Bonus video blog this week. My friend asked me to do a blog explaining why Haiti suffered so much devastation from last year's earthquake, while other countries (Chile, New Zealand, Japan) didn't suffer quite so much. It basically comes down to preparedness and response. Haiti handles these issues one way, the other countries a different way. I've asked our structural engineer, Rick, to help explain a few of these concepts regarding construction methods and the role a government can play in preparing/responding to natural disasters.
I've had a couple people say to me that the devastation in Japan is equal or greater than that in Haiti. My response to that is while Japan has suffered greater loss in property value and buildings damaged, the loss of life (somewhere around 8,000) is only a fraction that of Haiti. I would be surprised if that number ever surpasses 10,000 in the end. While this number is terrible and tragic, to put in perspective Haiti lost between 200,000 and 300,000 people. This is the result of stringent building codes vs non-existent building codes While the buildings in Japan took damage, very few of them failed completely, collapsing and killing its occupants. Haiti was a different story, as explained in the video. These codes are meant to save lives, not money. Obviously emergency response also contributes with lives saved, as Japan has a world-class response and Haiti's is almost non-existent.
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