The Causes and Effects of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake

The Haiti Earthquake struck the capital of Port-au-Prince on January 12th, 2010. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.0 with its epicenter being only about 15 miles (25km) southwest of the capital and the focus only about 8 miles (13km) from the surface making its effect even greater. This earthquake caused an astonishing amount of damage, loss of life, and displacement resulting in the most fatalities from an earthquake of comparable size (Fritz, 2013, p.1463). On the day of the earthquake in 2010, Port-au-Prince had a population of about 3 million people (DesRoches et at., 2010, p. 1). Due to the significance of this earthquake this story map is going to show what Haiti was like before the earthquake, the aftermath of the earthquake, what geological processes caused the earthquake, the environmental effects/ secondary hazards resulting from the earthquake, and how Haiti is recovering in the following years after the earthquake. 

Below is a video published by ABC news on January 13th, 2010 recapping the devastating events and aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake.

Haiti was already in ruins long before the devastating earthquake in 2010 struck the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, ranking 145 out of 169 on the UN Human Development Index in 2010 (UNDP 2010). Less than 10% of the total population had access to tap water and less than one third of the population had access to electricity (UNSD 2010). Over half of the population lives on less than 1 US dollar a day and more than three quarters live on less than 2 US dollars a day (UNSD 2010). Haiti had a very poor economic system with its exports only making up about 10% of the country's total GDP along with a steadily declining agriculture sector. This is due to the fact that Haiti's environment has been strongly degraded over the years due to deforestation with only about 3% of Hatian lands being covered by trees. This combined with its very low socioeconomic status left Haiti very vulnerable to a natural disaster. As well as the fact that Haiti had very little recent history with large earthquakes leaving the country very unprepared. There was no seismic network, only one seismic hazard map that was outdated, and buildings codes that were outdated and rarely even used or enforced (DesRoches et al., 2010, p. 3). Haiti had no earthquake preparedness plans and no plans for what to do after an earthquake hit. With all of these factors in place Haiti was a prime candidate for suffering catastrophic loss and destruction when the earthquake struck in 2010. 

This magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, at 4:53pm local time and sent shock waves through the city. According to the national authorities this massive 7.0 earthquake killed over 300,000 people, injured another 300,000, and left about 1.3 million people displaced and homeless (GOH 2010). This massive quake completely destroyed about 105,000 homes while damaging another 208,000. More than 1,300 educational buildings were destroyed and more than 50 hospitals and health care centers either collapsed or were unstable. On top of all that more than 180 government buildings collapsed including most of the key government offices, and most importantly the Presidential Palace and Parliament (GOH 2010).

Many roads and bridges were also critically damaged or covered by debris along with the main port to Port-au-Prince, drastically slowing down the response and recovery for months after the quake. All this damage amounted to an estimated 60% of the nation's administrative and economic infrastructure, 80% of the educational buildings, and over 50% of the hospitals and health care buildings. The people of Haiti who were lucky enough to escape with their lives when the earthquake hit were now faced with a whole new problem. These people were left with no homes, no place to go, and no access to the basic essentials to live. They were forced to seek refuge in makeshift shelters and "Tent Cities" where they waited for forign aid to come. 

The country of Haiti was not prepared for the devastating 7.0 earthquake that struck its capital city, Port-au-Prince, on January 12th, 2010. Most of the buildings in Haiti were built on slopes without proper foundations, insufficient steel, and improper building practices (Watkins 2010). Haiti did not even have a national building code and the building codes they did have were very laid back and not heavily enforced (Joyce, 2010). 

The strongest buildings in Haiti were built out of reinforced concrete and even those buildings were not built up to standard to handle a vertical load let alone the side-to-side shaking created by an earthquake (Joyce, 2010). Yet, the people living in those structures were the lucky ones because most of the buildings in Haiti were made out of unreinforced brick, block, or concrete. The buildings that were made out of unreinforced concrete were made with a lack of cement and very low quality concrete with a high amount of water in the mix creating air pockets. These concrete walls were not really supporting the load of the house, there were typically only a few concrete columns holding up the entire structure (Shnizai, 2011, p. 9). These building practices can be tied to the very high poverty rate that Haiti sufferers from. Due to the high poverty rate many people build what they want and how they want and no one can tell them otherwise. 

