Haiti earthquake

Question 1

Where and when did it happen

Answer 1

• Port au Prince, Haiti, Caribbean
• 12th January 2010
• Population: 10 million people
• One of the poorest countries in the world

Question 2

Nature of hazard

Answer 2

• Magnitude 7 earthquake
• Conservative boundary
• Caribbean plate sliding past the North American plate.
• Re-activated a fault line running directly under the capital Port-au-Prince
• Epicentre was 25 km west of Port-au-Prince

Question 3

Case study

Answer 3

GDP per Capita  - 669.19 USD
GDP - 6.623 billion USD
Life Expectancy - 61.87 years 
HDI - 0.483
Literacy rate - 60%
DTM - Stage 2

Question 4

Primary social impacts

Answer 4

• Killed 250,000 people
• Left over a million homeless
• People afraid to go into their houses after earthquake
• People buried underneath rubble
• Close to 90 thousand rescued, just 132 saved
• Prisons broke open with 4000 criminals escaping
• Violence broke out - social unrest, looting and rape were all reported

Question 5

Primary environmental impacts

Answer 5

• Sea levels in local areas changed, with some parts of the land sinking below the sea
• The roads were littered with cracks and fault lines

Question 6

Primary economic impacts

Answer 6

• People having to buy shelter materials from the black market when they should be free
• Worst affected were those living under the poverty line
• 1 in 3 buildings collapsed
• The port was destroyed
• It is estimated the 1 in 5 jobs were lost as a result of the quake

Question 7

Primary political impacts

Answer 7

• Haiti needed international aid to survive
• UN troops took hours to arrive to help
• Buildings collapsed

Question 8

Secondary social impacts

Answer 8

• Disease
• Cholera, typhoid and other illness broke out
• People had to live in temporary shelters - 1 million
• 80 patients per day at the cholera clinic
• 7,000 died from cholera
• 80,000 people evicted from camps

Question 9

Secondary environmental impacts

Answer 9

• Sewage spill, flowed right into the river,

Question 10

Secondary political impacts

Answer 10

• Violence and protests over new election after everything that had happened
• Large parts of this impoverished nation where damage

Question 11

Secondary economic impacts

Answer 11

• The clothing industry, which accounts for two-thirds of Haiti’s exports, reported structural damage at manufacturing facilities.

Question 12

Short term responses

Answer 12

• 12 hours after earthquake, only one plane of support
• President set up camps in his garden
• Help from outside Haiti was slow
• Only 1 ambulance delivering medical aid: Ralph

Question 13

Long term responses

Answer 13

• Up to 1 million people living in tents in refugee camps a year later
• People were relocated an hour away from the capital
• No electricity or water in shelters
• Shelters weren’t storm proof
• Water at shelters wasn’t drinking water - it was hard to distribute enough drinking water for all of the people staying in the shelters
• MercyCall - arranged $45million for Haiti relief but only spent a 3rd of that money
• Response to cholera was weak- only attempts at helping those who are sick, not solving the problem of poor sanitation

Question 14

Long term responses 3 months on

Answer 14

• Cities not rebuilt 2 years later
• 3 months after the earthquake, there wasn’t enough shelter to go around
• People staying in camps for too long - landowners want them evicted, this caused NGOs to withdraw services
• Representatives of NGOs refused to talk to press after discussion over slow withdrawal
• Instead of managing camps, people had to be moved