tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/haiti-earthquake-36695/articlesHaiti earthquake – The Conversation2024-03-11T09:26:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251162024-03-11T09:26:55Z2024-03-11T09:26:55ZHow Haiti became a failed state<p>The US military started <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/us-report-airlift-embassy-staff-haiti-gangs-fighting-port-au-prince">airlifting</a> embassy staff out of Haiti overnight as the Caribbean island descends further into chaos. Rival gangs have joined forces to overrun the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, in an attempt to force the resignation of the acting president, Ariel Henry. </p>
<p>The gang leader behind the violence, Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/06/haiti-gangs-prime-minister">warned</a> there will be a “civil war that will lead to genocide” if Henry does not step down.</p>
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<p>Over the past week, Haiti’s gangs have carried out a series of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-68507837">coordinated attacks</a> on prisons and police stations, breaking more than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-prison-break-2788f145b0d26efc2aa199e923724e0f">3,800 criminals</a> out of Haiti’s two biggest jails, while also laying siege to the country’s port and airport. </p>
<p>Haiti is already facing a humanitarian crisis. It is among the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">poorest countries</a> in Latin America and the Caribbean, with <a href="https://www.unicef.org/media/135966/file/Haiti-2022-COAR.pdf">90% of the population</a> living below the poverty line. And following the recent wave of violence, around <a href="https://www.rescue.org/eu/press-release/haiti-violence-grows-ensuring-sufficient-funding-available-key-deliver-humanitarian">15,000 people</a> who were already housed in internal displacement camps have been forced to leave again. </p>
<p>Henry came to power in 2021 under a deal agreed with the opposition following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/07/haiti-president-jovenel-moise-reportedly-assassinated">assassination</a> of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Henry is widely considered illegitimate by the Haitian public and was due to stand down by February 7. But he seems to be <a href="https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/in-haiti-crisis-has-roots-in-history-of-foreign-interference/">extending his stay</a>. </p>
<p>The country last went to the polls in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/29/haiti-presidential-election-result-protest-jovenel-moise">2016</a> and there is no timetable for new elections. Over the past six years, the Haitian parliament has ground to a halt: no major laws have been passed and only one budget was voted on.</p>
<p>The regime is weak and lacks control over the country’s territories, leading to a situation where Haiti finds itself hostage to its criminal gangs. US officials have said they will not pressure Henry to leave, but they are urging him to facilitate the transition to a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/6/us-denies-pressuring-haiti-pm-henry-to-resign-urges-political-transition">democratic government</a>.</p>
<h2>Turbulent history</h2>
<p>Violent gangs are not new to Haiti. Between 1957 and 1986, Haiti was ruled as a dictatorship by the Duvalier family. Following an unsuccessful military coup in 1958, François Duvalier sought to bypass the armed forces by creating a private and personal militia called the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/23/archives/papa-doc-a-ruthless-dictator-kept-the-haitians-in-illiteracy-and.html">“Tonton Macoutes”</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://coha.org/tonton-macoutes/">Macoutes</a> consisted of illiterate fanatics-turned-reckless gunmen acting as a paramiltary force. They were not accountable to any state body or court and were fully empowered to dispose of the paranoid president’s enemies. </p>
<p>The group was dismantled in 1986, but its members continued to terrorise the population. Gangs have been <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdf">involved</a> in massacres, attacks on labour strikes or peasant uprisings, and politically motivated assassinations ever since. </p>
<p>Haiti took its first step toward a full democratic transition in 1990, electing Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president. But the Aristide government was overthrown by a <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/political-anatomy-haiti-armed-gangs">military coup</a> the following year and the Haitian army was subsequently dismantled. The Haitian army was a highly corrupt force, but doing away with it meant the country could no longer fight organised crime. </p>
<p>By that time, Haitian drug traffickers were <a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/extradition-drug-smuggler-underscores-haitis-historical-cocaine-transit-hub-status/">working closely</a> with Colombia’s Medellín Cartel. They were corrupting officials and the police while shifting hundreds of tons of cocaine from Colombia to secluded docks in Haiti and onwards to the US. Drug trafficking became a little known, yet significant source of income for Haiti’s political and business elites who provided protection and logistical support for drug traffickers.</p>
<p>Efforts aimed at disbanding certain armed groups and even the armed forces never fully succeeded. They never disarmed and have converted themselves into far-right vigilantes such as community defence groups and paramilitaries.</p>
<p>Haiti was then struck by an earthquake in 2010. This allowed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/20/haiti-escaped-prisoners-cite-soleil#">thousands of inmates</a> to escape from crumbling jails and take over these self-defence groups. These younger, less politically affiliated and loosely organised gangs are developing into the criminal organisations that are wreaking havoc across Haiti today.</p>
<h2>A state run by gangs</h2>
<p>Gangs have grown rapidly in number over the past few years. An estimated <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/haiti-gangs-organized-crime/">200 criminal gangs</a> now exist in Haiti, and around 95 in the capital, Port-au-Prince, alone. This has resulted in massive insecurity, kidnappings, and large-scale attacks on the police, politicians, journalists and civilians. </p>
<p>Gangs now tend to be affiliated to two groups. The most prevalent gang structure is that of “G-9 and Family”, a federation of nine gangs led by alias “Barbecue”. Founded in 2020, the G-9 has been <a href="https://insightcrime.org/haiti-organized-crime-news/g9-family-profile/">linked</a> to Moïse and Henry’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party (Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale – PHTK), for whom the federation is alleged to have ensured votes.</p>
<p>The G-9’s focus is mostly on extortion and kidnappings. It has taken taken control of key economic activities, including the main entry and exit points of Port-au-Prince, and critical infrastructure such as ports and oil terminals, charging “protection payments” for any institutions that operate in these areas.</p>
<p>The recent jailbreaks were a joint operation with “G-Pep”, another gang federation that was previously linked to PHTK’s political opponents.</p>
<h2>No end in sight</h2>
<p>To bring this crisis to an end, Haiti needs an elected government. But holding elections in this climate won’t be an easy task, nor will it solve the deep-rooted causes of lawlessness.</p>
<p>The conditions for free and fair elections do not currently exist, and the infrastructure that would make them possible is absent. Equally, any free and fair election should take place in a context where gangs do not intimidate voters to vote in a particular way. </p>
<p>In October 2023, the UN Security Council <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/02/haiti-un-security-force-kenya-gangs">voted</a> to send a Kenyan-led multinational security force to Haiti to reign in the gangs and their spiralling violence. However, the peacekeeping mission has been delayed and no other countries have come forward to provide the resources required to restore peace. </p>
<p>But an election is long overdue, and the status-quo will not solve anything.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicolas Forsans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Haiti is facing a wave of chaos as gang violence grips the country.Nicolas Forsans, Professor of Management and Co-director of the Centre for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1993922023-02-26T15:06:31Z2023-02-26T15:06:31ZHow white saviourism harms international development<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509505/original/file-20230210-28-9m08d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=327%2C0%2C940%2C706&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Comedians Seth Meyers (far right) and Amber Ruffin (right) spoofed the 'White Saviour' complex in a fake movie segment on the 'Late Night With Seth Meyers.' </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/seth-meyers-amber-ruffin-spoof-awards-movies-white-savior-trailer-1188928/">Lloyd Bishop/NBC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A little while ago, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/seth-meyers-amber-ruffin-spoof-awards-movies-white-savior-trailer-1188928/">two comedians on a late-night show poked fun of the “white saviour complex.”</a> It’s the idea that people of colour, whether in the Global South or in the West, need “saving” from a white western person or aid worker. </p>
<p>The comedians, Seth Meyers and Amber Ruffin, were talking about representation in movies, but the issue of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/oct/17/did-a-white-saviours-evangelical-zeal-turn-deadly-uganda-renee-bach-serving-his-children">white saviourism and colonial attitudes, especially in international development,</a> is very real. </p>
<p>Accusations of white saviourism often include a story about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/mar/23/comic-relief-to-ditch-white-saviour-stereotype-appeals">white international volunteers taking selfies with Black children</a>. However, such voyeuristic tourism is just the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<h2>White saviourism – in theory and practice</h2>
<p>These conversations are not new. More than a decade ago, writer Teju Cole defined the white saviour mentality as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-white-savior-industrial-complex/254843/">“an emotional experience that validates privilege.”</a> Cole described white saviourism as an intricate web of North/South power relations that involve for example <a href="https://www.history.com/news/us-overthrow-foreign-governments">American-backed coups</a> and western interests in Africa.</p>
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<span class="caption">Invisible Children produced Kony2012 and was criticized for simplifying complex issues.</span>
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<p>Cole discusses a now infamous social media campaign and documentary, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/style/kony-2012-invisible-children.html">#Kony2012 led by the American organization Invisible Children and its founder Jason Russell</a>. #Kony2012 focused on the importance of arresting the Ugandan militant Joseph Kony, then the No. 1 war criminal for the International Criminal Court.</p>
<p>The impulse behind Russell’s short documentary was that western populations did not know about Kony and that the conflict would resolve itself if they knew. It was based on Russell’s quest to help Ugandans. <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/18/kony_2012_ugandans_criticize_popular_video">“Everything in my heart told me to do something,” Russell said in the movie.</a> But Russell never went into depth with expert sources and he did not offer real potential solutions to the conflict.</p>
<p>Ugandan writer <a href="https://twitter.com/RosebellK">Rosebell Kagumire</a> says white saviour narratives often <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVY5jBnD-E">lessen the complexity</a> of African socio-political situations. In so doing, they also ignore the role of western countries in encouraging inequalities and wars in the Global South.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-other-we-charity-scandal-white-saviourism-144331">The other WE Charity scandal: White saviourism</a>
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<h2>Aid workers in unequal power structures</h2>
<p>Scholars have described aid workers as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3095891">missionaries of development</a>” who represent a system supported by individuals with good intentions who avoid criticizing capitalist mechanisms of exploitation.</p>
<p>This paradox means that our economic system continues to exploit Global South populations for private gains, while international organizations try to help with localized development interventions. All this is undergirded by the western self-perception that westerners are more capable, intelligent and thus more “developed.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BHfD5Q5DJLr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>White saviuorism is thus both a state of mind and a concrete unequal power structure between the Global North and the Global South based on white supremacy and exploitation. </p>
<p>As Frantz Fanon said in the <a href="https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-wretched-of-the-earth/"><em>Wretched of the Earth</em></a>, white people’s subjectivity is always confirmed, whereas non-whites are victimized. Indeed, most initiatives by European and western donors to address inequality in the non-western world thrive on the assumption that the latter cannot manage themselves and that only external “white saviours” can put things in order. </p>
<h2>Common threads</h2>
<p>As development practitioners and scholars from three countries (Uganda, Pakistan, and Canada) who have witnessed these issues within our fields, we decided to invite those impacted by white saviourism to voice their understandings of it. </p>
<p>We discussed the issue with 15 people from the Global South with diverse professional backgrounds. They talked about their scholarship and lived experience of <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">white saviourism in international development</a>. </p>
<p>In our conversations and then in our edited volume, <em>White Saviorism in International Development: Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences</em>, we found several common threads of white saviourism. </p>
