Why Did it Have to Happen There?
Unknown numbers lay dead and or buried in the rubble of Haiti’s worst earthquake ever.
It is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. The International Red Cross says the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti leaves close to a third of the population in need of emergency aid. Thousands or even tens of thousands are feared dead.
President Barack Obama says the United States will do all it can to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. American rescue teams have already been dispatched to the disaster area.
Planes from the U.S., Canada and others countries are arriving at the Port-au-Prince airport. Naval forces are offshore.
It is a heartening feeling that people are willing and able to help, rather than just destroy.
At the same time, the already desperately poor Haiti will require many years and many billions of dollars, just to rebuild from this latest disaster.
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Filed under: Disaster • Earthquake • Haiti • International Aid
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This is desperately sad. It does give me some consolation that President Obama is acting quickly.
There isn’t much reassurance with the Politicus question. Modern planetary geomechanics pose little mystery about exactly what happened, but still provide an unsettling realization of our total inability to intervene or even mitigate the catastrophes. The 1964 earthquake in Anchorage (Richter 9.8 — around 1,500 times more energy released than the one which hit Port au Prince) was horrible, but it found a tough, seismic designed city — one with rather aggressive building codes, even then. There was a terrible death toll there, too. However, “terrible” in Anchorage was around 5,000. In Port au Prince, the present lower estimate is 10 to 100 times that.
1. We see the difference in approach for aid between Obama and the elistist foibles of the autocrat.
2. Everyone here who can have any sort of emotional response to the tragedy can contribute directly to the aid effort.
3. We can watch “dirty shirt preachers” like Pat Robertson blame the disaster on voodoo. His god gets even.
Of course, I’ll plug MeanMesa:
http://meanmesa.blogspot.com/2010/01/meanmesa-winters-afternoon.html
Aid seems to be coming from all over the world, but it is sad to see a country as desperately poor as Haiti, hit as hard…
Chad, no question that there have been quakes more severe. Also in places with stricter building codes. At the same time, it seems like the Haitians are getting pounded by something, or other much too often.
The decades of Papa Doc, the hurricanes, the loss of almost all viable sources of income – for crying out loud, even the U.S. baseballs, for so many years traditionally hand-sawn in Haiti, are now imported from China. and now this…
Why – well lets ask the devil himself since he claims to have made a deal with Haiti; ooh I mean Pat “The Devil’s Stepson” Roberson.
HAARP is What appears to have been “Used” to create the wave, according to most of the people who are talking logically, from what I’ve read. I tend to agree – “HAARP”