StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

2010 Haiti Earthquake - Personal Statement Example

Cite this document
Summary
Haiti experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes. The epicenter of the quake was located at Leogane town, 25 kilometers West of Port-au-Prince. Port-au-Prince is the capital of Haiti, and it hosts many residents, official government buildings and business premises that perished in the quake (Morales 34)…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER96.4% of users find it useful
2010 Haiti Earthquake
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "2010 Haiti Earthquake"

Haiti Earthquake Haiti experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes. The epicenter of the quake was located at Leogane town, 25 kilometers West of Port-au-Prince. Port-au-Prince is the capital of Haiti, and it hosts many residents, official government buildings and business premises that perished in the quake (Morales 34). This quake was followed by more than fifty aftershocks, and the effects of the quake affected more than three million Haitians. The Government of Haiti gave an official report of the death toll estimated to be 316,000 people.

Further, government reports proved that more than three hundred thousand people had sustained serious injuries and more than one million people left homeless. The Haitian capital city (Port-au-Prince) was the worst hit by the quake together with the neighboring cities. The initial and early works of relief were confused and thrown in mayhem by congestion of air traffic and difficulties in deciding the person in charge of the entire operations of rescue and recovery. Another issue included coming into terms with the order of priority as far as flights were concerned (Morales 34).

The number of bodies recovered from the remains of buildings was overwhelming, and the morgues could not handle such prodigious numbers of bodies; thus, the bodies had to be disposed off through cremation and burial in mass graves (Farmer 77). The rescue efforts tailed behind, and the death tolls rose to unbelievable figures. The services given the highest priority included the supplies, sanitation and medical care. The Haitian government realized that she was exhausting her resources in the search for people who might have survived the quake (Zack 64).

Therefore, she announced that she would cease the rescue activities in order to shift focus on rebuilding and taking care of the injured and the homeless. Many nations retorted to pleas for humanitarian aid, and they dispatched rescue teams to Haiti. Other countries pledged to give the Haitian government funds for running the recovery activities and facilitate the search for people who survived the quake. Medical teams, support personnel and engineers, were among the professional sent to Haiti by their respective nations to give the required help.

The aid and rescue efforts were hampered by the quake destruction aftermath, which destroyed the systems of communication, sea, air and land transport facilities, electrical networks and hospitals (Zack 67). Haiti shares the Caribbean Plate to the north on a slip boundary plate, which is connected to the North American Plate. This plate of North America moved West against the Caribbean Plate, which moves in the opposite direction. These rough movements cause intense friction as the plates grind against each other.

There builds intense pressure from the grinding; the moment this pressure finds an escape route, it comes out as a quake. The Haiti earthquake Epicenter was a few kilometers from Porto-au-Prince. A slip occurred in a fault that already existed in this region, and the name of this fault is Enriquillo-plaintain Garden Fault (Morales 37). This can be regarded as the chief cause of the devastating quake that threw Haiti out of balance. There was a Herculean drawback on the designs of building Haiti; the buildings could not withstand a natural disaster.

Further, Haiti is a nation whose economy is vulnerable in case of disasters. There exist no sufficient facilities that can help Haiti overcome the overwhelming situations, which follow disasters. As mentioned earlier in this text, the immediate concerns in Haiti included food, water, medical care and sanitary facilities. Further, the transport and communication system were necessary to facilitate the movement of rescuers and suppliers to the affected area and extraction of wounded people from the rubble to safety.

People who survived the quake needed housing and clothing, among other life supporting supplies (Zack 67). The area struck by the quake, including the Haitian capital, has undergone key transformation. The Haitian government had to level damaged building so as to give room for new constructions. Currently, people follow building standards; the buildings that being constructed can withstand future quakes. The socio-economic demographics of Haiti were seriously affected by the quake as businesses, and residential buildings were destroyed, as well as the property in these buildings.

Thousands of people, businessmen, parents and traders perished in the quake and this became a massive blow to the feeble economy of Haiti. There was substantive media coverage of the events that followed the Haiti quake (Farmer 75). Local media houses not affected by the destructive force of the quake broadcasted the entire rescue operations and relief distribution in the entire rescue period. The international media like the CNN gave full coverage of the Haiti quake aftermath, especially the rescue efforts from the international agencies (Farmer 77).

The international media exaggerated the violence that emerged from survivors due to delayed supplies. Further, the media did not cover the rescue efforts of Haiti people who rescued their fellow countrymen. Works Cited Farmer, Paul. Haiti after the Earthquake. New York: PublicAffairs, 2011. Print. Morales, Maureen. Haiti Earthquake: Crisis and Response. London: DIANE Publishing, 2011. Print. Zack, Naomi. Ethics for Disaster. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Print.

Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“2010 Haiti Earthquake Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words”, n.d.)
2010 Haiti Earthquake Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1399869-2010-haiti-earthquake
(2010 Haiti Earthquake Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words)
2010 Haiti Earthquake Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words. https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1399869-2010-haiti-earthquake.
“2010 Haiti Earthquake Personal Statement Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/environmental-studies/1399869-2010-haiti-earthquake.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF 2010 Haiti Earthquake

Comparison between Chile- Haiti Earthquakes

The 2010 Haiti Earthquake caused a lot of destruction which subsequently affected its economy (Castanos, Heriberta & Cinna p44).... The comparison of Haiti and Chile earthquake occurrence can be used to explain the importance of being cautious and prepared.... Ironically it is realized that Chile experienced the earthquake of a higher magnitude than Haiti yet it was Haiti that suffered a great loss.... An earthquake is a natural occurrence that takes place when an oceanic plate collides with the land plates thus causing an impulse....
7 Pages (1750 words) Research Paper

The People Left Behind: A Film on the People of Haiti

response to the need for aid, a documentary film that exposes the needs of the people of Haiti that will, chronicle their current struggles and the on-going issues of food, shelter, and basic needs that are yet realized after the disaster of an earthquake that took the lives of 230,000 people, leaving 300,000 injured, with approximately 1,000,000 left homeless (Margesson & Taft-Morales, 19 February 2010).... World Food Program had reached 97% of its target caseload of people in need of food assistance in haiti....
7 Pages (1750 words) Essay

The United States (Foreign) policy towards Haiti

About 546000 haiti immigrants are currently living in the United States of America.... haiti is a capitalist society where the gap between the rich and the poor grows by day.... haiti has been ranked as the most politically corrupt state in the world.... This work will address the US foreign policy towards haiti as we try to establish the relations that have been there between the two countries.... haiti gained independence from their French colonizers under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte in January 1804....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Latin American History and Politics

Military Response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake: Considerations for Army Leaders.... While the haiti earthquake is a huge tragedy with all the loss to human lives and property, it was also a moment of inspiration as the world gathered together to help the country get its feet back immediately after the calamity.... While the haiti earthquake is a huge tragedy with all the loss to human lives and property, it was also a moment of inspiration as the world gathered together to help the country get its feet back immediately after the calamity....
1 Pages (250 words) Essay

Disaster Management during Haiti Earthquake, 2010

The research paper demonstrates the aspects of Disaster Management during the haiti earthquake which occurred in 2010.... On Tuesday 12th of January 2010, an earthquake measuring about 7.... One of the factors that made the earthquake so devastating was its shallow depth of about 13 kilometers.... The epicenter of the earthquake was at a place near Leogane, about 25 km from the country's capital of Port au Prince.... These statistics made the January 12th earthquake the 5th most deadly earthquake in the recorded history of world disasters (Fierro and Perry, 2010)....
11 Pages (2750 words) Research Paper

Temporary Morgue Facilities Planning for Mass Fatality Incidents in the U.A.E

The paper "Temporary Morgue Facilities Planning for Mass Fatality Incidents in the U.... .... .... nbsp;" expects to determine some of the factors that are considered for selecting facilities for use as temporary Morgue and storage locations for mass fatality management in the United Arab Emirates....
11 Pages (2750 words) Research Proposal

UK's International Search and Rescue Team

nbsp;In this paper, am going to cover how fire brigade supports the international rescue team, haiti earthquake, and the UK involvement, laws in England, and Wales.... nbsp;In this paper, am going to cover how fire brigade supports the international rescue team, haiti earthquake, and the UK involvement, laws in England, and Wales.... The UK rescue team was applauded by many nations and Haiti government for working tirelessly to rescue Haitians who had been trapped in an earthquake, which destroyed their buildings (Haiti Costa 2010, pp....
9 Pages (2250 words) Case Study

Anthropocentric and Natural Disasters, Catastrophic Impacts of Natural Disasters

"Anthropocentric and Natural Disasters, Catastrophic Impacts of Natural Disasters" paper demonstrates the extent to which natural disasters can have both positive and negative impacts on people's health through a sense of place using the 2010 Haiti Earthquake as the case study.... Some of the notable natural disasters that occurred in the recent past include the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, the 2009 Black Saturday bushfire, the Japanese tsunami, the Christchurch earthquake of 2011, the flooding on the eastern states of Australia, and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake among others....
6 Pages (1500 words) Literature review
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us