<p>The contributors <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">described</a> the many woes of the international development industry: its racist tendencies, colonial attitudes, lack of accountability, lack of respect for its subjects and the lack of inclusion of those it works with and its attitude of superiority over others. </p>
<p>These include the continued dispossession of Indigenous people from their lands; the role that white women play in white saviourism; the perpetuation of the saviour complex by “Brown” saviours who take on the mantle in their own countries; how organizations of the Global North steal space from those in the Global South — a space that is not their own. </p>
<h2>Today’s buzz-worthy phrase: ‘Decolonizing aid’</h2>
<p>The goal, “decolonizing aid,” has become <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/decolonisation-comfortable-buzzword-aid-sector/">buzz-worthy</a> in recent years and organizations, activists and civil society organizations have set up <a href="https://centre-arc-hub.ca/">task forces</a>, and <a href="https://www.theracialequityindex.org/">indexes</a>, published reports <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jun/23/racism-in-aid-sector-is-a-hangover-of-colonialism-says-scathing-report-by-mps">here</a> and <a href="https://www.peacedirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PD-Decolonising-Aid-Report.pdf">there</a> about this issue. They have recorded <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/podcast/2020/1/6/rethinking-humanitarianism-decolonising-aid">podcasts</a>, listed tons of <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/feature/2022/08/12/Decolonising-aid-a-reading-and-resource-list">resources</a>, organized <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEYX5bKQlNc&t=244s&ab_channel=CASID%2FACEDIAdministration">conferences</a> and written <a href="https://ecosociete.org/livres/perdre-le-sud">books</a> and <a href="https://plan-international.org/blog/2022/03/22/thoughts-on-decolonising-the-aid-sector-part-1/">articles</a>. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-to-end-child-sponsorship-190407">Why it's time to end child sponsorship</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>But as international development practitioner and researcher Themrise Khan <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/31/racism-doesnt-just-exist-within-aid-its-the-structure-the-sector-is-built-on">points out</a>, racism does not only exist within aid: it’s the structure the sector is built on.</p>
<p>To tackle that racism and “decolonize aid,” international development practitioners and scholars first need to understand the structure of white supremacy it is based on. This does not mean North/South solidarity should not exist, but that we need to reinvent its foundations.</p>
<p>Global South observers have voiced <a href="https://www.nowhitesaviors.org/">this same criticism</a> for decades now, but western organizations and individuals have been slow to hear them.</p>
<p>International involvement in Haiti is a seminal example of this <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/insider/investigating-haitis-double-debt.html#:%7E:text=Further%20estimates%20by%20The%20Times,it%20still%20affects%20Haiti%20today.">contradiction</a>, as Rose Esther Sincimat Fleurant indicates in her chapter in <a href="https://darajapress.com/publication/the-white-savior-complex-in-international-development-theory-practice-and-lived-experiences">our book</a>. </p>
<p>On the one hand, the country was founded on the freedom of previously enslaved peoples, who were then economically annihilated over time with the enforced debt reimbursement to France for their independence and the United States occupation from 1915 to 1934. On the other hand, when an earthquake strikes, western populations and governments send money and NGOs, while accusing the Haitian government of corruption.</p>
<h2>The road to change</h2>
<p>To disrupt these legacies of colonial inequalities (not to use the <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/doi/epdf/10.1080/03906701.2020.1776919?needAccess=true&role=button">“decolonial” buzzword</a>), Global South aid workers need to take more control.</p>
<p>Our book documents and critically analyzes the actions of global aid organizations: it is one step towards dismantling the structure of white saviourism. But it will definitely not end there. </p>
<p><em>Themrise Khan from the International Institute for Migration and Development contributed to the writing of this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maïka Sondarjee receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dickson Kanakulya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>White saviourism is simultaneously a state of mind and a concrete unequal power structure between the Global North and the Global South.Maïka Sondarjee, Professeure adjointe, International Development and Global Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaDickson Kanakulya, Lecturer, Makerere UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996612023-02-13T19:33:28Z2023-02-13T19:33:28ZTurkey and Syria earthquake: Long-term funding is needed to support search-and-rescue after major disasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509614/original/file-20230212-30-f3bct0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C8640%2C5755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rescue workers continue to clear rubble from collapsed buildings in Antakya, Turkey, six days after two powerful earthquakes caused scores of buildings to collapse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The strong and disastrous earthquake that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/turkey-syria-earthquake-2023">shook southern Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6</a> drew attention to search-and-rescue (SAR) operations. The media’s attention raised familiar questions around SAR, including who conducts SAR, what formal and informal SAR teams are available, and how long trapped people are able to survive before being rescued. </p>
<p>Over the past 50 years, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32353-4_12">many studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7717.2010.01184.x">have been conducted</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002398">to address</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12305">these questions</a>.</p>
<p>I have been researching and examining earthquakes, building codes, urban planning and emergency operations <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-7717.00067">since 1990</a>, after experiencing the <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/today/index.php?month=6&day=20&submit=View+Date">Manjil-Roudbar earthquake in Iran</a>. Just after midnight on June 21, I was woken up by the magnitude 7.6 earthquake. More than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/08/iran-earthquake-significant-casualties-likely-after-59-tremor-hits-north-west">40,000 people lost their lives and over 300,000 were injured</a>. </p>
<h2>The last option for saving lives</h2>
<p>Referring to an earthquake as a “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/02/09/turkey-earthquake-live-updates-death-toll/11218360002/">killer earthquake</a>” ignores the harsh reality that the buildings killed people. Until having an effective earthquake <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825220302300">early warning</a>, we need to rely on building codes and urban and physical planning. However, <a href="https://www.preventionweb.net/files/10591_HESITokyoPapers.pdf">most cities and villages</a> <a href="https://www.gfdrr.org/sites/default/files/publication/BRR%20Exec%20Summary.pdf">in earthquake-prone areas</a> either do not have or are unable to <a href="https://www.undrr.org/media/79595/download">fully implement seismic codes</a> to prevent construction in high hazard zones and enforce building codes. </p>
<p>If a strong earthquake occurs in a region where buildings aren’t constructed to withstand the impact, the only hope for people trapped would be timely, effective and equipped SAR operations.</p>
<p>Search-and-rescue is the last option when it comes to saving lives after a disaster. Most SAR efforts are carried out by <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-14/disaster-relief-is-powered-by-civilians">local people</a> and <a href="https://unocha.exposure.co/insarag-1">SAR teams</a>.</p>
<h2>Urbanization and earthquakes</h2>
<p>Rapid urbanization, vertical development and heavy building materials, make it very difficult for untrained and unequipped survivors to locate and extract trapped people from complex and hazardous piles of debris. The need for trained and equipped <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/rbn-srch-rsc/index-en.aspx">SAR teams in urban areas has long been established</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an aerial photo showing a devastated urban area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509619/original/file-20230212-17-hk916d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A drone photo showing the massive devastation in Aleppo, Syria, caused by the Feb. 6 earthquake in Syria and Turkey.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many countries have created urban search-and-rescue teams, like <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/mrgnc-mngmnt/rspndng-mrgnc-vnts/hvyrbn-srch-rsc-en.aspx">Canada’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Teams or Task Forces</a>. </p>
<p>There is a clear positive correlation between the number of <a href="https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/10_vol10_5989.pdf">buildings collapsed and the number of people killed in the earthquakes</a>. In strong earthquakes (measuring more than seven <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/moment-magnitude-richter-scale-what-are-different-magnitude-scales-and-why-are-there-so-many">on the moment magnitude scale</a>) in high-density urban areas, up to 70 per cent of the collapsed buildings’ occupants become trapped under debris.</p>
<p>After the earthquake, SAR operations race against time because the chances of survival for people trapped under the collapsed buildings fades away rapidly. </p>
<p>Fade-away time — <a href="https://www.iitk.ac.in/nicee/wcee/article/10_vol10_6043.pdf">the length of time between the disaster event and a trapped individual’s chances for survival reaching zero</a> varies depending on multiple factors including age, level of injury, weather conditions and the situation of the victim. For example, for a person with major blood loss, the average maximum chance for survival is almost two days, compared with an average maximum of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049023x00003253">6.8 days for someone who is uninjured</a>. </p>
<h2>Complicated rescues</h2>
<p>Rescuing individuals from high-rise multistory buildings is much more complicated and as such, the role of heavy SAR teams becomes critical. In low-density urban or rural areas, the majority of trapped individuals can be rescued within two days without using sophisticated tools, however, this is not the case in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/prehospital-and-disaster-medicine/article/surviving-collapsed-structure-entrapment-after-earthquakes-a-timetorescue-analysis/D24F04BFBA9EDA264EA11010418B09B5">multistory buildings</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Mexico-City-earthquake-of-1985">1985 Mexico City earthquake</a>, <a href="https://www.nist.gov/el/earthquake-kobe-japan-1995">the 1995 Kobe earthquake</a> and the <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109632">2010 Haiti earthquake</a> are prime examples of such complex situations and search and rescue operations. </p>
<p>SAR operations become much more complex if earthquakes occur overnight, because the occupancy rates of the buildings are usually at their highest level and more people are inside the collapsed buildings, such as the timing of the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. </p>
<p>Relying on international SAR teams for the critical hours of search and rescue is not very realistic. Despite the creation of coordinated bodies such as the United Nations <a href="https://www.insarag.org/">International SAR Advisory Group</a>, these teams arrive at the impacted areas too late.</p>
<p>During the 2010 Haiti and 2015 Nepal earthquakes, about 53 international teams arrived in these countries — most arrived after three days. In Haiti, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/23/haiti-ends-quake-rescue-operations">132 people were rescued by the 52 international SAR teams with 1,820 personnel</a>.</p>
<h2>Investing in search-and-rescue capacity</h2>
<p>Putting all these past experiences, evidence and realities together, the bottom line is that earthquake-prone countries — including Canada — need to build capacity and invest in local and national SAR teams to be able to conduct effective and timely search and rescue during the first two days after the event. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, this must be established in conjunction with ensuring new buildings are constructed according to codes and existing buildings are retrofitted as much as possible to minimize the impact of earthquakes. </p>
<p>These are long-term and continued investments that would save many lives in the rare instances of their deployment. The challenge lies in that such long-term investments are not very attractive to those in decision-making positions. Long-term emergency plans require funding, capacity building and investment in search-and-rescue resources. </p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published on Feb. 13, 2023. The earlier story said the Mexico City earthquake was in 1995 instead of 1985.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Asgary does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The devastating outcomes of earthquakes is worsened when buildings cannot withstand the impact. Also, increased urban density and new construction materials are complicating search-and-rescue efforts.Ali Asgary, Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies & Director, CIFAL York, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1814072022-08-05T12:14:23Z2022-08-05T12:14:23ZSocial media provides flood of images of death and carnage from Ukraine war – and contributes to weaker journalism standards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467537/original/file-20220607-40890-hy7er.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5974%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A soldier's body lies next to a destroyed Russian truck on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/RussiaUkraineWar100DaysExplainer/1a73a1612aba4c479dfb2a16af7f21cd/photo">AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Photos of civilians killed or injured in the Russia-Ukraine war are widespread, particularly online, both on social media and in professional news media. </p>
