Earthquake - Haiti

[NAB]

Breaking news...

Sort of unusual for that area I would think, especially magnitude 7.1 as is currently being reported.

Looks very serious. No Tsunami though.

Nab

[Urbane]

Many of the buildings there have no reinforcement in them and crumble easily. Sad.

[harvgar]

First hurricanes.... now earthquakes....these people who have next to nothing have even less. What next?

[Fancy]

Volcanos?

[Al Czervic]

It is just such a horrific tragedy. I just watched it all on the news and am still shaking. Such a tremendous loss of life. It is so upsetting to see so much destruction to occur all in the blink of an eye like that. My heart is with all of the families right now who have lost a loved one. Very sad time in Haiti right now.

[big-d2C]

there are or were a bunch of kids from the nelson area over in haiti from what iv heard is that they are all ok

[NAB]

Canada (and Canadians in general) have been very generous to the people of Haiti. In fact they have been and are the top recipient of our foreign aid and practical help (next to Afghanistan of course - but that's a different matter). I am embarrassed to say that with so much attention paid to "The Ring of Fire" around the Pacific, I honestly never knew that a major fault line ran through that region, and that it was just a matter of time before "the big one" hit. Why has there been (apparently) no scientific monitoring and hazard assessment of that zone going on?

Looking at some of the devastation and reports of loss of life in Haiti circulating in the news this morning, it is so incredibly sad to recognize what has suddenly befallen the people of one of the most (if not the most) impoverished countries in the world. Somehow it makes our "problems" here at home seem so picayune and trivial. (Not to downplay the plight of some among us who suffer too.)

My understanding is that an advance team of Canada's DART is already on the way. I have seen no reports yet if the airport there is functional, but would hope that nearby countries (Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Cuba, the US and Mexico) have quickly mobilized to provide clear channels and assistance for the provision of aid via air and ships.

However what impacts me the most about the hours since the earthquake struck is how obviously decrepit the country's construction standards, infrastructure, communications facilities, living conditions for so many, and domestic emergency preparedness really is. And I think that, while the most obvious need at the moment is well coordinated life saving emergency aid and money, ...there has to be some long term leadership, vision, and aid that ensures the rebuilding doesn't just produce a return to what was the status quo less than 24 hours ago....

Nab

[harvgar]

Well said Nab.

[normaM]

DART hasn't been deployed

[NAB]

DART hasn't been deployed

I don't think I said they had norma, although the news item earlier this morning identified advance members of DART had been deployed (the reconnaissance team?). An overall advance team of some 20 assessement specialists have been deployed as I understand it now, while the main DART contingent is on standby awaiting deployment if requested.

here's an update..

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2436035

Nab

[SpaceAddict]

Why has there been (apparently) no scientific monitoring and hazard assessment of that zone going on?

It was predicted a few sort years ago for a magnitude 7.2 pretty much right where it happened.

Even Vancouver would have problems surviving such a big earthquake and down there where building codes are none existent well basically now a entire city is gone. I would predict the final death toll will be somewhere around a million people. It will probably be one of the most devastating earthquakes ever. They basically have nothing down there to help so it's going to be a really long road. A lot of big city's that are around that would have major problems surviving a 7.0 that lasted so long.

Scientists have warned for years that the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, was at risk for a major earthquake.

Five scientists presented a paper during the 18th Caribbean Geological Conference in March 2008 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, stating that a fault zone on the south side of the island posed "a major seismic hazard."

Tuesday's potentially disastrous 7.0 earthquake occurred in Haiti along the same fault line, known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.

"We were concerned about it," said one of the paper's authors, Paul Mann, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas' Institute for Geophysics.

"The problem with these kinds of strikes is that they can remain quiescent -- dormant -- for hundreds of years," he said Tuesday evening. "So it's hard to predict when they'll occur."

[NAB]

Why has there been (apparently) no scientific monitoring and hazard assessment of that zone going on?

It was predicted a few sort years ago for a magnitude 7.2 pretty much right where it happened.

Even Vancouver would have problems surviving such a big earthquake and down there where building codes are none existent well basically now a entire city is gone. I would predict the final death toll will be somewhere around a million people. It will probably be one of the most devastating earthquakes ever. They basically have nothing down there to help so it's going to be a really long road. A lot of big city's that are around that would have major problems surviving a 7.0 that lasted so long.

Thanks Space.. any chance you could point me to that prediction of a few years ago and who did it/how they arrived at it? I would like to understand the fault situation there a bit better.

Edit: PS, I hope your prediction of a million deaths is far wide of the mark! That would be what, somewhere around a third of the worst affected regions population? WoW!

Nab

[SpaceAddict]

You beat me too it. I was still editing you where replying.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/01 ... index.html

[normaM]

thanks, interesting read.

[SpaceAddict]

That would be half the people. Hopefully I'm wrong but I don't see how. Time of day and time to get rescued. Even if you survive there is nothing left. They didn't even have food and water at the best of times.