Haiti´s 2010 Earthquake and Its Effect

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Introduction On the 12th of January 2010, a quake 15 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince devastated the people of Haiti. The magnitude of the quake was 7.0 with many aftershocks to follow the initial quake. The damage was so cataclysmic which led to the occurrence of many casualties, about 300,000 people were injured and over one million were left homeless. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere and is still struggling to rebuild itself. (Poster of the Haiti Earthquake, USGS Newsroom) How it was caused The earthquake happened on a known fault line between the conservative plate boundaries of the North American and Caribbean plate. The North American plate is moving west while the Caribbean plate is moving east. As the plates are sliding past each other, pressure is building up and evenly it is released as an earthquake. In the Caribbean region, earthquakes don’t usually happen but they are not unheard of. This is known as a transformative as the plates are rubbing against each other. It lasted for 30 seconds. The last major earthquake, which happened in this region, was in the 18th Century. This means that the pressure has been building up since and on January 12th the pressure was released. The fault line is the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault. The stress has been building up for approximately 250 years. Faults are usually where earthquakes occur. (Thompson, Harris). Cause of the Earthquake The earthquake was caused by a strike-slip fault. A strike-slip fault is when the rupture is almost nearly vertical movement. During an earthquake, they slide past each other. (Strike-Slip Fault) Why it was so damaging The Haiti earthquake wasn’t the biggest people have experienced, the main reason that there we... ... middle of paper ... ... there was no warning system like Japan, which could have saved the 3 lives lost by the tsunami. (Haiti Sits Fault Lines, Kluger,) Haiti’s State Today Even after the plentiful aid that Haiti has received, it is still currently struggling to rebuild itself, hurricane Sandy also set this back with food shortages and cholera outbreaks. It is one of the extreme cases of relying on aid. Corruption takes place in this as all the aid does not reach the people, around 75% of the aid money has been said to be distributed to non-governmental organizations, as a result, many people still live In poverty to this day and some still in tents. Many areas still need to be rebuilt. There are problems in the sanitation and water also. The aid money was not used wisely and due to this the people of Haiti is struggling. (Haiti One Year Later, Pagget, Haiti Continues to Struggle).

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