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Haiti earthquake of 2010

Haiti earthquake of 2010, large-scale earthquake that occurred January 12, 2010,
on the West Indian island of Hispaniola, comprising the countries of Haiti and
the Dominican Republic. Most severely affected was Haiti, occupying the western
third of the island. An exact death toll proved elusive in the ensuing chaos. The
official Haitian government count was more than 300,000, but other estimates
were considerably smaller. Hundreds of thousands of survivors were displaced.
The earthquake hit at 4:53 pm some 15 miles (25 km) southwest of the Haitian
capital of Port-au-Prince. The initial shock registered a magnitude of 7.0 and was
soon followed by two aftershocks of magnitudes 5.9 and 5.5. More aftershocks
occurred in the following days, including another one of magnitude 5.9 that
struck on January 20 at Petit Gove, a town some 35 miles (55 km) west of Portau-Prince. Haiti had not been hit by an earthquake of such enormity since the
18th century, the closest in force being a 1984 shock of magnitude 6.9. A
magnitude-8.0 earthquake had struck the Dominican Republic in 1946.
Geologists initially blamed the earthquake on the movement of the Caribbean
tectonic plate eastward along the EnriquilloPlantain Garden (EPG) strike-slip
fault system. However, when no surface deformation was observed, the rupturing
of the main strand of the fault system was ruled out as a cause. The EPG fault
system makes up a transform boundary that separates the Gonve microplate
the fragment of the North American Plate upon which Haiti is situatedfrom the
Caribbean Plate.
The earthquake was generated by contractional deformation along the Logne
fault, a small hidden thrust fault discovered underneath the city of Logne. The
Logne fault, which cannot be observed at the surface, descends northward at

an oblique angle away from the EPG fault system, and many geologists contend
that the earthquake resulted from the slippage of rock upward across its plane of
fracture.
Occurring at a depth of 8.1 miles (13 km), the temblor was fairly shallow, which
increased the degree of shaking at the Earths surface. The shocks were felt
throughout Haiti and the Dominican Republic as well as in parts of nearby Cuba,
Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The densely populated region around Port-au-Prince,
located on the Gulf of Gonve, was among those most heavily affected. Farther
south the city of Jacmel also sustained significant damage, and to the west the
city of Logne, even closer to the epicentre than Port-au-Prince, was essentially
leveled.
It was estimated that some three million people were affected by the quake
nearly one-third of the countrys total population. Of these, over one million
were left homeless in the immediate aftermath. In the devastated urban areas,
the displaced were forced to squat in ersatz cities composed of found materials
and donated tents. Lootingrestrained in the early days following the quake
became more prevalent in the absence of sufficient supplies and was exacerbated
in the capital by the escape of several thousand prisoners from the damaged
penitentiary. In the second week of the aftermath, many urbanites began
streaming into outlying areas, either of their own volition or as a result of
governmental relocation programs engineered to alleviate crowded and
unsanitary conditions.
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Because many hospitals had been rendered unusable, survivors were forced to
wait days for treatment and, with morgues quickly reaching capacity, corpses
were stacked in the streets. The onset of decay forced the interment of many
bodies in mass graves, and recovery of those buried under the rubble was
impeded by a shortage of heavy-lifting equipment, making death tolls difficult to
determine. Figures released by Haitian government officials at the end of March
placed the death toll at 222,570 people, though there was significant
disagreement over the exact figure, and some estimated that nearly a hundred
thousand more had perished. In January 2011, Haitian officials announced the
revised figure of 316,000 deaths. The draft of a report commissioned by the U.S.
government and made public in May 2011 drastically revised the estimate
downward to no more than 85,000. Officials from the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) later acknowledged inconsistencies in data
acquisition. Given the difficulty of observing documentation procedures in the
rush to dispose of the dead, it was considered unlikely that a definitive total
would ever be established.

Further deaths occurred as serious injuries went untreated in the absence of

medical staff and supplies. The orphans created by these mass mortalitiesas
well as those whose parents had died prior to the quakewere left vulnerable to
abuse and human trafficking. Though adoptions of Haitian children by foreign
nationalsparticularly in the United Stateswere expedited, the process was
slowed by the efforts of Haitian and foreign authorities to ensure that the
children did not have living relatives, as orphanages had often temporarily
accommodated the children of the destitute.
Because the infrastructure of the countrys computer network was largely
unaffected, electronic media emerged as a useful mode for connecting those
separated by the quake and for coordinating relief efforts. Survivors who were
able to access the Internetand friends and relatives abroadtook to social
networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook in search of information on those
missing in the wake of the catastrophe. Feeds from these sites also assisted aid
organizations in constructing maps of the areas affected and in determining
where to channel resources. The many Haitians lacking Internet access were able
to contribute updates via text messaging on mobile phones.
The general disorder created by the earthquakecombined with the destruction
of the countrys electoral headquarters and the death of UN officials working in
concert with the Haitian electoral councilprompted Haitian Pres. Ren Prval
to defer legislative elections that had been scheduled for the end of February.
Prvals term in office was set to end the following year.
As the spring rainy season and summer hurricane season approached with
reconstruction efforts having made little progress, residents of tent settlements
were encouraged by aid agencies to construct more-substantial dwellings using
tarpaulins and, later, donated lumber and sheet metal. Though some provisional
housing was erected before the onset of inclement weather, many persons
remained in tents and other shelters that provided scant protection from the

