Haiti Earthquake - January 2010Why did so many people die?

http://www.dec.org.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=412

TASK 1. Shade in and name Haiti & The Dominican Republic 2. Highlight the conservative plate boundary 3. Add a title

Haiti Earthquake January 2010 Haiti – background

• Haiti is in the Caribbean and is the western third of the island of Hispaniola – joined by the Dominican Republic

• Has a population of 9 million people• Port-au-Prince is the capital with a

population of 3.5 million • It is the poorest country in the western world

– more than half the population live on less than $1 a day

Why did it happen?Causes:

• Haiti is situated along the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates

• These two plates move at about 20 mm a year, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward while the North American plate moving west.

• It is a conservative plate boundary. • This movement is not smooth and there is friction between the

North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. • Pressure builds between the two plates until it is released as an

earthquake.

What happened – the facts

• On Tuesday, Jan 12th 2010 at 4:53 p.m local time a magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti.

• The epicentre was 25km SW of Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital.

• The focus was very shallow only 13 km deep.• By 24 January there had been at least 52 aftershocks

measuring 4.5 or greater on the Richter scale

220,000 people died500 schools destroyed

300,000 had been injured

1.5 million made homeless

200,000 homes destroyed

THE FACTS

Important buildings were damaged or destroyed including the :-

• National Assembly building• Port au Prince cathedral • Main jail.• The UN headquaters • President’s Palace

Important people also died :-

- Archbishop of Port au Prince

- Politicians - The chief commissioner of

the UN

Situation made worse by the fact that :-

- Three million people live in slum conditions in Port au Prince - Haiti had a series of damaging storms the previous year- The unstable and corrupt government- Poor infra structure and urban planning non existent – hampering rescue attempts- Haiti airport only has one runway, the control tower was badly damaged- The port was also damaged so relief workers and supplies held up – took 48hrs initially- Main roads out of Port au Prince were still blocked 10 days after the earthquake - Public telephone, mobiles and internets down

• Severe shortage of Drs many died of broken limbs

• Sewage released from 400 makeshift camps a major health hazard