Earthquake flattens Haiti

From the New York Times:

A fierce earthquake struck Haiti late Tuesday afternoon, causing widespread damage around the capital, leveling countless shantytown dwellings and bringing even more suffering to a nation that was already the hemisphere’s poorest and most disaster-prone.

The powerful earthquake of 7.0 magnitude rocked Haiti just before 5 p.m. Eastern time, 10 miles southwest from the densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the United States Geological Survey. But damage to the capital city of 2 million people was apparently widespread, according to reports from the scene…

Haiti, by far the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has been beset by natural disasters for most of its recent history. The island is struck by an annual series of hurricanes and is particularly vulnerable to storm-related disasters because much of its forests have been chopped down and used for fuel, leaving the country with very little tree cover. In one of its hardest hit years, 2004, Haiti was rocked by powerful Hurricane Jeanne, which caused untold destruction and killed 3,000 people.

Since 2008, the island has been struck by at least three severe hurricanes — Gustav, Hanna and Ike — that have wrought nearly a billion dollars worth of damage and killed 800 people. All of this has taken place against the backdrop of food riots, health crises and near constant government instability and upheavals.

I admit that my title is a bit snarky given the magnitude of this disaster. Nevertheless, it makes a good point that it is not the wealthiest societies that are most prone to damage and political upheaval from natural disasters, but the poorest. Climate change, for example, is already having drastic effects in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason is because since so many people on the continent are still reliant on nature for food (e.g., farmers without access to irrigation), small changes in rainfall patterns can have devastating effects on peoples’ livelihoods. I have seen evidence of this in Tanzania. That over-forestation exacerbates storm damage is another example of the link between poverty and vulnerability to natural disasters.

The New York Times has put up a useful blog on the earthquake with lots of up-to-the-minute reporting.