A Cuban geologist expected this disaster, but for one of the poorest countries in the world, what could have been done to prepare? More than a year ago Patrick Charles wrote:
Conditions are ripe for major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince,” he told the French-language Haitian newspaper, Le Matin in October 2008. “The inhabitants of the Haitian capital need to prepare themselves for an event which will inevitably occur… Thank God that science has provided instruments that help predict these types of events and show how we have arrived at these conclusions.
So how could we have let it happen? Andrew Leonard says this is not a fair question to ask:
As the poorest state in the Western hemisphere, Haiti has trouble feeding its population, providing citizens with the most basic health care, maintaining a semblance of a functioning political system, and coping with some of the worst environmental degradation in the world. Making sure buildings are up to code was never going to rank high on the priority list, even if everybody knew the situation was a disaster waiting to happen. In Haiti, every day is a disaster.
0 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
You must be logged in to post a comment.