Cause And Effect Of Haiti Earthquake

On January 12th, 2010 at approximately 4:53pm local time a terrifying earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hits Port-au-Prince, Haiti causing a huge number of damages and casualties. As if the large-scale earthquake wasn’t horrid enough there were 33 aftershocks ranging between 4.2 and 5.9 magnitudes. The tragedy has caused roughly 230,000 deaths and nearly 300,000 people were injured. The Inter-American Development Bank has stated that they are approving nearly a $200,000 grant for emergency aid. Even the Red Cross dispatched a relief team from Geneva – which included the United Nation’s World Food Program. The UNWFP flew in two planes with emergency food aid to civilians. In total around 1.5 million human resource civilians were dispatched to help the Haitian community.
The mayor estimated that 60% of the buildings constructed in Port-au-Prince were built with negligence and were already unsafe in regulatory conditions. Several individuals were put in life threatening situations. The Haiti earthquake affected some of the most influential buildings such as the National Palace, Parliament Building, and the United Nations headquarters. As a result of the buildings slowly disintegrating a lot of people got crushed and stuck inside the buildings without an escape. An eye witness says this natural disaster was provoked by the deformation along the Léogâne fault thus causing the earthquake to slip- forcing the rock upward across creating a fracture in the earth’s crust. The trembling of the earthquake was felt across Haiti and to the Dominican