<p>Editors have always published images of dead or suffering people during times of crisis, like wars and natural disasters. But the current crisis has delivered many more of these images, more widely published online, than ever before.</p>
<p>“It’s all over social media,” says Nancy San Martin, a longtime former foreign correspondent and editor at the Miami Herald. And not just online. Mainstream journalists are also departing from their traditional tendency to avoid <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/politics/photos-uvalde.html">prominently featuring images of dead people</a> or particularly direct depictions of physical injuries.</p>
<p>But in times of conflict overseas, those standard practices tend to ease, San Martin, now deputy managing editor for the history and culture desk at National Geographic, told me in a phone interview: “War will always open that door. Part of our role is to document the consequences of war and all that it entails.”</p>
<p>Editorial oversight has traditionally been part of the equation – the practice of a group of journalists who ensure context, balancing the significance and importance of what an image depicts with its gruesomeness. They might, for instance, choose a different angle of an injured or dead person that shows less blood, or crop an image so a dead person’s face isn’t visible, or choose to withhold an image altogether while providing written information about what happened.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://beenasarwar.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/2001-jan.-22-documentary-and-democracy-goldsmiths-college.pdf">longtime journalist and editor</a> following media, journalism and human rights, I
know images can become <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2013/04/28/iconic-war-photographs/2119175/">public icons symbolizing major events</a>.</p>
<p>The flood of images from the Ukraine war runs deep and wide. It contains many potentially iconic images but also shows more raw carnage than in past conflicts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photograph of three dead bodies lying next to a split-rail fence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469057/original/file-20220615-24-g6m8g8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander Gardner’s photos, along with those of Mathew Brady, depicted casualties of the U.S. Civil War and were among the first to show people who had been killed in combat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/ds.05174/">Alexander Gardner via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Powerful images</h2>
<p>From the <a href="https://www.life.com/history/crimea-where-war-photography-was-born/">earliest days of photography</a> in the 19th century, war has been a common subject, including <a href="https://www.nps.gov/anti/learn/historyculture/photography.htm">during the U.S. Civil War</a>. </p>
<p>Certain images have become famous, such as <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima">Joe Rosenthal’s World War II image of U.S. Marines</a> raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, signaling the capture of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Imperial Army in February 1945. It was distributed by The Associated Press and <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/article/joe-rosenthal-and-flag-raising-iwo-jima">ran on the front pages</a> of many U.S. newspapers.</p>
<p>“There have always been powerful images emerging from conflict,” Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer <a href="https://patrickfarrellphotography.com/">Patrick Farrell</a> told me in a video call. “A still image is still one of the most powerful forms of media. It will sit with you forever.”</p>
<p>Many of the famous images are not of victory or glory but rather of violence and death – and also remain etched in public memory. Nick Ut’s photograph of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/50-years-after-napalm-girl-myths-distort-the-reality-behind-a-horrific-photo-of-the-vietnam-war-and-exaggerate-its-impact-183291">napalm girl</a>” Kim Phuc and John Filo’s photo of <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/news/history/2020/05/01/kent-state-shooting-photos-mary-ann-vecchio-impacts-nation-jeffrey-miller-john-filo/3055009001/">Mary Ann Vecchio mourning student protester Jeffrey Miller</a> at Kent State University show both the foreign and domestic toll of the Vietnam War. They were <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/in-depth/news/history/2020/05/01/kent-state-shooting-photos-mary-ann-vecchio-impacts-nation-jeffrey-miller-john-filo/3055009001">transmitted via wire services</a>, too, and <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/04/vietnam-war-napalm-girl-photo-today">chosen to feature prominently</a> in newspapers and magazines across the country.</p>
<p>Photos of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-port-au-prince-deaths">bodies piled in the streets</a> after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and floating in the water in <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2010/08/24/129400381/telling-their-stories">New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina</a> in the same year are examples of the choices made by editors across the nation to feature coverage showing the real human cost of significant natural disasters.</p>
<p>Kevin Carter’s 1993 image of a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/03/02/5241442/a-pulitzer-winning-photographers-suicide">vulture next to a starving child</a> in Sudan is another lasting image of human tragedy that was published by editors worldwide. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994.</p>
<p>Wire-distributed photos of other tragedies, including Nilufer Demir’s image of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Greek beach, and atrocities, like the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/abuse-photos-ii/8/">images from Abu Ghraib</a> of U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners, are also visceral reminders of complex events. </p>
<h2>Increased volume</h2>
<p>The difference between those situations and the present one in Ukraine is the sheer volume of images.</p>
<p>There are, as usual in conflict situations, award-winning professional photojournalists in Ukraine <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/05/world/ukraine-war-photographers-cnnphotos/">sending images back</a> to the media outlets they work for. But many of them are also posting images on their own or their employers’ <a href="https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/4857/war-photography-in-the-age-of-social-media">social media accounts</a> – more images than might be published on a newspaper’s front page or homepage on the web.</p>
<p>Also on social media are <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-social-media-images-from-the-ground-could-be-affecting-our-response-to-the-war-178722">legions of ordinary citizens</a> taking pictures with their smartphones and bearing witness, sharing countless images every day.</p>
<p>With the “floodgates opened by social media,” as Farrell put it, the media environment in 2022 is different from previous decades. There are now many powerful images competing to become iconic.</p>
<p>It’s “not more graphic than what we saw during Vietnam,” in Farrell’s estimation, but the media cycle then, based on daily newspapers and nightly TV news broadcasts, meant there were breaks in the barrage of imagery. </p>
<p>What’s of concern to Farrell, and to me, is that there is less editorial oversight about which images reach the most eyeballs – even in professional newsrooms. </p>
<p>With social media in the mix and the never-ending competition to be first, editors are publishing and distributing images with less consideration for traditional editorial restraint and balance between gore and meaning – and with less context about the images themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man plays a piano in the street" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467539/original/file-20220607-24949-939qjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander, who did not want to provide his last name, plays a piano placed outside in the Old Town on March 29, 2022, in Lviv, Ukraine. Alexander said he was playing because he missed being able to play the piano after having to leave his behind when he fled his hometown of Kramatorsk.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/alexander-plays-a-piano-placed-outside-in-the-old-town-on-news-photo/1388364859">Joe Raedle/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Context is vital</h2>
<p>An important element of that context is that in some ways <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/27/what-know-about-ukraines-lviv-struck-by-missiles-when-biden-was-250-miles-away/">life goes on</a>, says San Martin. Despite the carnage and mayhem of war, she says, the places experiencing war are still places where people make their lives. Her husband, Joe Raedle, an award-winning photographer with Getty Images, has been on the ground in Ukraine documenting both the refugee exodus and everyday life – cultural performances, restaurants serving free meals, churches providing comfort – and a <a href="https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/alexander-plays-a-piano-placed-outside-in-the-old-town-on-news-photo/1388364859">man playing a piano on the street</a>, having left his own behind when he fled the fighting.</p>
<p>“It’s a different kind of war. Still heartbreaking,” she says, noting that there is more happening than the dominant images show. Those elements, she predicts, will become more important to full coverage of events in Ukraine as the war continues. It is going to be, as she says, “a long haul.”</p>
<p>It’s normal for media to focus on the immediacy of conflict or disaster and to highlight the most dramatic, even horrific events. But what San Martin reminds me, and what I have seen in my work, is that the journalists often give <a href="https://beenasarwar.com/2009/06/28/dr-sarwar-blog-media-matters-chapter-in-new-book-on-pakistan-india-divide/">less emphasis to the processes behind</a> events and the surrounding context – including the <a href="https://tvr2c.com/2016/10/26/beenasarwar/">survival, determination and resilience</a> of those affected.</p>
<p>Sensational images circulating on social media are similarly incomplete – or even potentially <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-ukraine-russia/fact-check-photo-of-children-saluting-ukrainian-tanks-dates-back-to-2016-idUSL1N2V10DO">false</a>, whether shared by propagandists or their innocent dupes. They represent an important, and alarming, reality. But there’s more to the picture than that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beena Sarwar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many images from the Ukraine war are compelling and distressing depictions of the human costs of war.Beena Sarwar, Visiting Professor of Journalism, Emerson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1829032022-08-03T17:13:05Z2022-08-03T17:13:05ZCanada’s international disaster responders have skills and experience that could be deployed in emergencies here at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476623/original/file-20220729-19-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C59%2C1928%2C1191&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A medical worker looks through the debris of a medical lab in Port-au-Prince, Haiti following an earthquake in January 2010. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Responding to international emergencies following natural disasters gives health-care workers knowledge and skills that are crucial in a crisis. They are uniquely prepared for the unpredictable conditions that follow disasters.</p>
<p>In Haiti after the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/2010-Haiti-earthquake">disastrous 2010 earthquake</a>, I was working as a physician with a medical team from the International Federation of the Red Cross. When a young woman joined us for hospital rounds one day, I noticed her Canadian accent.</p>
<p>Afterwards, I asked her who she was. She was a medical student from Saskatchewan who had decided simply to show up and help. She’d flown to the Dominican Republic and hitchhiked to Haiti. It was very unsafe for her to have done this alone, and without previous experience or training there was little for her to do but go back home.</p>
<p>It was clear she’d come out of a sincere desire to help, but had no idea what was really required, nor how disaster relief is organized.</p>
<h2>Unique skills and experience</h2>
<p>In 2004, I was working with an International Red Cross team in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Ocean-tsunami-of-2004">Aceh, Indonesia, after the catastrophic tsunami</a>. I recall realizing how little I could have done without the many skills and deep experience of my colleagues, who quickly set up an independently functioning field hospital on a soccer field, complete with its own clean water supply. Without them, I’d have been as helpless as that medical student I’d meet later in Haiti.</p>
<p>Such skills and attributes can be learned on the job, and many Canadians have already learned them though international experience. We need to do much more to prepare ourselves for increasingly frequent <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/environmental-public-health-climate-change/climate-change-public-health-factsheets-floods.html">domestic disasters</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3488-4">emergencies</a> by identifying, organizing, improving and utilizing the resources we already have.</p>
<p>I have had the opportunity to serve in many international humanitarian crises, and I learn from each one. I learn from other people who do this work and the attributes that make them successful, whether through the <a href="https://www.redcross.ca/">Red Cross</a>, <a href="https://www.doctorswithoutborders.ca/">Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders</a> or other NGOs that respond to the world’s disasters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A street scene with billowing smoke in the background and a firefighter in the foreground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476644/original/file-20220729-5168-uyyv4z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Que. in July 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span>
