Haiti Earthquake Research Paper

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On Tuesday January 12 a massive earthquake directly hit the city of Haiti. The earthquake was an impressive magnitude of 7.0 which is literally devastating and killed thousands of people. This massive earthquake arose along a fault that runs directly through Haiti. The fault line that caused the earthquake had not caused a significant quake since the year 1770.The fault is positioned between the Caribbean and North American plates. These plates are always sidling further and further past each other and overall only about 22 millimeters per year.
"Twenty millimeters a year of slippage is very small, and that’s not what people felt," said Carrieann Bedwell, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Earthquake Information …show more content…

However, this quake was strong enough that even many sturdy buildings collapsed. The fact that Haiti had no reliable first responder system, such as police, fire, EMS, only made matters worse. Because of situations such as these, many lives were lost that would not have been had the earthquake happened elsewhere.
The destruction of the airport and sea port has made matters worse by making it difficult for aid to get into the country. Once aid had entered the country, roads that were already of poor quality had become impassable, so aid can't get to the very people who need it. Plus there have been numerous significant aftershocks that have only worsened matters, causing further collapses and making it harder to get aid into the city.
Already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with a majority of the population living under the poverty line, the earthquake inflicted $7.8 billion in damage and caused the country's GDP to contract severely. After the earthquake, Haiti received billions of dollars from other countries intended for reconstruction, which progressed slowly. Almost half of all Haitian citizens depend on the agricultural sector consisting of mostly small scale farming. These people remain defenseless against damage from the frequent natural disasters cause by the country's growing

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