Chilean Earthquake Case Study

Governmental aid plays a major role in the relief process after an earthquake strikes; it should be noted that the end result of a disaster greatly depends on the action of the government facing the aftermath of the disaster. For Chile, the Chilean government responded relatively quickly to the disaster and the secondary effects following the temblor. Although looting became a major problem, the Chilean government had effective solution against the problem. By the first day of March, 10,000 Chilean troops were sent to severely damaged areas in order to recover order and peace. Furthermore, the government had declared a curfew time to restrain looters from stealing at night. On the other hand, when facing the problem of increasing post-earthquake

However, while the Chilean government made active responses to the Chile Earthquake, there was a lack of relief effort from the Haitian government. Additionally, victims of Haiti Earthquake made comments such as “The government has given us nothing, no medical services or water” (Sara Miller Llana), showing the lack of governmental aid. Notwithstanding the lack of relief efforts, Haitian government did make a wise decision in accepting external aid. In contrast, initially, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet originally rejected foreign aid with the reasoning that an assessment of needs was to be done

Chile, although rejected the offer of aid in the beginning, still made a wise choice to reconsider the offer and accept the assistance in the end. However, while there was delay in the arrival of external aid, when it did come, Chile was well-prepared in terms of organizing the assistance. Due to the fact that Chile took time to assess the needs before actually requesting for aid, the subsequent assistance came was not simply money, but more of the tangible help: 120 metric tonnes of High Energy