Haiti sits between the Caribbean and North American plates, and is in a very tectonically active zone of our planet.
Haiti itself is on a strike slip fault that runs off a destructive plate margin.
The magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was 20km from the nation’s capital, port au Prince, and the focus was very shallow at only 13km deep. Seismic waves started at a fault line that was 10km in length.
Vulnerability:
Nation’s capital population of 2 million people and the geology of the area was unconsolidated.
This caused intense shaking and liquefaction, particularly in the Port area, which suffered from lateral spreading and land falling into the sea.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere with a highly vulnerable population. GDP was only $1,300.
Liquefaction and lateral spreading damaged the port.
Initial Responses:
Actual aid effort was almost non-existent from within Haiti as its institutions had been destroyed or did not have the resources to cope.
Many countries responded to appeals for aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Such as USA, UK and Dominican Republic.
Social, Economic, Environmental impacts:
316,000 people died and more than a million people were made homeless. In 2011 more 60% still left displaced.
Presidential palace crumbled to dust. 3 million people in total were affected.
The government of Haiti also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial