Why was the Haitian earthquake so deadly? The Haitian earthquake was so deadly due to both physical and internal reasons. It qualified as a disaster and (not just a hazard event) because the destruction that the earthquake left in its wake was beyond the scope of being dealt with inside Haiti. Overall, the earthquake was so devastating for three main reasons: the characteristics of the earthquake, Haiti’s location, and Haiti’s poor risk mitigation. The Haitian earthquake itself was very strong; it registered a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale at the epicentre. Because the epicentre was close to the capital, Port-­‐au-­‐Prince, the damage was made more severe (than if it had been farther away) because the impact of an earthquake decreases the farther away the location is from the epicentre. The time at which it occurred, 16:53 local time, also contributed to the damage that was done. Many people would be commuting back to their homes at this time, and the transportation systems would have been busy. This means that families would have been separated because it was during rush hour, and with parents unable to look out for their children, the survival rate would decrease overall. The aftershocks that followed exacerbated the situation, demolishing the newly weakened infrastructure. The aftershocks would not have been so detrimental if Haiti’s buildings had been constructed in a way that made them earthquake-­‐proof. Unfortunately, the consequence of Haiti’s poor risk mitigation was that the majority of the buildings were in no condition to withstand a 7.0 earthquake, and those that hadn’t collapsed were soon destroyed by the aftershocks. The aftershocks themselves were not particularly strong, but the weak infrastructure was what made the damage so substantial. Another factor that contributed to the damage done to Haiti was her location. Haiti is situation near the plate boundary between the North American and Caribbean plate, and three fault lines cross the nation. This means that Haiti is very susceptible to damage in the case of an earthqake, and this one was not an exception. Haiti is also situated in an area frequently hit by hurricanes (as shown in the image above); she was hit by three in 2008. The continuous stream of hurricanes that hit Haiti weaken the nation’s economy further because hazard events require funds for the nation to recover. Haiti would be forced to direct money that had been meant for developing the nation further towards dealing with the damage done by the hazard event. Thus, using money to improve Haiti’s social and economic indicators would become an opportunity cost as it becomes the second best choice in the face of a natural disaster. This helps to explain why Haiti’s risk mitigation is so weak; she simply did not have the resources to improve it because of more urgent needs. As mentioned earlier, Haiti’s poor risk mitigation further intensified the impacts of the already dangerous earthquake. Risk mitigation refers to the measures that a country’s government takes to lessen the intensity of a hazard when it occurs. The two main components of risk mitigation are education and construction. Straightaway, it is clear that Haiti would have problems with the education component because of her Less Economically Developed Country status. Haiti has a literacy rate of 52.9%, meaning that roughly half of her people don’t attend/haven’t attended school. It is plain that there is disparity in the nation between the richer citizens and the poorer citizens, and that the poorer citizens do not have access to the education that the richer people can enjoy. This means that even if the education part of risk mitigation was covered in schools, the knowlege wouldn’t reach half of Haiti’s population. Therefore, in order to Haiti to successfully carry out the education portion of risk mitigation, she needs to get more children to attend schools. A second problem is that Haiti has very lenient building codes that aren’t appropriate for an earthquake. These building codes allowed for poorly constructed buildings (such as those found in shanty towns) to spring up, and people living in those areas were had a high vulnerability level in the earthquake (because the buildings would collapse). It does not matter if some people had the means and the resources by which to build buildings made to withstand earthquakes; the unequal allocation of those means and resources among the people would cause problems for the nation overall in recovering from the damage done by the earthquake. The Haitian earthquake was also deadly due to Haiti’s history and the condition that it had left the nation in. A country’s history plays a great part in the nation’s economic situation, and in Haiti’s case, there had been many events to set back her development. Although the nation initially started out as the richest colony in America, Haiti went into debt early and started her descent towards becoming the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Government conflicts – including violent coups and dictatorial military leadership – and economic changes – such as reduced trade tariffs that put local farmers out of business – soon followed, plunging Haiti even further into hardship. With finances focused on (alleviating) these issues, the unstable governments were unable to focus on improving Haiti’s risk mitigation, much less her LEDC status. The same natural disasters affect countries differently depending on the resources that they have access to, and Haiti is one of the nations who don’t have access to enough resources for an adequate risk mitigation or quick recovery to be possible. The earthquake would also have been dangerous in other countries, but Haiti’s poor risk mitigation magnified the damage that was done.