Research Paper On Haiti Earthquake

Haiti got struck by a devastating magnitude 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 14, 2010 around 4:53pm. Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince which is shown in Figure1, which is about 15 miles from the earthquakes epicenter suffered widespread devastation (history.com). After the earthquake there were 59 aftershocks that were reported to be part of the initial earthquake. The aftershocks were just as devastating as the earthquake itself, ranging anywhere from a 4.2 to 5.9 magnitude in strength. Debris and collapsed buildings seemed to cover the roads at some places even completely blocking the roads. Before the earthquake struck, Haiti was already considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The earthquake left Haiti anywhere between 7 to 14 billion dollars in damages. Even before the earthquake Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere (history.com). The government of Haiti stated that the earthquake left approximately more than 316,000 dead or missing, 300,000 injured, and over 1.3 million homeless (history.com). Haiti takes up one third of the island of Hispaniola, and is located on the Northeast Caribbean with Puerto Rico to the East and Jamaica and Cuba to the West. Before the earthquake Haiti had a population of approximately 9.6 million. Before the earthquake Haiti had seen four …show more content…
1.3 million people remained homeless 10 months after the earthquake and the estimated losses exceeded the gross domestic product of the country. Geological and geotechnical conditions are close to the center area which is made up of artificial fills and topographic features amongst other things that caused ground motion amplification. The earthquake demonstrated not only that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with their weak building structures that collapsed in seconds but also the environmental degradation and also the weakness of its