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<p>They have learned to be relentlessly practical, endlessly adaptive and resilient, and to see themselves as individual parts of highly integrated, efficient and well-organized teams, ready to work as soon as they land.</p>
<p>Once a response transitions from emergency to recovery, we all return to our “day” jobs across Canada and around the world. In my case, that’s serving as a family physician in Hamilton and teaching at McMaster University’s Department of Family Medicine and Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. Since the next call could come at any time, I think about what we’ve learned and how we can use these lessons.</p>
<h2>Disasters at home</h2>
<p>We are very fortunate to live where we do, in relative prosperity, peace and safety, but recent history has proven disasters do happen here.</p>
<p>Think of the <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lac-megantic-rail-disaster">train derailment and fire in Lac-Mégantic</a>, prolonged wildfires in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfires-2021-timeline-1.6197751">western and northern Canada</a>, or <a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/extreme-flooding-causes-evacuation-orders-for-first-nations-in-b-c/">flooding around Hudson Bay</a> and <a href="https://www.thestar.com/calgary/2018/04/23/many-millions-of-dollars-southern-alberta-begins-to-tally-flood-damage.html">elsewhere</a>. </p>
<p>Consider the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and the <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadas-hospital-capacity-was-so-easily-overwhelmed-by-the-covid-pandemic">strain on Canadian hospitals</a>, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1503%2Fcmaj.1095856">shortages of equipment</a> and personnel and the <a href="https://search.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/en/covidwho-1232817">logistical challenges</a> of moving tests, personal protective equipment and vaccines to where they were needed.</p>
<p>Our various levels of government did their best to respond to the pandemic, but their responses may have been faster and better if they’d made use of people who had worked through similar crises abroad.</p>
<p>Our experts go out into the world and gain incredible experience, then go back to their regular jobs, as doctors, nurses, logistics planners, engineers, security experts or water engineers. As a country, we don’t do enough to catalogue their skills and experiences so we can be ready when the time comes here — as it has, and as it surely will again.</p>
<h2>Abundant expertise and experience</h2>
<p>Some colleagues and I recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.9778/cmajo.20210127">published a paper in the <em>Canadian Medical Association Journal Open</em></a> describing how lessons from the field can help in Canada. Our paper was based on interviews with people who had been deployed on multiple international crisis missions — some of them dozens of times.</p>
<p>The results showed how international deployment had acted as a real-life training setting by helping clinicians and team members acquire or refine specific skills, including agile decision-making, communication and collaboration during high-stress situations.</p>
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<img alt="A gymnasium filled with cots and folding chairs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476645/original/file-20220729-5473-5dvq9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cots litter the gym floor at a reception centre set up for evacuees from Fort McMurray, Alta when the city was evacuated during a wildfire in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Greg Halinda</span></span>
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<p>The research participants noted that being part of a disaster response team puts an individual in a very challenging environment where it is crucial to learn attributes like assessing complex situations quickly and reaching well-considered decisions. Experiencing broken infrastructure, limited resources and chaotic environments in disaster settings taught the participants to be “able to think outside the box.”</p>
<p>The participants said that understanding the aims and context of the local community is important for dealing with the challenges of the work and addressing problems effectively. They emphasized the importance of cultural sensitivity during international deployments, including learning about and accepting other cultures, countries and languages. They noted that when responding to a disaster or emergency, engaging and truly partnering with the local community ensures an effective, culturally appropriate and sustainable response.</p>
<p>That kind of learning is highly valuable, and we should be feeding this spark.</p>
<p>The main lesson is this: Canada has abundant expertise and experience here at home, but we don’t use it well — perhaps because we simply don’t know what we have.</p>
<p>Before the next domestic disaster, it would be ideal for governments to create, maintain and use a central bank of expertise and contacts related to humanitarian and disaster response, featuring people who have learned to work quickly, pragmatically and, above all, in teams.</p>
<p>Canadians are good in disasters. I have seen it.</p>
<p>We need to realize, especially after this pandemic, that disasters don’t only happen “over there.” Let’s put this on the front burner and improve disaster preparedness at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182903/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Lynda Redwood-Campbell is affiliated with the Canadian Red Cross. She is a delegate on the Canadian Red Cross Emergency Response Unit team and deploys intermittently with the team.</span></em></p>The unique skills of Canadian health-care workers with international disaster experience could be a valuable resource during domestic emergencies.Lynda Redwood-Campbell, Professor of Family Medicine, Global health Lead, Humanitarian and disaster response expertise, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675662021-09-09T10:58:32Z2021-09-09T10:58:32ZHaiti’s history of political fragility makes its recovery from disaster even harder – podcast<p>From earthquakes to hurricanes, disease and drug violence, the Caribbean island of Haiti has faced a decade of cascading crises. In this week’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast we talk to experts about what Haiti’s history tells us about its political fragility and what that means for the country’s ability to recover from disasters. And we talk to a historian about her new research chronicling the experiences of Japanese Americans interned by the US government during the second world war. </p>
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<p>The death toll from the huge 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the south-western coast of Haiti on August 14 now stands at more than 2,200 people. Around <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-earthquake-situation-report-no-3-31-august-2021">130,000 homes</a> were also damaged or destroyed. As Louise Comfort, professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, explains, it’s been “extremely difficult” to get aid to people in the worst affected areas, although the situation is now improving. </p>
<p>Comfort <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-recent-political-instability-affect-haitis-earthquake-response-we-ask-an-expert-166224">uses the term “cascading crises”</a> to describe the situation Haiti has been left in following a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed about 220,000 people and left much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, in ruins. This included difficulty managing the foreign aid that flowed into the country, problems with drug cartels and a deadly cholera epidemic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/dec/01/haiti-cholera-outbreak-stain-on-reputation-un-says">introduced by UN peacekeepers</a>. “You have a weak governance structure that needs support from the outside,” Comfort says. “But when it’s not able to cope with the series of disasters, each time there’s a disaster it weakens some other part of the system.”</p>
<p>The August 2021 earthquake struck as Haiti reeled from the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57762246">assassination of its president</a>, Jovenel Moïse, in early July. The assassination is the latest crisis in Haiti’s long and turbulent political history, which has often been influenced by foreign interference, according to Jean Eddy Saint Paul, a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He gives us a brief history of Haiti since the country won independence from French colonial rule in 1804 following a bloody revolution. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history-137949">French debt imposed on Haiti</a> to compensate the loss of land and enslaved people, to US occupation in the early 20th century, Saint Paul says: “The international community have been always negative external forces that have shaped the political leadership in Haiti.” But Saint Paul also laments that part of the reason for Haiti’s weak democracy is the weakness of its political elites.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/assassinations-and-invasions-how-the-us-and-france-shaped-haitis-long-history-of-political-turmoil-164269">Assassinations and invasions – how the US and France shaped Haiti's long history of political turmoil</a>
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<p>Our second story (at 27m40s) looks back at a dark moment in US history: the internment of around 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry during the second world war after the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. Susan Kamei, a lecturer in history at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, talks to us <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/When-Can-We-Go-Back-to-America/Susan-H-Kamei/9781481401449">about her new book</a> that chronicles the experiences of those who lived in the prison camps, including both her parents. Kamei tells us that Japanese Americans at the time didn’t have any effective allies and they “lacked the political clout to have a voice to change the narrative and to push against this overwhelming discrimination and prejudice”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-memories-of-japanese-american-imprisonment-during-wwii-guided-the-us-response-to-9-11-166928">How memories of Japanese American imprisonment during WWII guided the US response to 9/11</a>
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<p>And Kalpana Jain, a senior religion and ethics editor at The Conversation in the US, recommends some reading from our coverage marking the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/9-11-1414">9/11 attacks</a>. (at 41m)</p>
<p>This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/?hl=en">theconversationdotcom</a> or via email on podcast@theconversation.com. You can also sign up to <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter?utm_campaign=PodcastTCWeekly&utm_content=newsletter&utm_source=podcast">The Conversation’s free daily email here</a>.</p>
<p>News clips in this episode are from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1I-yMukBCw">DW</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVKG5XG91a8">News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTGBlshEwoc">WION</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9RhNZ39m7o">News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnewO7oKMog">Al</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBXG4tMWqKY">Jazeera</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_mKW-kVb_I">English</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNt74XHtEzo">PBS NewsHour</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cprqcFnN8Y">CNN</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eekRFrQwRjQ">ABC News (Australia)</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9N3m2nutag&t=65s">AP Archive</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJK9dkT0WKs">Ayiti branche</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA6G15UP7jI">Arirang News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbDO4w6kJo">Television Jamaica</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4CedSyWiM">CNBC Television</a>.</p>
<p><em>You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out how else to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Plus, new research chronicling the experiences of Japanese Americans interned by the US government during the second world war. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.Gemma Ware, Head of AudioDaniel Merino, Associate Breaking News Editor and Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly PodcastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1666122021-09-09T09:46:07Z2021-09-09T09:46:07ZEarthquake expert who advised the Haiti government in 2010: ‘Why were clear early warning signs missed?’<p><em>Luigi Di Sarno was part of a team of specialist advisers brought in to help the government of Haiti prepare for future earthquakes after 200,000 people were killed in 2010. Over a decade later, very few of their recommendations had been adopted.</em></p>
<p>It was about 8.30am, local time, on August 14 2021 when I felt the room starting to shake. I was lying in my bed on the top (21st) floor of a hotel in the Dominican Republic, to the eastern side of Haiti. The picture frames were swinging and I could see that the flat screen TV in front of the bed was also rocking from side to side. </p>
<p>It took me a few seconds to realise that the tremors the building was experiencing were caused by an earthquake – and I am a structural earthquake engineer, with nearly two decades of experience in academic teaching and research, plus professional consultancies for international firms and governmental agencies. But I suppose that goes to show what a shock a situation like that is to the human mind. It can be hard to believe it’s happening, and can take a moment to process. </p>
<p>It was Saturday and, being the first day of a bank holiday weekend, I thought that I could take some extra rest to relax. I was in Santo Domingo discussing the ageing bridges and vulnerability of historical buildings in the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/526/">Ciudad Colonial</a> UNESCO’s World Heritage Site. It had been a hectic week of meetings about structural engineering and earthquake risk mitigation.</p>
