Haiti Earthquake

• date: January 12th 2010 4:53pm
• Magnitude: 7.0 on the richter scale
• Epicentre: 25km form port-au-prince
• how: occurred along a conservative plate boundary between the Caribbean Plate and the North American Plate and they slide past each other in opposite directions building up friction. The tension builds up due to plate movement was suddenly released causing the earthquake
• Death: between 217,000 and 230,000
• injuries: over 300,000
• primary effect: 250,000 homes , 30,000 businesses and 4,000 schools
• Haitian economy was severely affected as it relied on agriculture which was destroyed
• immediate response: £20 million was donated from the uk government
• immediate response: the usa deployed a rescue team of 10,000 troops to pull survivors from the rubble
• immediate response: 235,000 people were moved away from port-au-prince
• secondary effect: 4 in 5 people lost their jobs
• long-term response: new homes were built to higher construction standards however a year later 1 million were still living in temporary shelters
• long-term response: responses were slow as 6 months after the earthquake 98% of rubble had still not been cleared blocking vital access roads
• primary effect: estimated 1 million were made homeless
• Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
• Buildings in Haiti were not earthquake-resistant and generally in poor condition
• secondary effect: 2 million were left without food and water
• secondary effect: crime increased - looting became a problem and sexual violence escalated