Haitian earthquake 2010

On January 12, 2010, a huge number of lives experienced a devastating massive earthquake that severely tremored
Haiti and was less experienced by the people of the Dominican Republic as well as in parts of nearby Cuba, Jamaica,
and Puerto Rico. The tremor was felt at 4:53 pm about 25 km southwest of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The
initial shock recorded a magnitude of 7.0 and was followed by aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.9, and 5.5 and struck
another one with a magnitude of 5.9 on January 20 at the town of Petit Goave about 55 km west of Port-au-Prince
and at least 52 were recorded aftershocks over the next two weeks. This catastrophe left them with a large death toll
of 300,00 based on the Haitian government’s official count yet other estimates were considerably small and 1.5
million became homeless during the 35-second-long tremor. Since the 18th century, Haiti had not experienced such
an enormity of an earthquake, the last recorded was with a magnitude of 6.9 in 1984 while the Dominican Republic
in 1946 with a magnitude of 8.0. The geologists then concluded the root cause of this disaster. The majority of
Hispaniola Island, which Haiti and the Dominican Republic share, is situated between the North American and
Caribbean tectonic plates. The Gonâve microplate, a piece of the North American Plate on which Haiti is located, and
the Caribbean Plate are divided by a transform boundary called the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. The
Caribbean tectonic plate is eastward along the EPG. Most likely, Port-au-Prince, Haiti ’s capital, almost lies on
top of this fault line. This disaster caused 200,000-300,00 deaths, 300,000 injured, 1.3 million people
displaced, 97,294 destroyed houses, and 188,383 damaged in the Port-au-Prince area yet some estimates stated
fewer data counts.

If only they had enough resources to improve their infrastructure for safer shelter to provide protection, the death
tolls, injuries, damages, and devastation might have been reduced given that seismologists had previously warned
them of the dangers they might soon face due to their location close to the active tectonic plates. Yet poverty is also
an existing predominant issue in the country. Additionally, as a result of it, even the emergency services were
unprepared to manage such a natural disaster. They could have not suff ered tremendously and had that
extremely huge number of fataliti es despite the naturally occurring catastrophe.

Even right aft er that deplorable challenge to the lives of the people of Haiti , they were even more
facing so much more than just the aft ermath of the earthquake. Months later, the cholera epidemic
began in

October 2010, the same year the tremor was experienced. It began to aff ect the lives of the people
around the Arti bonite River which is their major source of drinking water turns out to be
contaminated. Lack of knowledge of proper sanitati on, the safety of food preparati on, and water safety
really play a vital role in the lives of the people. Risks may occur that would lead to such consequences.
Life would be manageable if people were knowledgeable enough about what possibiliti es the world
might encounter in the near future. We should invest in deepening our knowledge of disaster
educati on to provide us with knowledge of how to take acti on and reduce our vulnerabiliti es to it may
it be before, during, or even aft er the disaster.

Nothing is permanent in this world, not even our lives. Yet if educati on is bounded onto us, we can
manage to survive every catastrophe that might come our way. Awareness and preventi on can cut
down on the loss of lives of many people that’s why it is important for us to invest in the foundati on of
our safety and to help reduce the impacts of disaster on communiti es.