1.6C Disaster context

• Developing Haiti, Port-au-Prince - HDI 0.48

  • 160,000 deaths
  • 1.5 million homeless
  • 250,000 homes destroyed
  • $14Bn economic damage

  Context:Decades of corrupt, ineffective and brutal governance left Haitian people hugely vulnerable because of slum housing, ineffectual water supply and endemic poverty. A post-earthquake cholera epidemic has killed more than 10,000 people and infected more than 800,000.
• Emerging Sichuan, 2008, 0.73

  • 69,000 deaths
  • 375,000 injured 
  • Economic costs of $140 billion

  ContextEconomic losses in China were high, reflecting its development progress since 1990, as it destroyed formal homes, businesses and infrastructure. The immediate response was rapid because the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were only months away, so the Communist government mobilised the army and other responders rapidly.