Short Essay On Haiti Earthquake

Haiti is one of LEDCs and the 145th poorest country where more than 70% of people were living with less than $2 per day. About 86% of people in Port au Prince where the earthquake hit lived in slums that are poorly built and very dense. Haiti is located on the boundary of the Caribbean and North American plates. Haiti is part of a large Caribbean island called Hispaniola. It is located next to Dominican Republic, which covers over half of the island.

Haiti lied on the boundary of the Caribbean and North American plates. They were conservative plates and the movement within plates was not smooth. As they slide, there was friction between two plates and the pressure was built up until it was released as an earthquake. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti at 4:53 pm on 12th January

Over 220,000 died and 300,000 people were injured. This earthquake made 1.3 million people homeless and destroyed 293,383 houses. Some of hospitals were collapsed which made people hard to aid themselves and shortage of doctors. As the buildings in Port au Prince were in very poor condition that were non-resistant for earthquake, many commercial buildings collapsed and therefore businesses in Haiti destroyed. Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport, only airport in Haiti, was unusable due to damage in control tower and runway and ports like Port-au-Prince seaport were also unusable due to falls of container cranes. 60% of government buildings such as Supreme court, the Natioanl Assembly and National Palace were severely damaged. Around 4,000 people who were imprisoned in the Prison Civile de Port-au-Prince escaped during the earthquake. Secondary impacts were the lack of food, homelessness and landslides caused by liquidation. There was a cholera outburst due to the lack of access to clean water and this killed over 8.,231 people. Also many people lost most of their properties due to increase of theft, drug dealing and other