Haitian Earthquake Essay

The island nation of Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with one in four inhabitants of this small Caribbean nation living in extreme poverty. Plagued by political instability, as well as the devastating aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, the country of Haiti is still struggling for recovery.

Haiti is a prime example of how human needs in one area of the world are interdependent with social conditions elsewhere in the world. Haiti, for most of its history has been overwhelmed with economic

Illness and disease along with poverty still plague Haiti today. The effort to try and recover from the most recent earthquake tragedy has Haitians concerned. The conditions that they have endured in the past just to survive are worse than the conditions brought on by the earthquake. Some Haitian natives feel the Government is moving a bit slow in cleaning up and getting

Though the earthquake happened quickly, the lasting impact and trauma remained. In an article from the Wall Street Journal, Luhnow and Dugan stated that following the event many people went searching for psychological support and aid instead of physical (2010). After having buildings tumble and fall onto people, many suffered from PTSD and survivors guilt; children were the most emotionally traumatized, and there was a fundamental lack of aid for facing psychological traumas endured by so many (Luhnow & Dugan, 2010). As a society, an increase in crime and violence is on the rise; Haitians had no defined structure in communities, and most established norms

Earthquakes have afflicted the world since its inception. The sudden release of energy from volcanoes or displacing of earth plates can result in disasters of extreme magnitude. These usually naturally occurring phenomenon have been responsible from wiping out entire towns throughout history and until today continue to produce major loss of life and infrastructure. It can take years for a city or country to recover from a major event of this kind and when a third world country is involved, the result is usually exponentially worse than in a developed country. In the past decades Japan, Chile and Haiti have suffered the devastation an earthquake produces. This document will concentrate in Haiti, a small country in the Caribbean. On

The January 12, 2010 Haiti Earthquake caused an enormous destruction in the Caribbean nation. Hospitals and government buildings collapsed along with an unbelievable amount of homes. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and many more were wounded. The disaster added more misery to people already struggling to get by with everyday life. Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world. The January 12 quake demolished almost every major building in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. About 5,000 schools in the city were destroyed or damaged. Throughout Haiti, more than 220,000 people were killed, and more than 1 million were left homeless. A few days after the quake, the number of survivors stood at 121 as hopes of finding more became

On January twelfth 2010, a deadly earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit the coast of Port au prince, Haiti for 35 seconds, killing around 200,000 and leaving approximately to 1.5 million of the population homeless including kids who became orphans and vice versa in a matter of less than a minute. Before the earthquake, the way of life was not as bad as portrayed back at home, most of the news broadcasted in the mainstream media were exaggerated news, negative light and unfair tales to make Haiti look inferior.

Pitts has a very important argument that the people of Haiti learn how to recover quickly from their tragedies. Perhaps it is because they have experienced other weather problems in their past. Since they have been through this before, they know better ways of building themselves back up to their previous standpoint. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands have lost their live to the multitude to storms, floods, and earthquakes. However, we watch this happen from afar and never experience these ourselves. Pitts mentions that we pray, but that’s it. We cannot possibly fathom what it is like to go through such a devastating event, let alone how to recover from it.

Haiti was once the first black independent republic in the world and the richest island in the Caribbean. Today Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the world. What could have happened to Haiti in almost two hundred years of history? The country experienced repeated civil war and foreign intervention. Haiti is not isolated from the international world. Thus, it was not out of concern for ordinary Haitians that the United States intervened in Haiti. It was out of concern for profit and stability within the United States' own backyard. The purpose of this paper is to show the negative aspect that the United States had played in the government of Haiti.

On January 12, 2010 on of the world’s deadliest earthquakes struck Haiti. In his book, Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti, Mark Schuller analyzes the presence of humanitarian aid agencies following the disaster. He discusses the impacts the aid had on the environment, development and globalization of Haiti.

“Sometimes the world is cruel.” Leonard Pitts states at the beginning of his article about the Haitian people. Haiti is one of the world’s poorest countries. Along with that, Haiti is stricken by a countless number of natural disasters. Thousands of Haitians have lost their lives to natural disasters. “Why are the most vulnerable repeatedly assessed the highest price,” asked Pitts in his article. Why is it the the poor are hit the hardest? When it couldn’t get much worse for them, the world decides to take what little they have. It’s not just in Haiti that natural disasters occur, but Pitts decides to write an article about them because of their circumstances. It’s not the people’s fault that the country is poor, or even that natural disasters happen. They are acts of God that test those who do not have much wealth. After a natural disaster there is weeping and

The 2010 Haiti Earthquake was a large-scale earthquake that occurred January 12, 2010, on the West Indian island of Hispaniola, comprising the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Most severely affected was Haiti, occupying the western third of the island. An exact death toll proved elusive in the ensuing chaos. The official Haitian government count was more than 300,000, but other estimates were considerably smaller. Hundreds of thousands of survivors were displaced. So much was destroyed in such little time the survivors had no clue what to do and many of them were just in shock. One survivor said "It was God who was tucking me away in his arms. It gave me strength.” Another survivor said "I felt the house dancing around me," he

Have you ever heard of an earthquake so big that hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, more than three hundred thousand people were injured, and 1.5 million people became homeless? If not, let me introduce you to the Haiti Earthquake. This enormous earthquake destroyed many lives. It was believed to have been caused by the shifting of tectonic plates in the Earth. But, is this the truth?

The response for the natural disasters that hit Haiti in 2010 was slow. Haiti improved the water supply of 340,000 people, supplied drugs to five cholera treatment facilities, provided free medical care to 39,000, and gave tools and seeds to help 23,000 people in farming households to help support themselves. These services not only improved shelters for 34,000 people but gave information to 116,000 people about disaster preparation. Volunteers ran literacy classes for 60,000 vulnerable women to help them support themselves and their families; additionally, they helped defend 25,000 residents from forced eviction. However, 3.5 years after the earthquake, the nation is still struggling with recovery with hundreds of thousands of people still living in tent camps.

The Haiti earthquake of 2010 was a 7.0Mw. The focus was 13 km deep close by Haiti’s capitol Port Au Prince. It was determined that this was a left lateral fault in association with many strike slip faults in the surrounding areas. This earthquake was part of the Enriquillo Plantain Garden fault zone which causes many strike slip fault earthquakes as it slides part the Caribian plate as well as the North American plate.