January 20, 2010
Not Again: Haiti Rocked by 6.1 Quake
The hits just keep coming:
The U.S. Geological Survey says the preliminary 6.1 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) Wednesday about 35 miles northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince.It says the quake struck at a depth of 13.7 miles.
AP reporters in the Haitian capital say the temblor sent scores of people fleeing into the streets.
The only possible upsides to this is that rescue teams and relief supplies are already on-hand, and that so many buildings were destroyed in last weeks quake that there simply aren't very many more occupied structures left to collapse.
For all intents and purposes, Haiti is no more.
The USGS's live earthquake tracker has detailed data including an exact lat-long position. It's 20-odd miles almost due west of the Jan 12th quake's epicenter.
I don't want to think about what's going to happen there now.
Posted by: wolfwalker at January 20, 2010 07:30 AMYou are correct, Haiti is not going to be anything like the rescue, recovery and aide missions of the recent past.
This is far worse than the Boxing Day Tsunami. In that event those areas destroyed were prosperous parts of otherwise functional states, and their residents had vested interests in seeing their lands and their society restored. In Haiti there is little to nothing worth rebuilding, it literally will require building anew. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions are going to be displaced for an extended period of time, and whatever comes, it will not remotely resemble what was.
So at some point in the near future it does make sense that someone needs to decide what the goals and endpoints of the reconstruction will be. It seems we, and everyone else, are merely rushing in, following the same old template. Which is a path that will lead to an even greater disaster in the near future should we 'succeed' in re-creating the failed state that was Haiti all anew.
Posted by: ThomasD at January 20, 2010 10:38 AMIt's not PC, but I say let the French have it back.
Posted by: ECM at January 20, 2010 04:29 PM