The 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti and its capital, Port-au-Prince, is a result from the Carribean tectonic plate and the North American plate sliding past each other in the east- west direction. This tectonic boundary is a transform plate boundary and the fault is known as a strike-slip fault where a very high amount of tension builds up over time and once it gets to be too much, the tension releases and the plates slide causing a tremendous amount of energy to be released. This release of energy is known as an earthquake, and the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti gave the country no chance to survive.

The earthquake occurred on the eastern tip of the southern peninsula of Haiti where two major crustal structures meet, the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault Zone and the Transhaitian Belt (Mercier de Lépinay et al. 2011). The earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince occurred on the southern fault, the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system that runs across the southern peninsula of Haiti. This earthquake was so powerful and devastating because of the proximity to the epicenter and the focus of the quake. The epicenter was only about 15 miles (25km) southwest of the capital and the focus only about 8 miles (13km) away. Since the epicenter and focus were so close to the surface and to Port-au-Prince, the capital city felt a much greater amount of force. Along with the fact that there was a huge amount of tension built up since there hasn't been a significant earthquake in the area in over 240 years.  This earthquake was the result of a concentrated slip along an estimated 36km long portion of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone. Sending massive amounts of energy to the surface causing major stress changes in the surrounding areas.

Yet, Port-au-Prince was not only affected by the main shock of the earthquake. There were at least 24 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 5.0 to 5.9 after the main shock on January 12th, 2010. Most of them occurred to the west of the main earthquake in the region known as the Miragoane Lakes (Pararas-Carayannis, 2010, p.180).

While we all know the majority of the damage we have seen in Haiti was a direct result of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, there were also secondary hazards that caused damage and loss of life as well. The two major secondary hazards we saw after the 2010 Haiti earthquake were liquefaction and landslides, resulting in more damage and loss of life. Liquefaction takes place when loosely packed, water-logged sediment at or near the ground's surface lose their strength as a result of intense ground shaking. Port-au-Prince was a prime candidate for this process to occur because most of the flatlands near the capital are composed of this loose sedimentary material (RMS, 2010). Aerial images taken after the earthquake show that most of the liquefaction took place in and around the port facilities. These images show lateral spreading along wharfs, collapsed jetties, and cranes that are now submerged in the bay (RMS, 2010). This incapacitation of the ports slowed down the transportation of aid supplies and personnel needed to help relieve the devastated people of Port-au-Prince. 

Landslides were another major secondary hazard that tore apart the country of Haiti after the devastating earthquake. Landslides can occur without the force of an earthquake triggering them but when there is an earthquake landslides or more often than not a result of major shaking. The southern parts of Port-au-Prince, as well as the upland region along the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone, have many areas where steep slopes combined with long-term deforestation have created high landslide susceptibility (RMS, 2010). These landslides were detected using pre and post earthquake high resolution satellite images, resulting in tens of thousands of landslides occurring after the 2010 earthquake. A total amount of about 30,828 landslides were triggered, covering a total area of 15.736 km2, distributed in an area more than 3,000 km2, and the volume of landslide accumulation materials is estimated to be about 29,700,000 m3 (Xu et al., 2014, p.1789). Most of these landslides took place within 30km of the epicenter and came in many different forms (Xu et al., 2014, p.1814). Most of the landslides were shallow disrupted landslides and rock falls, but they also included coherent deep-seated landslides and rock slides (Xu et al., 2014, p.1789). 

Along with liquefaction and landslides the 2010 Haiti earthquake also caused two three- meter tsunamis. Once the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck, computer models predicted that a tsunami would hit the nation’s south shore but only produce waves up to 20 centimeters (Lovett, 2010).  These computer models were right because the waves that crossed the caribbean were harmless to the distant shores but that was not the case for Haiti itself. The waves that hit the shores of Haiti and the ones that spilled over into the Dominican Republic were up to three-meters in height. The man who discovered these tsunamis was Hermann Fritz, a coastal engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Savannah and when he visited the small town of Jacmel in Haiti, on the southern coast of Haiti, he discovered boats and boulders washed ashore along with walls knocked down by the waves (Lovett, 2010). In one place water surged a meter deep into the barracks of a group of United Nations Soldiers and in another along the shores of the Bay of Port-au-Prince on the western coast of Haiti, water surged more than 70 meters inland killing a grandfather and two young children who stopped to watch (Lovett, 2010).