<p>When I first noticed the movement of the picture frames, I initially thought it was caused by a strong wind passing through the joints of the large sea-view windows. This had happened to me in the past, from high wind speeds caused by tropical storms. But this was not the case on that Saturday morning. </p>
<p>My instinctive reaction was to jump from the bed. By standing on the floor, I started to experience a sense of swaying. I was now sure that an earthquake had struck. To quickly double-check this, I filled a glass which was on my desk with water, and observed the liquid sloshing: clear evidence of the building shaking. </p>
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<p><strong><em>This story is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.</em> </p>
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<p>I decided to leave my room when I started to feel the floor vibrating. Approaching the corridor, I could not see any warning signs or evacuation routes, and I was surprised that all the lights were on and that the glass lift was fully functioning. Generally, when an earthquake happens, the power goes off. Following basic rules of earthquake engineering, I stopped close to a large column in the corridor and waited a few minutes until the shaking stopped. </p>
<p>I now had two options: either use the lift or walk down the stairs. I knew that the lift generally takes a few seconds to bring you to the lobby, from the 21st floor. I imagined it could take a few minutes to reach the ground floor using the stairs. So I thought the faster, the better and decided to risk a trip down in the lift. This was also based on the assumption that you never experience two large magnitude events or quakes that are very close to each other. There is an extremely <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780128156797/foundations-of-modern-global-seismology">low probability</a> that a large magnitude main-shock is followed by aftershocks of the same magnitude.</p>
<p>When I arrived in the lobby, I checked the internet on my mobile to find out if there was any news about earthquakes in the region. I was amazed to read from the United States Geological Survey (<a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000f65h/shakemap/intensity">USGS</a>) that a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-58215631">7.2 magnitude earthquake</a> had occurred. It was localised in the south-west of Haiti, near the city of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/health-caribbean-coronavirus-pandemic-united-nations-haiti-a625e4406ffa26e43d8b42cb71c9ba7f">Les Cayes</a>, about 200km (125 miles) from where I was staying. </p>
<p>Yet in the hotel reception, everything seemed normal. Tourists were checking in and out without a care in the world. I asked the receptionist if she had felt the strong earthquake, using my basic Spanish: “<em>terremoto</em>” (earthquake). She responded calmly: “<em>Oh, terremoto … no … más probable era pequeño</em>” (Oh, earthquake … no … most probably it was a small one). Initially, I felt a bit stupid, as it seemed that people in the Dominican Republic were well attuned to earthquake risks, deciding by simply personal perceptions whether an earthquake is “pequeño” or not.</p>
<p>But I soon realised that I was not being stupid at all. People in that hotel could have been at risk. It brought home to me just how much work needs to be done, worldwide, on risk assessment and awareness. </p>
<p>Then, using a white paper napkin, I did some <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-am/Fundamentals+of+Earthquake+Engineering%3A+From+Source+to+Fragility%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9781118678923">simple calculations</a>. Considering the height of the building (which did not exhibit visible cracks) and the level of ground shaking that I derived from the online maps by USGS, I determined – roughly – the horizontal movement of the building floor (also termed “lateral displacement”) that I had experienced 30 minutes earlier. In this case, the displacement was in the order of 12-14cms (or two hand palms). I was worried that the building could be severely damaged with cracks, compromising its stability so I requested a lower room and was transferred to the 13th floor. Being about 30 metres below the 21st floor was much more reassuring and certainly less scary for the night. </p>
<h2>Haiti suffers again</h2>
<p>The earthquake occurred in the <a href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70042220">Enriquillo Plantain Garden Fault Zone</a>, located in the south-west of Haiti. The island of Hispaniola, which comprises two nations (the French-speaking Haiti and the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic) is a very active seismic region of the Greater Antilles arc on the Caribbean plate, with several <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/topographic-and-bathymetric-map-island-hispaniola">active faults</a>. A fault is the resulting fracture in the Earth’s outer layers, or crust, after an earthquake.</p>
<p>What struck that day was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. That corresponds to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/0470855185">strong seismic events</a> with a large loss of lives. By August 25, the official death toll had reached <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/haiti-earthquake-situation-report-no-3-31-august-2021">2,300</a>, with 12,000 people injured and at least 137,000 buildings severely damaged or collapsed. The energy released during this earthquake roughly corresponded to 36 Hiroshima atomic bombs exploding simultaneously. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1098032">Surveys</a> carried out by UNICEF also found that 94 out of the 255 schools in the western part of Haiti were severely damaged or fully collapsed. </p>
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<img alt="Colour map of the island of Hispaniola." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419310/original/file-20210903-25-5j87d4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault Zone runs along the southern side of the island of Hispaniola.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriquillo%E2%80%93Plantain_Garden_fault_zone#/media/File:Gon%C3%A2ve_microplate.png">Wikipedia/NasaWorldWind</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The earthquake I had felt in my hotel room was rather “shallow” in that it originated at less than 10km from below the Earth’s surface. The depth of an earthquake is very important for its effects on the built environment: the shallower the origin of the shaking, the more devastating the effects are. Seismic energy propagates through waves in the soil and tends to attenuate (or reduce) with the distance from the source (also termed <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/glossary/?term=hypocenter">hypocentre</a> or focus). </p>
<p>Seismic wave propagation and attenuation are a complex geophysical phenomenon which depend significantly on the properties of the faults, the soil type, the presence of water and the depth of the “focus”. To visualise the seismic wave propagation and attenuation, you might think of the circles in water when a stone thrown in a pond.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rings of ripples in a body of water." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418678/original/file-20210831-21-p50wj3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ripples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/top-view-closeup-blue-water-rings-1111512254">YJ.K/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Knowledge of the fundamentals of seismology is essential to understand the complexity of Hispaniola and more generally for most Caribbean islands, which are exposed to “multi-natural hazards”, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and landslides. In the last ten years, I have been involved in numerous projects, funded by national and international institutions, including the Ministry of Health and Public Works in Haiti, the European Union, the World Bank, the PanAmerican Health Organization (PAHO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). My role has been in risk assessment and disaster mitigation in the Caribbean region. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/engineering/staff/luigi-di-sarno/research/">research interest</a> has been stimulated by the complexity of natural risks in this part of the world, a place that most people know only for beautiful beaches and crystal clear seas. My work in the Caribbean has focused primarily on enhancing the resilience of existing structures and infrastructure and promoting the enforcement and adaption of building codes. </p>
<p>I have provided <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10518-016-9878-7">advice</a> for the implementation of early warning systems at critical facilities, such as hospitals. The approach that my colleagues and I at PAHO/WHO have illustrated and discussed with several Caribbean institutions is to ensure the resilience of hospitals, at least those that are at high risk (for example, large vulnerable buildings close to seismic faults or built on unstable soils). I work to try and make the buildings in earthquake zones safer and I try to help those zones be more prepared when an earthquake hits. </p>
<p>Many large cities in Hispaniola are heavily exposed to seismic risk because of their proximity to seismic sources, high vulnerability of existing infrastructure and the large concentration of population, as well as poor quality soils. Soil instability, exacerbated by strong ground motions and heavy rains during tropical storms, has induced <a href="https://www.pearson.com/uk/educators/higher-education-educators/program/Kramer-Geotechnical-Earthquake-Engineering-Pearson-New-International-Edition/PGM1077991.html">hundreds of landslides</a>. As a consequence, thousands of buildings are washed out by mud flow every year. This <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/148713/earthquake-in-haiti-triggers-landslides">was the case</a> on August 14 as the earthquake followed on from tropical storm Grace.</p>
<p>This devastating earthquake highlighted, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake">once again</a>, the high vulnerability of buildings and infrastructure on Haiti, which is the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">poorest country</a> in the Latin American and Caribbean region and among one of the poorest nations in the world. Hospital facilities have been under extensive stress since the disaster. They have lost much of their functionality and most injured people were initially transported to Miami. Temporary tents were also installed in hospital outdoor parking areas and in the streets to deal with less serious cases. But such activities were jeopardised by heavy rains and storm surges following the wake of storm Grace.</p>
<h2>Warning signs missed</h2>
<p>What happened on August 14 was all too familiar to me. I surveyed Haiti in February 2012 in the wake of another 7.0 magnitude (2010) earthquake when I was sent by PAHO for post-disaster recovery. That earthquake caused more than <a href="https://www.dec.org.uk/article/2010-haiti-earthquake-facts-and-figures">200,000 casualties</a> as it occurred in a far more densely populated area. </p>
<p>During site visits, the joint PAHO and World Bank team, of which I was a member, met with several representatives of Ministry of Health and Ministry of Public Works, and we advised the enforcement of simple and robust seismic design criteria for new constructions, especially for hospital buildings. A few of the recommendations were successfully implemented in practice. Sadly, others were not.</p>
<p>The truth is there have been very few improvements between the 2010 and the 2021 earthquakes. For example, it is now possible to <a href="https://ayiti.unice.fr/ayiti-seismes/">access data</a> on the strong motions recorded by the seismic network which was installed in some private residences in different locations in Haiti. These data can be easily and freely accessed online.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, this network has not been efficiently used for early warning alerts. A quick examination of the data revealed to me that at least two strong motions (with magnitude 4.0 or above) were recorded <em>before</em> August 14 along the Enriquillo Plantain Garden Fault. So the warning signs were there, but nobody – it seems – was looking out for them.</p>
<p>But it is not only about the deployment of technology, it is about its efficient use for risk mitigation. People could have been saved by a simple message on their mobile phones which are widely used in Haiti, even in rural communities. Yet, the government issued no such warnings to its residents. The question must be asked: what exactly did Haiti’s National Civil Defence do to warn the people it is charged to protect?</p>
<p>Sadly, many vital issues in earthquake mitigation and assessment are just not on the agenda of any of the Caribbean islands – but Haiti, in particular, has been badly served due to political turmoil and a combination of other environmental and economic factors. </p>
<p>Personally, I have never seen in all my career the combination of so many hazards in a single place at the same time. </p>
<p>The devastation of the earthquake was combined with heavy rain from tropical storms. The affected communities are poor and already under threat from COVID-19. And finally there are the <a href="https://theconversation.com/assassinations-and-invasions-how-the-us-and-france-shaped-haitis-long-history-of-political-turmoil-164269">political tensions</a> – which led to the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-57762246">assassination</a> of the former President of Haiti in early July. All these issues together means that it is almost impossible to manage the situation.</p>
<p>For example, international support for the deployment of relief supplies, along with the delivery of aid from neighbouring Caribbean countries and many other nations have been hindered by COVID-19 restrictions. All these “non-technical” aspects require further investigations to evaluate their effects on the recovery.</p>
