Tectonic event / location: The Caribbean - between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, west of the Dominican Republic.

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Haitian Earthquake
Tectonic event / location The Caribbean -
between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic
Ocean, west of the Dominican Republic.
Level of development (developing, developed) Associated hazards (e.g. landslides, tsunami)
LDC one of the 50 least developed countries in the world. GDP (per capita) 1,300 Lies in the middle of the hurricane belt and subject to severe storms from June to October occasional flooding and earthquakes periodic droughts.
Key information and statistics (deaths, magnitude, injured etc) Socio-economic profile (indicators that might relate to their ability to manage the hazard)
The tremor hit at 1653 local time on Tuesday 12th January 2010. Reached 7.0 on the Richter Scale. Depth 13 Km. 2300000 deaths, 300000 injured and 1million left homeless. It is estimated that as many as 3 million people had been affected by the quake. Population below poverty line 80 Population growth rate 1.84 per year Urban Population 47 of total population Population 9,203,083 Age Structure 0-14 years 37.5 15-64 years 59.1 65 years and over 3.4 Climate Tropical semiarid where mountains in east cut off trade winds Terrain mostly rough and mountainous, pretty dry
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1 Tectonic hazards and causes
Diagram of the cause of the event (include place
specific detail e.g. name of the
plates)
Causes of Earthquake-plates and faults
involved The earthquake occurred in the
surrounding area of the northern boundary where
the Caribbean tectonic plate shifts eastwards by
about 20 millimetres per year in relation to
the North American plate. The strike-slip
fault system in the region has two branches in
Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault in the
north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in
the south. Both the location and focal
mechanism suggest that the January 2010 quake was
caused by a rupture of the Enriquillo-Plantain
Garden fault, which had been locked for
250 years, building up immense pressure. The
rupture was roughly 65 kilometres long with mean
slip of 1.8 metres.
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2 Tectonic hazard physical impacts
Impact on the landscape? A Local tsunami in the
Petit Paradis area near Leogane was caused as an
aftermath of the earthquake. Tsunami waves were
also reported at Jacmel, Les Cayes, Petit Goave,
Leogane, Luly and Anse a Galets. The tsunami had
recorded wave heights of 12 cm at Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic and 2 cm at Christiansted, US
Virgin Islands. United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), state the biggest issue is the
building waste some 40 percent to 50 percent of
the buildings fell in Port-au-Prince and nearby
towns. Because of the thousands of buildings
which suddenly become debris, the people are now
overwhelmed with the capacity of waste
management. Resources like clean drinking water
were already scarce in Haiti before the
earthquake and availability has now
been compromised further. Contamination of
natural water sources is an effect likely to
remain into the long term future. Haitis
small agricultural industry will be affected due
to the displacement of nutrient-rich
topsoil. This also relates to the issue of land
availability in which people can live and build
new structures in the further future.

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3 Tectonic hazard human impacts
The social-economic impacts of the event. In the
nights following the earthquake, many people in
Haiti slept in the streets, on pavements, in
their cars, or in makeshift shanty towns either
because their houses had been destroyed, or they
feared standing structures would not withstand
aftershocks. Structures are often raised wherever
they can fit some buildings were built on slopes
with insufficient foundations or steel works. A
representative of Catholic Relief Services has
estimated that about two million Haitians lived
as squatters on land they did not own. The
country also suffered from shortages of fuel and
potable water even before the disaster. By 14
January, a thousand bodies had been placed on the
streets and pavements. Government crews manned
trucks to collect thousands more, burying them in
mass graves. The country was sent into a mass
panic, in whih completely shut down. It took 12
hours for emergencry responses to hit the scenes
and even days after the event people were still
being pulled out from under debris and being
searched for by loved ones. All health centres
which were either in make shift buildings or
buildings which still had the basic structure,
were overwelmed with casualties. With very few
staff to help all of the people who desperately
needed it. Many countries responded to the
appeals for help and launched fund-raising
efforts, as well as sending search and rescue
teams. The neighbouring Dominican Republic was
the first country to give aid to Haiti, sending
water, food and heavy-lifting machinery. The
hospitals in Dominican Republic were made
available, and the airport opened to receive aid
that would be distributed to Haiti. The Dominican
emergency team assisted more than 2,000 injured
people. The Dominican Red Cross coordinated early
medical relief in conjunction with the
International Red Cross. The government sent
eight mobile medical units along with 36 doctors
including orthopedic specialists,
traumatologists, anaesthetists, and surgeons. In
addition, 39 trucks carrying canned food were
dispatched, along with 10 mobile kitchens and 110
cooks capable of producing 100,000 meals per
day.
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The long term Recovery After 6 months The
number of people in relief camps of tents and
tarps since the quake was 1.6 million, and almost
no transitional housing had been built. Most of
the camps had no electricity, running water, or
sewage disposal, and the tents were beginning to
fall apart. Crime in the camps was widespread,
especially against women and girls. Between 23
major charities, 1.1 billion had been collected
for Haiti for relief efforts, but only two
percent of the money had been released.
 According to a CBS report, 3.1 billion had been
pledged for humanitarian aid and was used to pay
for field hospitals, plastic tarps, bandages, and
food, plus salaries, transportation and upkeep of
relief workers. The real priority of the
government is to protect the population from the
next hurricane season, and most of our effort
right now is going right now in that
direction. After 9 months As of September 2010,
there were over one million refugees living in
tents and the humanitarian situation has been
characterized as still being in the emergency
phase. Money raised in Britain has gone towards
the red cross in which after 6-9 months of
working with people trying to help the sick and
injured, along with helping them set up tents to
live in from organizations such as Shelter box,
is now concentrating on the situation of
Sanitation to help prevent the spread of disease
on the large make shift camp sites. Latrines have
been set up around the camps and are monitored by
the people living on the camps to look after them
and keep them running safely. Other aid
organizations such as Unicef and Oxfam have been
doing the same. The red cross are also providing
people to travel around the camps and through
music and song get people to listen to advice
about sanitation and health care as well to lift
spirits and keep people entertained.
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How human actions help or hinder
Before the event   Earthquake hazard study in 2007 by different geologists show that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could have be at the end of its seismic cycle and an article published in Haiti's Le Matin newspaper in September 2008 showed comments by geologist Patrick Charles that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince. Even though this was said no action was taken by the Haitian government.  Intensive logging beginning in the 1950s reduced Haitis forest cover from 60 percent to less than 2 percent today. This lack of trees causes huge soil erosion problems, threatening both food and clean water sources. If there is forest cover, when heavy rain takes place it doesnt erode the land and It doesnt result in flash floods. This lack of forest cover results in Haiti being badly effected by hurricanes. Due to a rapidly rising population millions of Haitians have been pushed out into marginal areas like floodplains while the most fertile land areas are often used for slums and hillsides and steep landscapes used for agriculture. Construction standards were low in Haiti the country had no building codes. Engineers had stated after the earthquake that 'it was unlikely many buildings would have stood through any kind of disaster let alone this one.
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Sources / References (e.g. textbooks, journals,
documentary, internet) http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/
hi/in_depth/americas/2010/haiti_earthquake/default
.stm http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_eart
hquake https//www.cia.gov/library/publications/t
he-world-factbook/ http//www.boulderweekly.com/
article-1360-environmental-impacts-of-the-haiti-ea
rthquake.html http//www.shelterbox.org/deployme
nt_details.php?id122
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Hazard theory / models
It is important to show that you can analyse your
case studies in relation to theory and models
relating to hazard response and management. Here
are two models that you could refer to in your
essays...
Disaster response curve
Disaster Response curve
Disaster management cycle