By Lucy Rodgers
BBC News

The devastating earthquakes that hit China on 12 May 2008, Italy on 6 April 2009 and Haiti one month ago all measured above 6.0 and took many lives. But why was the human cost so much greater for Haiti?


When Pete Garratt, Red Cross head of disaster relief, received an alert on 12 January indicating a large quake had hit Haiti near its capital Port-au-Prince, he instantly recognised the seriousness of the emergency.
"I knew that meant deaths and injuries," he says.

The reason he predicted the effects of the quake would be so grave, Mr Garratt explains, is that there are a number of critical factors, learned through years of experience, that contribute to the scale of devastation following such big shifts of the Earth's crust.

One is, perhaps obviously, the size of the quake , but also how near it is to the surface, the density of the population near its epicentre, as well as whether there are any heavily urbanised areas nearby. These all indicate a higher death toll - and were all features of the Haiti quake.


But poverty also plays its role, Mr Garratt explains, as it exacerbates a country's or region's vulnerability to such disasters.

In places such as Haiti, where 72.1% of the population live on less than $2 a day, and in cities like Port-au-Prince, where many are housed in poor and densely-packed shantytowns and badly-constructed buildings, the devastation is always expected to be greater.

"These countries have less money to put into buildings and there is less governance ensuring building codes are followed," Mr Garratt explains.

"Corruption can also be an issue and so, even when there are government structures to ensure building codes are followed, there are bribes that enable people to take short cuts.
"Put simply - there are the technical elements of the earthquake and then the social elements on top of that."

Therefore, the fact that the Haiti quake hit close to a poorly-constructed, large urban area was crucial in reducing people's chances of survival.


"In Italy it was one town, and a few surrounding villages - not a large urban area. And in China, although it affected a large area and big towns, it was not a city," says Mr Garratt.
"In Haiti, in a big city like Port-au-Prince, with so many structures coming down, this means more rubble will kill more people."

The resulting scale of destruction - of infrastructure, of government and other official organisations - also made it much more difficult to respond once the earthquake hit and had an impact on the number of people rescued from the rubble.

Haiti, unlike China and Italy, simply did not have the resources to act quickly, and it took time to get outside help in.

"The Chinese government was able to mobilise a very military response. Although some parts were hard to reach initially," says Mr Garratt. "The resources they had were very impressive.
"The problem in Haiti was the airport was only half-functioning and you had one road route that took a day to traverse."

The dense urban environment in Port-au-Prince also made it a difficult place for rescue teams to work once they were there, he says.

"You could say that the resulting congestion in large cities meant there was less room for manoeuvre.
"But there were an enormous number of search and rescue teams there and considering the difficulties getting there, they did a good job."

However, the statistics on rescues may not necessarily reflect the true number of victims freed in and around Port-au-Prince, he warns.
"The majority of people are pulled out of the rubble by their neighbours."

Lessons learned
The Red Cross, which had teams dealing with the aftermath of the China, Italy and Haiti earthquakes, believes aid agencies learn lessons from every disaster, although each - like Haiti - poses fresh questions.

"We are always getting better," says Mr Garratt. "But what is a challenge is that there is always something new."

One of the problems in Port-au-Prince is the lack of space, he adds, as well as a constantly shifting and mobile population.

The task now for such organisations is to help the people of Haiti get back on their feet, given the inevitable crippling economic cost of such a quake.


And as the Red Cross and others admit, their success in responding to the Haiti emergency will be judged not just on the first weeks of emergency aid, but on whether communities are left more resilient and better equipped when the next disaster strikes.

Don't forget a lot of those deaths were not only building collapses, but also murders by looters.

cyberdragon. YOu are a liar. Stop spreading false information. Anyone can google AP. bloomberg, etc and they will see you're intentionally spreading lies to paint haitians as being violent. You are a bold face liar and a poor excuse for a man. Shame on you when 200k died and 1-2,000,000+ displaced .
Makes you feel like a big man to spread false information. Scream that lie from the rooftops.

SHAME ON YOU!!

And why is that? If widespread looting happened in the well off Chile after its quake, then there's no reason to believe that this couldn't have happened in Haiti too, bliss. Specially considering the gaping maw separating the haves from the have nots over there, and the utter disregard for human life that this kind of situation can inflict on the countries affected by that socioeconomic malaise. Some acquaintances of mine had the temerity of going there to help by their lonesome and not with the Civilian Defense groups (the ones in charge of preventing/alleviating natural disasters, in case you think I'm talking about a paramilitary group) like the rest of us did, and almost paid with their lives for that kind of audacity, so, if people that were in a position to defend themselves were attacked, imagine what must have happened with the one which could not. It hasn't been one or two the reports talking about some poor people delivering some sort of comeuppance upon the ruins of some the homes of the magnates on the Petionville area of PAP, although I thank God that I didn't get to be a witness of this.

