Haiti Earthquake (2010) - developing country Flashcards
What and where is Haiti?
A country in the Caribbean
Who did Haiti become independent from and when?
France in 1804
What has Haiti suffered from over the last 200 years?
- exploitation of what and by who?
- massive violations of what and from who?
- widespread …?
- highly … society? (give an example)
- large scale …?
- what is poor here in terms of services? (give an example)
- have a high level of what?
- exploitation of its resources and people by foreign companies
- massive violations of civil rights by a succession of dictatorships
- widespread corruption
- highly polarised society
e.g. 1% of population controlling nearly half of countries wealth - large scale emigration
- poor healthcare
e.g. lethan outbreaks of contagious diseases - high level of aid dependency
What type of plate plate boundaries causes this earthquake? name them too
Conservative plate boundaries - North American & Caribbean plate boundaries
How far was the epicentre from the capital city? (name the capital city)
- what is the capital like?
24 km from Port-au-Prince
- capital is very densely populated
What magnitude was the earthquake given by the Richter scale?
Magnitude 7
How many people died?
How many people injured?
230,000 Died
More than 300,000 injured
How many were left homeless?
1.3 million
How many houses destroyed?
How many buildings damaged?
250,000 homes destroyed
30,000 buildings damaged
How many inmates escaped from prisons that were destroyed?
4,000
How deep was the earthquake? and what does this make it?
13 km (shallow)
Where did many take refuge?
- and what were these are risk of?
Many took refuge in emergency camps
At risk of:
- storms
- flooding
- contagious diseases (especially cholera)
Human causes:
- Houses built from cement= pancaked
- Rapid urbanisation= slums & high density living
- No building regulations
- Corrupt government who were inefficient
Physical causes:
- type of plate boundary?
- shallow or deep focus earthquake?
- what magnitude was given by the richter scale?
- what time of day did the earthquake occur?
- what’s the capital city build on? effect on earthquake?
- Conservative plate boundary
- Shallow focus earthquake
- Magnitude 7
- Happened early morning
- Capital city build on loose sediments= caused liquefaction
which amplified the earthquake
What public buildings were damaged badly?
Hospitals & schools
What links were damaged?
Transport & communication links
What fraction of government officials were killed?
- what else was destroyed?
- what did this cause?
- 1/4 government officials killed
- government building destroyed
- government left it in disarray
How many airports destroyed? what did this mean?
Only 1 but meant that little supplies and aid could reach areas worst affected
How much was donated from aid pledges?
- however what happened to this aid?
£12 billion
- due to the corruption of the government the aid wasn’t spent where it was needed
What did NGOs not do?
- and what did this mean?
- Did NOT keep the government in the loop
- many NGOs were present but not knowing what each organisation was doing= so some areas were ignored, mostly rural
What type of NGO relief organisations were present?
Unqualified & small-scale ones
What barrier was present and what did this mean?
- what was there none of also?
Language barrier
- no interpreters or any language skills or any previous experience working in a developing country
What was the Haitian military like?
Had little experience with dealing with such an emergency or of co-ordinating a relief effort
- so too much was left for outsiders to deal with
What happened to the aid given?
- what was it too focused on?
- so what areas were largely ignored?
Was unevenly distributed
- too focusses on emergency camps tp rural areas largely ignored
Example of an NGO that was present:
The Red Cross
What is Haiti in terms of wealth?
One of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere
Life in Haiti 5 years after the earthquake (2015):
- how much of the promised aid had been received?
- how many victims were still living in temporary shelters without electricity, plumbing or sewage?
- what was there a prolonged outbreak of? and what was it caused by?
- what should have happened by 2015?
- only half the promised aid had been received
- 500,000 victims
- prolonged outbreak of cholera caused by failure to provide proper sanitation
- Haiti’s aid programme should have moved on from emergency aid relief & construction to long-term objectives
e.g. - dealing with serious human rights abuses
- corruption
- poor governance
- poverty
What does a shallow focus earthquake cause? and why
The seismic waves have a shorter distance to travel to reach the surface
- so shaking is more intense since they hit close to the surface
