homeless in the streets. Aftershocks are potent enough to cause extra damages, particularly to the structures diminished by the primary large earthquake. A number of 36 aftershocks with magnitude greater than 4 and 14 with magnitude greater than 5 were experienced within a single day and they continued for many coming weeks. Other than this, rugged topography and steep slopes close to the epicenter amplified the probability for set off landslides aftershocks, which caused an additional jeopardy to the people and structures down slope from the regions that were prone to landslide.

Recovery efforts were made exceptionally complicated by the loss of infrastructure and personnel that ...