Believe me, the grinding poverty that one can see over there is not a figment of someone's imagination, it's a very real, cruel and devastating reality, one that could move to tears even the most cold hearted of men, and which should be an eternal source of shame not only for the western world (which foolishly believes that poverty is only a disease afflicting the african continent) but for the haitian elites that have allowed this gaping wound in the Caribbean bosom to fester in the first place.

Also, there has been an increasing wave of hijackings on the Central Plateau area after the quake, a wave that some people believe may be caused by a part of the prisoners that escaped from the main haitian prison after the quake. And you can't deny this, when even our haitian friendly media groups like Espacinsular.org (which even include articles written in french and kreyol on its daily digest) and Clave Digital have been reporting this.

Laut,


There will always be violence is a situation like that. Peolple are opportunistic. Looting for food and water is something that is expected. Hunger makes people do desperate things. I'm not naive. However, to make it sound as if their was a frenzy of mass murders is a bold face lie and you know it. Remember people are desperate, hungry, prison collapsed. I don't expect people to remain rational once the initial shock wears off.

increasing wave of hijackings on the Central Plateau area after the quake. I'm in nj but so far I've read about 4 reported kidnapping but let's say 100 kidnappings for arguments sake out of a population of 9,000,000.

Have you read who is behind these kidnappings for profit? You'd be surprised. I say take these guys and lock them up and throw away the key.

"haitian elites " (I went to school with some of them). They're parasites feeding of the poor. Those 8 families who don't identify themselves as haitians should be stripped of their wealth and imprisoned. They are the problem and shouldn't be part of the solution.

And how many worldwide armed forces and search and rescue teams were sent to Chile in comparison to Haiti? On an overall consideration of both situations this time around the looting, rioting, and murdering that took place immediately after the earthquake was not half as much as what has taken place before in Haiti (even independent of news coverage). Even Chile's news coverage of looting was taken into account on a level of "needed resources" rather than a majority of death and minute pillage. For the most part both peoples in this situation tried to fend for themselves. And quite frankly (if not already obvious) there was a greater number of death directly caused by the earthquake in regards to fallen infrastructure rather than riotous behavior in the aftermath.

Congratulations Atabey, in a very informative and well put together article of concern to the DR.
The real numbers of the dead and injured in the January 12 th, 2010 Haiti's earthquake may never be known, for many reasons, some of them:

1. The lack of census figures and statistical information for the researchers data.
2. Lack of documentation of the dead and injured.
3. Aftermath mass recollection of dead, without forensic identification.
4. Trend of government authorities to inflate real death toll, for charity purposes. (I will explain this later).
5. Inability of rescue groups to work 24 hours, having to pack up in the PM due to lack of security, and fear of criminal activities. This caused more deaths than the actual quake.
6. Substandard building practices of homes put together with a lack of building standards or quality supervision.
7. Lack of good communication routes, more airports, government infrastructure, civil defense groups.

A very respected German think tank that forecasts amounts of dead caused by natural phenomena, estimated the dead in the first few days between 10,000 and 20,000 depending on how fast the rescue crews and their equipment could be operating in situ. This data of course did not take into account, the fragile conditions of the Haitian non existent building codes for cement structures.
In the few days of the earthquake the death toll kept rising, mainly by statements from recently resurfaced government officials that where simply speculating, with no real data or information.
The figure started rising to over 100,000 then to over 200,000 thousand, which personally seemed highly improbable and exaggerated.
As an example let us take the Haitian civil service employees that are documented:
Out of a total Haitian number of government employees of ??????? thousand, there are a reported
17,000 thousand still missing, that have not reported to work. So this could be a reliable figure with a plus or minus 5% error ratio.
So the number of dead advertised by the government of over 200,000 does seem like a gross exaggeration, destined for the future aid claims of the government, even by the UN who set the figure at 113,000 dead, that is still speculative.
I can tell this for a fact, gathered at the just finalized Haiti aid conference that was held in DR recently,
that in the Haitian capital out of the 1,3 million homeless, that were estimated, only remain about 630,000, some have migrated to the artibonite region, and guess what?............the estimate of 200,000 thousand have crossed the border into the DR. And I repeat 200,000 thousand!!!!!!!!!!!
The situation will surely compound over the next few months, leaving the DR with the brunt of the plight of the Haitian refugees and displaced persons.

In 2003, there was a 6.7 harthquake in the Cibao region, Santiago and Puerto Plata were affected, only one person died and several were wounded.