Before the earthquake Haiti faced many challenges that most countries did not have to worry about including weak political governance, a lack of proper infrastructure, and a lack of basic resources and services. Haiti ranked among the poorest countries in the world with the majority of its people living well below the national poverty line, and after the earthquake it only got worse. An estimated 1.2-2 million people were displaced and around 3 million people, a third of the population, were affected. In the months to come after the earthquake the Haitian people painstakingly waited for foregin aid to arrive. The country needed fresh drinking water, food, medical supplies, and people to come in and help rebuild what was destroyed. The streets were filled with rubble from collapsed buildings, dead bodies, and frightened people looking for open space. With all of this crowding the already crowded streets it made it even harder for foregin aid and other relief efforts to reach all the people in need. The earthquake left behind about 4,000 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of debris and even over a year later only about 2 million cubic tons of debris was removed from the capital city (UNDP, 2011). Though, within a few months after the earthquake a tremendous flood of relief came rushing in totaling at about $13.5 billion in donations and pledges mainly from donor nations and partly from private charities (Knox, 2015). This money was designated to help rebuild the infrastructure as well as provide food, water, and new shelter to the people displaced by the earthquake. Yet, with all of this money coming in it still took years for Haiti to fully recover and in some aspects the country will need more time even after all these years. 

All these years later and billions of dollars spent Haiti is still not that much better off than before the earthquake hit. Haitian President Jovenel Moise told CNN in an interview, "A lot of money was spent after the earthquake, but the results are meager," and, "Despite our best efforts to rebuild after the earthquake, the scars of this tragic event remain," he said in a statement on Saturday. "Ten years on, we still lack the basic infrastructure and services to support the people of our country."(Hu, 2020). Haiti is still struggling and trying to find a way to move past the tragic events of january of 2010 but it is very hard to find a way out when your country lacks so many necessary things. Food and water shortages are still affecting the country and about 40% of the people will face food insecurity by the end of March 2020, and for at least 1-10 food insecurity will reach emergency levels (Hu, 2020). Yet, one thing Haiti has going for them is their widened health care system and UNICEF reports that no new cholera cases have been reported since February of last year (Hu, 2020). 

After the earthquake hit Haiti did not only need to deal with food and water shortages but also the outbreak of disease. Even before the earthquake, Haiti was very susceptible to disease outbreak and after the earthquake it only made the country more vulnerable. In the months after the earthquake there was a reported cholera outbreak that spread through the new makeshift “tent cities” like wildfire. The CDC reports that the first case of the cholera outbreak was recorded on October 20th, 2010, about 10 months after the main quake(CDC). This outbreak was one of the worst cases ever recorded in recent history with over 820,000 cases and about 10,000 deaths (CDC). Years later the cholera outbreak was starting to be contained and controlled, with reports of a steady decline since 2016 and only about 3 deaths reported in 2019 (CDC).

The 2010 earthquake that shocked Haiti also shocked the world with its magnitude and amount of destruction that it left behind. This massive 7.0 earthquake tore through the capital city ,Port-au-Prince, destroying over half of the city's infrastructure and affecting around one third of its nation's people. Yet, this was not the only major earthquake in the world that year because later that year Chile was rocked with a magnitude 8.8 earthquake and tsunami. When you compare Haiti’s earthquake to other major quakes like the one in Chile, Haiti was much more affected by damage and loss of life. Even though the earthquake in Chile was one of a greater magnitude they were much higher on the Human Development Index and had much better infrastructure and governance. The Chile earthquake only had about 600 deaths and only injured around 10,000 (Olson, 2016) while hundreds of thousands died in Haiti. The city of Port-au-prince was one of the most susceptible areas in the world for earthquake destruction due to the country's geographical location and lack of prevention. Haiti’s political economy has been mainly responsible for the historical lack of prevention, leaving its capital city very vulnerable to more earthquakes like the one in 2010. The catastrophic damage Haiti experienced was not only caused by the earthquake but also by the lack of governance, the historical lack of disaster prevention, and the social injustices the Haitian people experience everyday. 

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