elements. Compounding the problems in the increasingly disorganized

encampments within Port-au-Prince was the return of many people who, months
before, had initially retreated to the countryside only to find little opportunity
for employment.
Two years later, though roughly half of the rubble littering Port-au-Prince had
been cleared and some damaged residences had been made habitable, more than
half a million people remained in tents, many of which had deteriorated
significantly. That number dropped to about 360,000 by the third anniversary.
The decrease was partly due to a Canadian-sponsored program that provided
grants to some of the nearly 30,000 residents of the most-conspicuous camp
located near the collapsed presidential palace on the Champs de Marswhich
allowed them to find rental housing or repair existing structures. Although that
area was cleared by July 2012, countrywide some 500 camps still remained at the
end of the year. By 2014 the number of camps had been more than halved, though
some 100,000 people remained without permanent housing. While the number
of camps continued to diminish, more than 62,000 people were still displaced in
early 2016.
Many who left the camps merely relocated to outgrowths of the existing slums
surrounding Port-au-Prince. Others crowded into undamaged homes owned by
extended family members or friends or returned to damaged structures, more
than 200,000 of which were either marked for demolition or required major
repairs. Efforts to level the worst such buildings, some of which precariously
gripped the rims of ravines, were hampered by irate residents who refused to
leave. The capital remained without power for significant stretches during a
given day because of stalled work on the electricity grid. In addition, less than
one-third of the population was steadily employed. Conditions were further
exacerbated by damage to crops and settlements by tropical weather events,
notably Superstorm Sandy in October 2012.

In October 2010, cases of cholera began to surface around the Artibonite River.
The riverthe longest on the island and a major source of drinking water there
had been contaminated with fecal matter carrying a South Asian strain of cholera
bacteria. Suspicion that Nepalese UN peacekeeping forces stationed near the
river were the likely source of the outbreak was validated by the leak of a report
by a French epidemiologist in December. The report cited the absence of cholera
in Haiti during the previous decade and the emergence of a parallel outbreak of
cholera in Kathmandu, the city from which the troops had departed Nepal. The
epidemic reached the tent cities of Port-au-Prince in November 2010, and by
2016 it had sickened some 770,000 people and proved fatal to more than 9,200. A
2016 report by the organization Doctors Without Borders claimed that cases of
cholera had likely been significantly underreported.
In November 2011 several organizations filed claims against the United Nations
asking that it take responsibility for the outbreak, install new water and wastemanagement systems, and compensate those who fell ill or lost relatives to
cholera. In December 2012 the UN, while not acknowledging that its troops had
been vectors of the disease, announced that it would fund a program proposed by
the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to rid Hispaniola of
cholera by instituting new sanitation and vaccination measures. Critics noted,
however, that the proposed financial scheme for the project hinged largely on
previously promised monies not yet in hand. The UN asserted in February 2013
that it would not receive compensation claims related to the outbreak, citing its
convention on privileges and immunities. In October 2013 a U.S.-based group,
the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, filed a lawsuit in New York City
against the UN, seeking compensation on behalf of Haitians affected by the
epidemic. The U.S. Department of Justice asserted that the UN was immune
from prosecution in 2014. In an October 2015 letter to UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-Moon, a group of UN human rights experts excoriated the body for using legal
loopholes to avoid taking responsibility for the epidemic and thereby

undermining its own credibility. The following year the UN finally admitted to
playing a role in starting the epidemic, though it did not say that the organization
had caused the outbreak. The announcement came after Ban received a report
from a UN adviser who claimed that the epidemic would not have broken out
but for the actions of the United Nations. In addition, the adviser urged the UN
to provide compensation to the victims. However, there was no indication that
the organization would drop its claim of legal immunity.
The election to choose Prvals successor as president took place in November
2010 after a 10-month delay. Voter turnout was low, and allegations of electoral
fraud were widespread. A runoff election was held on March 20, 2011, between
the top two candidates: popular musician Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat,
a legal scholar and the wife of a former president of Haiti. Election observers
noted fewer instances of fraud in the runoff, and voter turnout was higher. On
April 21 it was announced that Martelly had won the election with some twothirds of the vote. The political instability created by the quake resulted in the
postponement of municipal and senatorial elections scheduled for 2011 and 2012,
respectively. Haitis parliament was dissolved in January 2015, having lost its
mandate to govern. Parliamentary elections were held in August 2015, and a
second round, alongside a presidential election, was held in October 2015.
However, allegations of fraud led to demands for a presidential runoff. Originally
slated for December 2015, the runoff was canceled. Following the establishment
of the new parliament in January 2016, Martelly agreed to leave office in
February, and an interim president was sworn in that month.
Humanitarian aid was promised by numerous organizationsspearheaded by the
United Nations and the International Red Crossand many countries in the
region and around the world sent doctors, relief workers, and supplies in the
wake of the disaster. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who had in May 2009
been named the UN special envoy to Haiti, was assigned the task of coordinating
the efforts of the disparate aid initiatives. In the ensuing months, Haitian Prime