<p>But the 2021 Haiti earthquake has starkly demonstrated how weak communities are in low-income countries and has shown that governance of disaster management is still far from being successfully implemented in several countries worldwide, as <a href="https://www.undrr.org/publication/undrr-annual-report-2020">advocated by the UN</a>. Activities sponsored by the PAHO/WHO, World Bank and other international agencies in response to the devastating 2010 earthquake have not been very successful.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/haiti-what-aid-workers-can-learn-from-the-previous-earthquake-as-they-struggle-to-rebuild-the-country-166304">Haiti: what aid workers can learn from the previous earthquake as they struggle to rebuild the country</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Even one month after the devastating event of August 14, there are still numerous unsolved challenges on the ground for those who are providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief. I know this because I am in regular contact with colleagues and friends who are there right now. Colleagues like <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/shalini-jagnarine-azan-21a04241/?originalSubdomain=tt">Shalini Jagnarine</a>, regional consultant for PAHO and WHO, Barbados. She told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Travelling within Haiti is extremely difficult. The United Nations do not permit us to go alone by car because of the ongoing security situation. There are only two helicopters, with a long waiting list for their use. This is really delaying our relief operations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Philippe Lauture, manager and structural engineer of a construction company, in Haiti’s capital'laterthe loca Port-au-Prince, told me how thousands of residential buildings, schools, churches and hospitals have been severely affected and he has witnessed several collapses caused by landslides due to torrential rain. “We need to seriously rethink our way of planning and constructing to avoid future devastating effects,” he said. </p>
<p>Stable local governance is a vital component for effective disaster preparedness and in building community resilience. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction summed it up perfectly when it said: “We will not eradicate poverty if we do not reduce disasters.” So the challenge is on all of us. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>For you: more from our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Insights series</a>:</em></p>
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<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK">Climate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap</a></em></p></li>
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<p><em>To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=InsightsUK"><strong>Subscribe to our newsletter</strong></a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166612/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luigi Di Sarno works for the University of Liverpool. He has received Official Development Assistance (ODA) Research Seed Fund from Research and Partnerships Development at University of Liverpool. These ODA funds include the following two projects with a focus on the Caribbean Region:
- The effects of climate change on existing critical infrastructure of developing nations;
- Strengthening organizational and community resilience - first-responder actions in emergency/disaster management.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Mannis works for the University of Liverpool. He has received Official Development Assistance (ODA) Research Seed Fund from Research and Partnerships Development at University of Liverpool. These ODA funds include the following two projects with a focus on the Caribbean Region:
-- The effects of climate change on existing critical infrastructure of developing nations;
-- Strengthening organizational and community resilience: first-responder actions in emergency/disaster management.</span></em></p>A seismic network was put in place after the 2010 quake but, despite recording two ‘strong motions’ before August 14, no alerts went out.Luigi Di Sarno, Senior Lecturer in Structural Design - Program Director for Architectural Engineering, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662242021-08-17T12:14:45Z2021-08-17T12:14:45ZWill recent political instability affect Haiti’s earthquake response? We ask an expert<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416388/original/file-20210816-6755-1zy2bg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C3583%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Natural disasters are not uncommon in Haiti; neither is political instability.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-walks-past-a-church-destroyed-during-an-earthquake-in-news-photo/1234717226?adppopup=true">Reginald Louissaint JR/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Parts of Haiti were reduced to rubble by a powerful earthquake that hit the impoverished nation on Aug. 14, 2021, resulting in a death toll that has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/americas/haiti-earthquake-news-monday-intl/index.html">climbed rapidly</a> to nearly 1,500 with many more bodies expected to be recovered in the days to come.</em></p>
<p><em>The devastating temblor came just weeks after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/haitis-president-assassinated-5-essential-reads-to-give-you-key-history-and-insight-164118">assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse</a> – an event that underlined the precarious political and security environment in modern-day Haiti.</em></p>
<p><em>Louise Comfort, an <a href="https://www.gspia.pitt.edu/faculty-and-staff/louise-comfort">expert in crisis response at the University of Pittsburgh</a>, has firsthand experience helping Haiti recover from tragedy, having worked to build a stronger program of community resilience in the country following the 2010 earthquake. She answered The Conversation U.S.’s questions on how the Caribbean nation will respond to the latest natural disaster.</em></p>
<h2>1. How do the recent crises in stability of the Haitian government affect the nation’s ability to respond to this earthquake?</h2>
<p>The assassination of President Moïse on July 7, 2021, marked the culmination of a series of challenges to his authority as president and the capacity of his administration to lead the country. His death surfaced a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/world/americas/haiti-prime-minister.html">power struggle between political rivals</a>, Claude Joseph and Ariel Henry, both of whom claimed the office of prime minister. This dispute was resolved on July 19 when <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/19/1018096890/ariel-henry-will-replace-claude-joseph-as-haitis-prime-minister">Joseph resigned and Henry was confirmed as prime minister</a>. But the crisis of responding to a major earthquake poses a major test to Henry’s leadership, coming just a few weeks after he stepped into the role. </p>
<p>The demands on the government for strong, decisive action in response to the earthquake are immediate. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/americas/haiti-earthquake-what-to-know.html">damaged cities in southwestern Haiti</a> have limited capacity for medical services, search and rescue efforts and infrastructure repair following <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/haitis-troubled-path-development">years of underfunding and neglect</a>. Aid and assistance will need to come from outside the small cities hit hardest by the quake – either from the capital of Port-au-Prince, from other nations in the Caribbean region or the larger international community. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Local artists paint a mural of slain president Jovenel Moise." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416397/original/file-20210816-21-1iigxl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse marked the culmination of political instability.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/local-artists-are-painting-murals-in-tribute-to-slain-news-photo/1234120270?adppopup=true">Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Henry will need to manage the delivery of search and rescue teams, medical staff and supplies, transportation and clean water from sources within Haiti as well as internationally. It is a big challenge as he seeks to secure the confidence of the damaged nation after only weeks in office. </p>
<h2>2. What lessons can be learned from the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed an estimated 220,000 people?</h2>
<p>As the principal investigator for a research team on crisis decision making in Haiti following <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/08/16/haiti-earthquakes-comparing-recent-quake-deadly-2010-tragedy/8144449002/">the 2010 earthquake</a>, I believe two lessons are key.</p>
<p>First, it is crucial to involve Haitians in designing and managing the delivery of assistance and relief supplies in their own country. Regrettably, this was largely not the case in 2010, when international non-governmental organizations met with good intentions, but <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691165363/the-dynamics-of-risk">made decisions for local Haitian leaders</a> to implement in practice.</p>
<p>While Haiti needs outside help from the international community to respond to the disaster, only Haitians understand the needs of their own communities and the local social networks that can best deliver aid. In Haiti, one of the <a href="https://www.cpc.unc.edu/news/hope-for-haiti-comes-from-within-religion-resilience-and-recovery/">strongest social networks is the Catholic Church</a>, with its network of volunteers and service organizations that know the neighborhoods and are trusted by residents. If engaged at the outset, this network can provide humanitarian services to local neighborhoods more effectively and efficiently than international agencies working separately. </p>
<p>The second vital lesson is to support the work of local and international scientists in assessing the <a href="http://www.geologie.ens.fr/%7Eecalais/the-haiti-experience.html">physical and meteorological risks that Haiti confronts going forward</a>.</p>
<p>This means continuing to build a geological survey in Haiti to map earthquake faults and areas of potential seismic risk. Haiti is vulnerable to multiple hazards – earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and sea level rise.</p>
<p>Understanding the science that underlies these hazards will enable Haitian scientists and governmental agencies to develop viable plans to rebuild damaged cities and infrastructure in sustainable, resilient ways. </p>
<h2>3. Can you explain the idea of cascading crises and how it has played a role in Haiti over much of the nation’s history?</h2>
<p>The concept of <a href="https://theconversation.com/222-scientists-say-cascading-crises-are-the-biggest-threat-to-the-well-being-of-future-generations-131551">cascading crises</a> is like dominoes falling – if one tips, the others, closely aligned, fall in sequence. In a country where the basic physical, political, economic and social infrastructures are weak, but all rely in some way on each other, damage to one area from an earthquake – say, physical infrastructure of roads and bridges – damages other parts, such as transportation to bring commercial goods to market. This in turn holds back the economy, reducing employment and harming social cohesion.</p>
<p>The difficulty for those planning for stability in Haiti is that while the physical infrastructure is the most visible when it is damaged, and may be seen as most in need of attention, it is the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691165363/the-dynamics-of-risk">political, economic and social infrastructure that is most essential</a> in making sure that roads and buildings are constructed to a standard that can withstand natural hazards in the first place. In other words, a stable government in Haiti is a crucial part of making the nation’s homes, hospitals and schools more resilient to events like earthquakes.</p>
<h2>4. What can other Caribbean nations, the U.S. and the wider international community do to help the long-term stabilization of Haiti?</h2>
<p>A key component in Haiti’s instability has been the <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/political-anatomy-haiti-armed-gangs">violent drug-trafficking gangs</a> that have scarred life for many in the nation for decades, contributing to the country’s economic and political woes. And it is here that regional governments in the Caribbean, as well as the U.S. and other nations, can play a crucial role.</p>
<p>Countering the cartels who use Haiti as an easy passage through which to smuggle drugs to Europe and North America will require a concerted international effort. Collaborative international policies on customs regulations, updating and maintaining access to international databases by border patrol units, and advanced use of technologies to identify and intercept drug trafficking are steps toward reducing this major hazard. This is an international problem that Haiti cannot manage alone, and curbing it would benefit all nations. </p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise K. Comfort received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation for a RAPID Response grant to study decision making in Haiti immediately after the 2010 Earthquake. She also received two grants from the Widgeon Foundation in Maryland to carry out a collaborative international study with faculty and students from the State University of Haiti and Quisqueya University. All grants have been fully expended since 2016.. </span></em></p>Devastating quake came weeks after the assassination of Haiti’s president. A scholar of disaster preparedness explains the concept of ‘cascading crises’ and how other countries can help stabilize Haiti.Louise K. Comfort, Professor of Public and International Affairs, former Director of the Center for Disaster Management, University of PittsburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1296702020-01-09T23:19:16Z2020-01-09T23:19:16ZA decade after the earthquake, Haiti still struggles to recover<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309347/original/file-20200109-80144-4mrpwz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1356%2C667&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman walks through the shattered streets of Port-au-Prince a few weeks after the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake slammed the country, which has still not recovered despite billions of dollars being spent.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.cpimages.com">Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than 300,000 people were killed, several hundred thousand were injured and nearly 1.5 million were left homeless <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usp000h60h/dyfi/intensity">when magnitude 7 earthquake hit Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010</a>. </p>
