Haiti Earthquake

Haiti Earthquake is one of the significant events that happened in 2010. The 7. 0 magnitude earthquake strikes Haiti on 13th January 2010, Wednesday. It destroyed Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince and many other residences. This 5th deadliest earthquake in the world killed over 100,000 Haitians and left many homeless or seriously injured. The dead were even buried in mass graves. Humanitarian aid, rescue and medical teams from all over the world gave their utmost help to Haiti immediately. On 22nd January, the search for survivors was then finally called off.

Haiti Earthquake is caused mainly by natural causes. Haiti Earthquake occurred along the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates. Therefore, according to a geophysicist, the two plates moved past each other and generated huge release of energy, causing the Haiti Earthquake. Not only the natural causes, Haiti’s location and environment also contributed to the earthquake. Based on research, 60% of Haiti’s buildings were unsound and Haiti often faced recurrent disasters like cyclone.

Haiti also faced political instability as it is one of the poorest country in the western hemisphere and do not have good communication systems, ports and building style for earthquake resistance. Social causes like the schools and hospitals being unresilient to the earthquake and unprepared also caused the serious damage of Haiti. The Haiti Earthquake created a huge impact on Haiti’s economy. Haiti’s government had to spend approximately $7. 2 billion to $13. 2 billion on the rebuild of infrastructure.

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The earthquake also disrupted Haiti’s trade as the roads and ports were destroyed or strewn with dead bodies. Buildings, including the president's palace and tax headquarters, were reduced to rubbles. Children were seen digging into the sea of corpses to look for their parents and the injured were pleading in vain for medical help. The worst thing was the main prison had collapsed, thus inmates escaped and brought greater danger to all Haitians. Countries from all over the world helped in giving aid to Haiti.

For example, The UNISDR cooperated with Bill Clinton to build disaster risk reduction tools for Haiti. This helped to reduce the impact of future disasters that might happen to Haiti. Singapore’s government came up with US$50,000 for the Haitians. However, Singapore did not do much other than giving a mere amount of US$50,000. The government’s initial decision to send rescue teams to Haiti was also cancelled as they felt that it was too late and they could not make useful contributions. This made me felt disappointed s even Indonesia sent aid worth US$22 million and a team of volunteers to help out in Haiti. China was even among the first at the scene with sniffer dogs, medics and monitoring equipment. Not only that, teens from all over the world also helped out. Singapore students from Canberra Secondary School and Dunman High helped to raise funds for Haitians and gave to charity, Mercy Relief and also organized donation drives. City Harvest Church and CityCare organisation even send two medical teams to Haiti. For every purchase made in shops like Espirit, a donation of US$1 was also given to Haiti.

Famous Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie even went to Haiti personally to care for the Haitians and donated US$1 million to Doctor Without Borders. Judging from above, I personally think that the best solution is the building of disaster-risk tools. This will lessen the impact caused by disasters in the long run. Other solutions are also important but they were only temporary solutions. However, I felt that most importantly was to educate the Haitians on natural disasters as Haiti is very vulnerable to it. By continuously giving help to them, it is not an absolute solution.

Perhaps countries who have faced these problems before could teach them the precautions to be taken, ways to calm down and act quickly but steadily when faced with disasters. Based on research, the supposedly more destructive Chilean Earthquake suffered lesser casualties than the Haiti Earthquake as they were well-prepared. The care and concern shown by everyone in the world would make the Haitians feel warm. The medical help provided by the medical and rescue teams were what Haitians needed the most. With the donations of many countries, Haitians definitely regained hope on rebuilding their homeland back.

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