Minister Jean-Max Bellerive expressed concern that foreign nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs)which were numerous in Haiti even prior to the quake
and which bore responsibility for diverse aspects of the recoverywere not
sufficiently accounting for the use of their resources, making it challenging for
the Haitian government to assess where its own resources could best be
deployed. The NGOs, in turn, were hindered by their own unwieldy bureaucratic
structures and found interorganizational communication difficult. The U.S.
militarythough providing considerable initial support in the form of
equipment, logistics coordination, and personnelhad withdrawn all but a
fraction of its forces by the second week of March, leaving UN peacekeepers and
Haitian police to maintain order.
Using a model that had proved successful in Europe after the Indian Ocean
tsunami of 2004, programs were initiated abroad whereby mobile phone users
could make donations via text messages. A sizeable portion of the aid gathered in
the United States was channeled through mobile phone companies. A celebrity
telethon hosted by Haitian American rapper Wyclef Jean in New York City and
American actor George Clooney in Los Angeles and featuring numerous other
entertainers was broadcast internationally and generated over $60 million.
A significant portion of Haitis debt had been canceled in 2009 as part of the
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and World Bank, but the country still owed more than $1 billion to a range
of creditors. With its economy barely functioning, the country appeared unlikely
to meet those obligations. In February the G7 countries forgave the remaining
portion of Haitis debt to them, and in March the Inter-American Development
Bank forgave $447 million and pledged over $30 million in further support. The
World Bank forgave the countrys $36 million balance in May.
A UN donor conference in New York City in late March generated pledges of $9.9
billion, with $5.3 billion to be used during the first two years of reconstruction

efforts. The bulk of the sum was put forth by the United States and the European
Union (EU). The donor conference also established the Interim Haiti Recovery
Commission, a partnership between the Haitian government and foreign donors
that, under the chairmanship of Clinton and Bellerive, oversaw the dispersal of
aid funds to a variety of reconstruction efforts. The commission was approved by
the Haitian parliament in April. Its mandate expired the following October, with
few of its projects having been completed.
Two years after the quake, several million dollars worth of pledges had been
retracted by various donors (a move permissible within the guidelines of the
donor conference). Of the remaining $4.5 billion pledged for the initial two-year
recovery period, slightly more than half was received by the recovery fund and
disbursed. A Freedom of Information Act request by the Associated Press
revealed that a little over 10 percent of the funds released had gone into
infrastructure investment and over $300 million had been spent on projects
begun prior to the quakeHIV/AIDS mitigation prominent among them
because their frameworks were already in place. A total of approximately $6
billion had been released by the end of 2012, but significant portions of that sum
remained unspent.
A report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in June
2013 asserted that USAIDwhich was responsible for managing nearly half of the
$1.14 billion in funds allocated by Congress in 2010had actually spent only a
third of those monies. The report further contended that the agency had
miscalculated significantly in its estimates of the time and money required to
complete a port attached to the massive Caracol Industrial Park, which was
erected on Haitis northern coast at a cost of some $300 million in international
donations and opened in October 2012. The portthe construction of which was
two years behind schedulewas seen as a necessary component of the project,
which aimed to revive the manufacturing sector in Haiti. The GAO report also
noted that USAID had substantially underestimated the costs of a major housing

project, leading to an 80 percent reduction in the projected number of residences

to be completed. The contracts for the overwhelming majority of reconstruction
work were awarded to foreign companies.
A report released by the investigative journalism platform ProPublica and
American National Public Radio (NPR) in June 2015 alleged massive failures by
the Red Cross to act on its reconstruction goals, particularly the construction of
new permanent housing. Though the organization claimed to have provided
shelter to 132,000 Haitians, the reporters were able to verify the existence of only
six permanent structures. The other homes cited by the Red Cross were either
temporary shacks or damaged homes that had been retrofitted. The report
heavily criticized the Red Crosss lack of transparency regarding how funds had
been allocated, citing internal documents that suggested that Red Cross staffers
lacked the expertise to determine where substantial amounts of money ought
best to be spent. It further asserted that oversight of many reconstruction
projects ostensibly managed by the Red Cross had been delegated to other
NGOs, thereby diverting substantial monies into administrative costs. Red Cross
officials countered that hazy land-ownership laws in Haiti had complicated the
erection of permanent housing and that subsidizing interim housing was often
more realistic. The organization also contested the allegations of excessive
overhead costs, claiming that its spending was similar to that of other
organizations working in the region.
In August 2014 the United States enacted the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act,
which mandated the establishment of a three-year plan for meeting
reconstruction benchmarks in Haiti and the provision of annual reports to the
U.S. Congress by the State Department.
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