<p>On that day, the workspace that my colleague Joseph Jr Clorméus, who co-authored this article, usually occupied at the Ministry of National Education completely collapsed. He witnessed an apocalyptic spectacle: colleagues had lost their lives while others were having limbs amputated to escape certain death under the rubble. Outside, corpses littered the streets of the capital while the horrifying spectacle of blood mixed with concrete and dust offered itself to the desolate gaze of a traumatized population.</p>
<p>Ten years later, Haiti hasn’t recovered from this disaster, despite billions of dollars being spent in the country.</p>
<p>Two main factors explain, in our view, the magnitude of this tragedy: the weakness of Haitian public institutions and the disorganization of international aid, particularly from NGOs.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308856/original/file-20200107-123395-16wc0p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A few months after the earthquake, a girl walks on debris as she uses the structure of a damaged building in Port-au-Prince to air-dry clothes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos</span></span>
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<h2>The weakness of the Haitian state</h2>
<p>Haiti is vulnerable to earthquakes. Historically, they have been managed by the military, which played an important role in both national development and natural disaster management. But the speedy dismantling of the national army under Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s presidency did not allow for the transfer of the army’s natural disaster management skills to other civilian public institutions.</p>
<p>Indeed, a great deal of know-how disappeared. Despite the presence of several government bodies that had tried to develop skills in relation to earthquakes, no reliable operational body was able to manage the institutional vacuum left by the army. Today, Haiti remains very vulnerable to natural disasters on its territory.</p>
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À lire aussi :
<a href="https://theconversation.com/haiti-crisis-highlights-the-need-for-a-strong-civil-service-127757">Haiti crisis highlights the need for a strong civil service</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745332574/haitis-new-dictatorship/">succession of unstable governments over the past four decades hasn’t helped either</a>. These have significantly weakened the central administration, which then had little capacity to manage and control the country’s territory. </p>
<p>For example, Port-au-Prince, a city originally designed for 3,000 people, was home to almost a million. Ten years later, we can only note that nothing has really changed in this respect. The Haitian state has shown itself incapable of decentralizing and developing its rural environment, which is experiencing an <a href="https://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article23151#.Xhdx6iN7mM9">exodus year after year</a>.</p>
<p>The capital and its surroundings are overpopulated and there are no real urban planning policies to impose standards and counter the anarchic constructions that proliferate the city. In this context, any major earthquake could only lead to the disastrous consequences that the country has experienced.</p>
<p>Another problem: in 2010, the Haitian public administration, far from having been reformed, was mainly concerned with collecting taxes on property without any real control over the territory.</p>
<p>The combination of overcrowding, chaotic urban development without a regional development policy, a flagrant lack of resources to intervene on its territory and the skills of its staff has meant that the Haitian public administration has never been able to anticipate the impacts of an earthquake.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308860/original/file-20200107-123368-1w2n4q7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People stand in the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince following the earthquake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rodrigo And, File</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Disorganized international aid</h2>
<p>The weakness of the Haiti’s public administration is compounded by the disorganization of international aid. Following a <a href="https://www.ifrc.org/docs/IDRL/Haiti/Decret_modifiant%20_la_loi_ONGs.pdf">decree adopted in 1989</a> (which amended Article 13 of the 1982 law governing NGOs), responsibility for the co-ordination and supervision of NGO activities on the territory of the Republic of Haiti was entrusted to the Ministry of Planning and External Co-operation (MPCE).</p>
<p>In the aftermath of the earthquake, many studies <a href="http://www.enap.ca/ENAP/docs/GERFI/Publications/GERFI_CriseHaiti_LCGT.pdf">reported on the presence of thousands of NGOs in the country</a>. However, on its official list, the MPCE recognized barely 300 of them. It can therefore be concluded that the majority of these NGOs were operating in near obscurity.</p>
<p><a href="http://new.paho.org/disasters/dmdocuments/HealthResponseHaitiEarthq.pdf">Several studies have also shown</a>, and we’ve seen on the ground, that the international community’s assistance deployed immediately after the earthquake failed to meet a humanitarian challenge of such magnitude. There was no co-ordination in the interventions of friendly countries in order to optimize the efforts on behalf of the victims. There was great humanitarian disorganization and even a failure on the part of the international community, which had to improvise ineffectively to co-manage a disaster.</p>
<p>With a presence on the ground as early as 2012, we’ve observed that the majority of NGOs arrived in Haiti not to respond to a need expressed by the Haitian government, but rather to serve their own interests, as <a href="https://www.lapresse.ca/international/caraibes/202001/03/01-5255613-haiti-10-ans-apres-le-seisme-la-population-merite-mieux.php">Dr. Joanne Liu</a>, former president of Médecins Sans Frontières, reports.</p>
<p>There was no co-ordination between them, nor was there any co-ordination with the government. Furthermore, although UN forces deployed with <a href="https://minustah.unmissions.org/">MINUSTAH</a> were present in Haiti, the forces were fragmented and operated under often incompatible models and values. Aid was inefficient, even harmful. The scandal of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010s_Haiti_cholera_outbreak">reintroduction of cholera in Haiti</a> underscores this reality.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308859/original/file-20200107-123411-1r5ugyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A Peruvian peacekeeper tries to control a crowd during the distribution of food for earthquake survivors at a warehouse in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 19, 2010. UN aid has been largely ineffective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File</span></span>
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<h2>Post-earthquake</h2>
<p>Despite the fact that billions of dollars had been spent in the country, according to international reports, five years after the disaster, debris was still lying in the streets, thousands of people were still living in refugee camps and the majority of public buildings had not been rebuilt.</p>
<p>All of this testifies to the serious difficulties of co-ordination on the ground.</p>
<p>A decade later, the challenges are still immense for Haiti since <a href="https://laloidemabouche.ht/2018/04/13/lurbanisation-anarchique-un-probleme-majeur-du-developpement-en-haiti/">it must develop construction policies that fit into a certain vision of urban planning</a>. It must also rebuild the archives of public institutions that have been damaged or have disappeared, and it must help post-earthquake generations learn from the past, develop and implement an emergency plan for natural disasters, and design and implement policies and spaces adapted for people with disabilities.</p>
<p>Today, international development practices are seen to be based on a wealth accumulation perspective, giving priority to private sector interests. <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/commercial-interests-taking-focus-in-canadas-aid-to-developing-world/article16240406/">Canada’s initiatives to direct its aid to the development of the mining sector and free-trade zones in Haiti are evidence of this</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, Canada’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/canada-s-decision-to-review-haiti-aid-stirs-controversy-1.1401920">decision to freeze funding for new projects in Haiti</a> raises several questions: why leave Haiti in such a difficult position? Is the decision intended to make the Haitian state face up to its responsibilities or simply to take the Canadian government off the hook for the failure of international aid in that country? Is this an admission of powerlessness in the face of the profound institutional weaknesses in Haiti?</p>
<p>As we look back at Jan. 12, 2010, we raise a question as troubling as it is fundamental: Has the Haitian government and the international community really learned any lessons from the earthquake?</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129670/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean-François Savard receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emmanuel Sael et Joseph Jr Clormeus ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur poste universitaire.</span></em></p>Ten years after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, the country is still struggling to recover and remains vulnerable to natural disasters.Jean-François Savard, Professeur agrégé, École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP)Emmanuel Sael, Doctorant en administration publique, École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP)Joseph Jr Clormeus, Doctorate candidate in public administration, École nationale d'administration publique (ENAP)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1086522019-01-25T11:54:01Z2019-01-25T11:54:01ZIn Haiti, climate aid comes with strings attached<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255428/original/file-20190124-196241-1klsjw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Haiti had not yet recovered from its devastating 2010 earthquake when it was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. It is one of the world's most vulnerable nations to climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Haiti-Hurricane-Matthew/3c9cbaf824854ceb9ed5b34ef298b0b0/56/0">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perhaps <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/04/why-is-haiti-vulnerable-to-natural-hazards-and-disasters">no people</a> know better than Haitians just how dangerous, destructive and destabilizing climate change can be. </p>
<p>Haiti – which had not yet recovered from a massive 2010 earthquake when <a href="https://theconversation.com/caring-for-haitian-women-after-hurricane-matthew-what-we-learned-from-the-2010-earthquake-66799">Hurricane Matthew</a> killed perhaps a thousand people and caused a cholera outbreak in 2016 – is one of the world’s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-change-vulnerability-index-2017">most vulnerable countries</a> to climate change. </p>
<p>Scientists say extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods and droughts will become worse as the planet warms. <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2017/09/18/small-island-nations-at-the-frontline-of-climate-action-.html">Island nations</a> are expected to be among the hardest hit by those and other impacts of a changing climate, like shoreline erosion.</p>
<p>For poor island countries like Haiti, <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-climate-change-resilience-haiti-260314-en.pdf">studies show</a>, the economic costs, infrastructural damage and loss of human life <a href="https://www.germanwatch.org/sites/germanwatch.org/files/Global%20Climate%20Risk%20Index%202019_2.pdf">is already overwhelming</a>. And scientists expect it will only get worse.</p>
<p>To help Haiti address this pending crisis, international donors have stepped in with funding for climate action. The problem with that system, as I found in a <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">recent analysis of international climate aid in Haiti</a>, is that the money may not be going where it’s most needed.</p>
<h2>Extreme vulnerability</h2>
<p>Though Haiti’s greenhouse gas emissions amount cumulatively to <a href="https://www.climatelinks.org/sites/default/files/asset/document/Haiti%20Fact%20Sheet%20-%20rev%2010%2008%2016_Final.pdf">less than 0.03 percent of global carbon emissions</a>, it is a full participant in <a href="https://unfccc.int/news/haiti-submits-its-climate-action-plan-ahead-of-2015-paris-agreement">the 2015 Paris climate agreement</a> and has committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emission by 5 percent by 2030.</p>
<p>To meet that goal, Haitian officials say, the Caribbean country must switch 1 million traditional light bulbs for more efficient LED bulbs, grow 137,500 hectares of new forest and shift 47 percent of its electricity generation to renewable sources. Those are just a few objectives in Haiti’s <a href="https://www4.unfccc.int/sites/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/Haiti/1/CPDN_Republique%20d'Haiti.pdf">2015-2030 climate plan</a>.</p>
<p>It needs help to meet them. </p>
<p>Haiti is among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Nearly 60 percent of the population lives on less than US$2.41 per day, according to <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">the country’s 2012 household survey</a>, the most recent poverty data available. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/haitis-troubled-path-development">20 percent of its national budget</a> is funded by loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – a setup that gives international lenders an unusual level of control <a href="https://theconversation.com/haitis-deadly-riots-fueled-by-anger-over-decades-of-austerity-and-foreign-interference-100209">over Haiti’s government expenditures</a>. </p>
<p>The same is true of <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/rr-climate-change-resilience-haiti-260314-en.pdf">Haiti’s climate mitigation efforts</a>. The majority of the money behind its 15-year plan to finance climate mitigation and adaptation activities – from disaster preparation and renewable energy development to increasing food security – also comes from international donors.</p>
<p>The crowdsourced nature of Haiti’s climate budget can make it hard to determine just how much money Haiti has to spend – and what, exactly, the government can spend it on. </p>
