Less than 24 hours ago, a massive earthquake registering over 7.0 (some scientists supposedly have evidence of up to 10.0) devastated the Caribbean nation of Haiti. It is the strongest earthquake to rock this nation in over 200 years.
The Haitian presidential palace, arguably one of the strongest structures on the island, in ruins
Haitian President René Préval stated, “Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.” So ill-prepared is a country like Haiti for an event like this. As one of the poorest nations in the world, Haiti does not have the economic resources to build enough safety and crisis contingency into their societal structure. Preliminary reports suspect massive human casualties into the thousands as well as the near-flattening of towns and the capital city of Port-au-Prince.
As this crisis currently unfolds, I find it incredibly troublesome that the degree of eventual human casualty and suffering in Haiti could have been significantly limited. The majority of earthquake deaths are the result of building collapse and the lack of access to clean drinking water. If only Haiti had the money and resources to build stronger buildings, homes, & schools and lay a more robust social framework. But that was then. Right now, it is a race against time to find and extract survivors from the collapsed buildings and make sure clean water and medical aid can be administered asap. As we speak, many first world nations are deploying relief to aid Haiti in it’s time of need.
