Are we ready?
THE January 12 earthquake of 7 magnitude, with its epicenter 16 miles west of the capital and largest city Port Au Prince, that struck the Caribbean country of Haiti for 15 seconds devastated nearly one-third of the country's population of 9 million, killing 200,000 or more and displacing over a million.
The tremor levelled the UN building and killed dozens of UN employees. In a country without a building code, it obliterated whole neighbourhoods of sloppy concrete structures, flattened hospitals, wrecked the port, turned the airport's control tower non-operational, and smashed key institutions -- including the presidential palace and the national cathedral.
The quake didn't discriminate between the poor and the rich -- and even killed the archbishop and many senior politicians. Lack of heavy equipment to clear debris off the blocked roads and rescue trapped survivors, or even to dig mass graves for the dead piled up on roadsides, compounded the miseries. There was no government to restore power lines and dismantled phone services. Hardly anything is operational in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Within hours of Port-au-Prince crumbling into an apocalyptic ruin, US sent in an aircraft carrier with 19 helicopters, hospital and assault ships, and the 82nd Airborne Division with 3,500 troops and several hundred medical personnel. The army brought the country's small airport back on an operational standing and President Obama pledged an initial $100 million dollars in emergency aid.
Six days later, several warships arrived at the port and now nearly 15,000 US army personnel are engaged in rescue, rehabilitation, and security operations. In the meantime, President Obama assigned his two immediate predecessors George Bush and Bill Clinton to lead the US humanitarian response.
The UN, international aid organisations, the EU and all its partners and many other nations have mobilised resources to stabilise the humanitarian catastrophe as quickly as possible. So far, over $1 billion in donated funds has been raised, and many more billions will be needed for rebuilding.
Interestingly though, there were no kind words from conservative televangelist Pat Robertson. Appearing on "The 700 Club," he preached: "They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'we will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said: 'Ok it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But, ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."
One may wonder if Robertson is alluding to the fact that a majority of Haitians believe in and practice some forms of voodoo, although Roman Catholicism is the official religion of Haiti.
At the White House, President Obama saw divine intervention differently. He wondered: "After suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, have we somehow been forsaken?" Obama vowed that America would not forsake Haiti, because its tragedy reminds us of "our common humanity."
Pooja Bhatia, a journalist who lives in Haiti, wrote in the Times: "If God exists; he's really got it in for Haiti."
George Packer of the New Yorker wrote: "Haitian history is a chronicle of suffering so Job-like that it inevitably inspires arguments with God, and about God. Slavery, revolt, oppression, colour, caste, despoliation, American occupation alternating with American neglect, extreme poverty, political violence, coups, gangs, hurricanes, floods -- and now an earthquake that exploits all the weaknesses created by this legacy to kill tens of thousands of people."
Before the earthquake, former president Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy to Haiti, had expressed optimism about the country's prospects for investment and growth; after the earthquake he emphasised Haiti's new national economic plan as a sound basis for rebuilding.
Experts predict that the January 12 earthquake may be followed by similar or even stronger ones of the magnitude of 8 or more in the future. This prediction is borne out of both scientific measurements and past records.
The New Scientist reported that not all the pressure and energy built up in the faults running through the Caribbean region were released by this earthquake. Several experts believe "stress transfer" along the affected fault segment is likely to trigger a chain of quakes. This prediction refers to Haiti being struck by earthquakes in 1751 and 1770, when three successive large earthquakes cropped up within the time span of 20 years (Digital Journal.com).
Satellite measurements also reveal that the Caribbean plate is moving east over the Atlantic plate at a rate of two centimetres per year. "Measurements over several decades show that the sum of all earthquakes that strike on 'splinter faults' on the Caribbean plate, like Tuesday's [January 12], have accounted for around half of the energy associated with this movement, leaving the other half stored up in the system."
It's true that earthquakes cannot be predicted. The last time Haiti was stuck by a destructive earthquake was in 1770. As a result, the Haitian people had hardly any notion of the extent of damage an earthquake could inflict.
Of the 39 major earthquakes that occurred since 1906, each killing 3,000 and more people, China withstood 7, Iran 5, and Japan 4. Bangladesh has not been struck by a major earthquake in recent memory. While preparing for potential climate change devastation, we've to make contingency plans for all other eventualities -- including earthquake. We're learning from the Haiti earthquake that emergency responses warranted by earthquakes are quite different from all other natural disasters, and the first emergency responders must be home-grown to save lives and minimise sufferings.
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