<p>So, last year, I worked with the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School at Tufts University to analyze Haiti’s climate budget. </p>
<h2>A hodgepodge of climate funding</h2>
<p>In an unpublished 2018 study, we found that the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank are the two biggest donors to Haiti’s $1.1 billion climate fund. Switzerland is also a major financier, having given the Caribbean nation $64.4 million since 2009, as is Japan, which has given $14.8 million to help fund Haiti’s climate efforts.</p>
<p>Most of this $1.1 billion comes in the form of grants, not loans – it’s free money. And, in a country with a gross domestic product of $8 billion, $1.1 billion for climate mitigation is a substantial sum of money. </p>
<p>However, as <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">my recent analysis of the Tufts climate study shows</a>, the bulk of the money appears to be misallocated. </p>
<p>Numerous international donors, each of which has set its own climate objectives, fund climate action in the country. The result, I found in my analysis, is that Haiti’s climate budget is a mashup of donor priorities that puts too much money behind certain initiatives while underfunding other environmental needs. </p>
<p>Fully 70 percent of Haiti’s $1.1 billion climate budget – $773 million – is earmarked for making energy production more sustainable in Haiti. This involves improving hydroelectric power and increasing solar usage, among other energy upgrades. </p>
<p>Renewable energy may have seemed like a sensible priority for the World Bank and other individual donors. But, put together, this is a disproportionately high investment for a country with <a href="https://www.iied.org/qa-haiti-aims-for-31-co2-emission-reduction-2030">such low carbon emissions</a>, my analysis shows. My research suggests the money could be better used to connect more Haitians to the energy grid. Currently, just <a href="https://www.bu.edu/ise/files/2018/03/FINAL-Haiti-Electricity-Report-March-2018.pdf">20 percent of Haitians</a> – most of them in Port-au-Prince – have semi-reliable electricity. Power is a necessity after any disaster. </p>
<p>Reforestation projects are also notably absent in Haiti’s climate budget. </p>
<p>Haiti is the Caribbean’s <a href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/has-haiti-lost-nearly-all-of-its-forest-its-complicate-1830108360">most deforested nation</a>. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243414000300">Seventy percent of forests</a> on the island have disappeared since the late 1980s. It desperately needs reforestation projects to <a href="https://psmag.com/environment/haiti-is-set-to-lose-its-forests-in-twenty-years">reduce flooding, coastal erosion and water pollution</a> and prevent mudslides. </p>
<p>Yet in my analysis of the total $116 million in donor funds earmarked for watershed management and soil conservation, I found barely a mention of reforestation. </p>
<h2>Mismatch between perception and reality</h2>
<p>Other areas of Haiti’s climate change plan are somewhat better funded but, to my mind, misguided. </p>
<p>Take disaster risk reduction, for example. Of the $269 million earmarked for reducing disaster risk in Haiti, most funds are set aside for rebuilding after disasters. </p>
<p>That may seem sensible in a country prone to earthquakes, flooding and hurricanes, but research shows that <a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/new-research-lays-out-how-deliver-investment-sustainable">sustainable construction</a> – not merely rebuilding – better prepares a country for disasters and other long-term effects of climate change. Planning saves time, energy, money and human life.</p>
<p>Haiti’s international donors have set aside little money for ensuring that new highways, buildings and other critical infrastructure in Haiti are constructed in a resilient, climate-ready manner – before the next big disaster happens. </p>
<h2>Addressing the power imbalance</h2>
<p>This kind of mismatch between local needs and donor priorities is a common hazard of internationally funded budgets. </p>
<p>Donors call the shots about how their money is spent from afar. Often they don’t have enough on-the-ground information to be making such important executive decisions. </p>
<p>In interviews, local Haitian officials <a href="http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2018-11-05-173000-2018-11-05-184500/addressing-climate-change-haiti-are-current-actions">told me</a> that the municipal agencies that actually engage with people and communities have little say over how they may spend climate funds or which environmental projects are implemented.</p>
<p>In Haiti, this problem is not limited to climate funding – <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/poldev/1625">it’s a hazard of running a national government</a> on the largess of other countries.</p>
<p>Last year, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a United Nations donor agency, <a href="https://www.ifad.org/documents/38714170/39150184/Enabling+the+rural+poor+to+overcome+poverty+in+Haiti.pdf/1572827b-a187-4635-a706-46a0daaabf88">announced a community-based strategy</a> to building climate resilience in Haitian agriculture by partnering with local organizations and agencies. </p>
<p>“This community-based approach <a href="https://webapps.ifad.org/members/lapse-of-time/docs/english/EB-2018-LOT-P-5-Rev-1.pdf?attach=1">will support Haitians working together</a> to enhance their economic potential, resilience and coping strategies when faced with climatic and economic shocks,” a 2018 report said.</p>
<p>My climate research in Haiti supports this assessment.</p>
<p>If international donors allow Haitian
authorities more control over funding, working more closely with local community organizations, they would not only help address its most important needs, the strategy would be cost-effective. Money channeled to where Haiti most needs it is money well spent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keston K. Perry is a former postdoctoral scholar at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, Fletcher School, Tufts University.</span></em></p>Haiti is extremely vulnerable to climate change. It is also very poor. International donors have stepped in to help the country fund climate mitigation, but is the money going where it’s most needed?Keston K. Perry, Postdoctoral researcher, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048802018-10-21T13:02:48Z2018-10-21T13:02:48ZWhy some earthquakes are so deadly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241305/original/file-20181018-67179-9l1ppi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this Oct. 10, 2018, photo, a man walks past a boat swept ashore by a tsunami in Wani village on the outskirt of Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. The 7.5 magnitude earthquake on Sept. 28, triggered a tsunami and mudslides.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You feel a jolt. Was that … no, it couldn’t be. Wait, it <em>is</em> an earthquake. </p>
<p>Now the whole house is shaking. What do you do? </p>
<p>The answer depends less on the magnitude of the earthquake than you’d think. What matters more is what country you live in and how close you are to water.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the biggest earthquake you’ve never heard of. It happened on Feb. 27, 2010, <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/official20100227063411530_30/executive">off the coast of Chile</a>. It was the sixth largest ever recorded, with a magnitude of 8.8.</p>
<p>It didn’t exactly go unnoticed. It caused three minutes of intense <a href="http://www.unavco.org/highlights/2010/M8.8-Chile.html#data">shaking</a> in Chile and Argentina. <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2010/03/28/national/fisheries-took-6-billion-hit-from-chile-tsunami/#.W8bRl_YnZPY">The tsunami it generated caused damage as far away as Japan</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Chile-earthquake-of-2010">Yet only 550 people died</a> in this earthquake, 150 of those in the resulting tsunami, and it hasn’t lingered in the public awareness.</p>
<p>Compare it to <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usp000h60h/executive">what happened in Haiti just a month earlier</a>, on Jan. 12, 2010. That one you definitely remember because it was awful, and you and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-rushes-aid-to-haiti/article4303301/">countless others donated to the rescue and recovery effort</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241303/original/file-20181018-67176-166cqat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this Jan. 14, 2010 file photo, a couple looks over hundreds of earthquake victims at the morgue in Port-au-Prince.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No one knows for sure how many died: 160,000? 220,000? But this earthquake was only a magnitude 7.0. In the world of logarithmic scaling, that means the one in Chile was 500 times more powerful. So why was the Haiti earthquake so devastating?</p>
<h2>Blind fault</h2>
<p>The classic saying among geologists is that earthquakes don’t kill people — buildings do. Or bridges. Or failing dams. Or fires from ruptured gas lines. </p>
<p>Or a cholera outbreak that follows from the lack of clean drinking water.</p>
<p>Nothing makes a bigger difference in an earthquake’s death toll than infrastructure, especially when population is dense. Chile has a long history of earthquakes. <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/official19600522191120_30/executive">The largest ever recorded, a magnitude 9.5, struck in 1960</a>. It also has the building codes to show for it. Haiti didn’t have the resources to adequately prepare or respond.</p>
<p>Another difference is expectation. The earthquake in Haiti happened on what is called a blind fault, meaning it was buried, so we didn’t know it existed. </p>
<p>The fault in Chile pops all the time. And countries throughout the Pacific now know they can be hit anytime by a tsunami originating from Chile or any other number of locations. </p>
<p>After the devastating earthquake that struck off the coast of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004, generating <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/news/indian-ocean-tsunami-remembered-scientists-reflect-2004-indian-ocean-killed-thousands">the Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people</a>, an international effort ramped up <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-quake-idUSKCN0W41J2">deployment of a warning system of buoys in the Indian Ocean</a>. </p>
<h2>The unexpected in Sulawesi</h2>
<p>So what went so wrong on Sept. 28, 2018, in Sulawesi, Indonesia? The magnitude 7.5 quake was large, but not giant. The real killer, and the surprise, was the tsunami. <a href="https://ahacentre.org/situation-update/situation-update-no-12-sulawesi-earthquake-15-october-2018/">So far, about 2,100 deaths have been reported</a>, but the number continues to rise. </p>
<p>Tsunamis are devastating — inescapable and nearly unsurvivable if you’re in their path. They usually occur by changing the shape of the ocean floor during the earthquake. </p>
<p>But the Sulawesi earthquake didn’t happen under water. Instead, the tsunami may have been a secondary effect — the earthquake triggered an underwater landslide, and the landslide triggered the tsunami.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241301/original/file-20181018-67167-1w59n6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this Oct. 11, 2018, file photo, rescue workers watch as a heavy machine digs through rubble searching for earthquake victims at Balaroa neighborhood in Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Would an early warning system have helped? Possibly, but because we weren’t expecting this kind of tsunami, even if a network of buoys had been functional, they wouldn’t have been in the right place because the tsunami was so local.</p>
<p>They also wouldn’t have given locals much warning, as the tsunami followed so quickly on the heels of the earthquake — in this situation the earthquake itself was the best early warning system.</p>
<h2>What should you do?</h2>
<p>Don’t think we’re immune to large or unexpected earthquakes in Canada. Vancouver is poised for “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one">the big one</a>.” There are occasional rumblings in Québec and Ontario along ancient tectonic scars — earthquakes along faults like this are the hardest to predict because they occur so rarely.</p>
<p>Learning to accurately predict and prepare for earthquakes is a long game. They’re so seldom that it’s difficult to see the pattern, and therefore difficult to predict the future.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://eos.org/editors-vox/earthquake-precursors-processes-and-predictions">promising work on “precursor” earthquakes that give days to minutes of warning</a>. Unfortunately, most of the time the best we can do is make pronouncements about the chance of an earthquake of a certain size occurring in a certain area in the next certain number of years. And that sounds anything but certain.</p>
<p>Scientists are working on extending what we know about past earthquakes beyond recorded human history. This helps. But accurately predicting earthquakes and their impact requires money, time and lots of excruciatingly detailed work.</p>
<p>So what do you do when you feel the jolt of an earthquake? In Chile, dive for cover; your building will probably stay standing. In Haiti, get out in the open. If you’re anywhere near water, like Sulawesi, don’t wait for warning sirens, head for the hills as fast as you can.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104880/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lindsay Schoenbohm receives funding from NSERC in Canada and the US NSF. </span></em></p>Last month’s earthquake in Sulawesi, Indonesia was large, but not huge. It was the aftereffects that made it so devastating.Lindsay Schoenbohm, Associate Professor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968322018-06-05T10:47:13Z2018-06-05T10:47:13ZHow corruption slows disaster recovery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221602/original/file-20180604-175407-1ndultk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hurricane Irma demolished Sint Maarten in the Dutch Antilles, in September 2017. The island has yet to recover.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Carlos Giusti</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2018 hurricane season <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-hurricane-season-jeopardizes-caribbean-recovery-5-essential-reads-97588">has now begun</a>. It’s a good time to think about lessons learned from last year’s historic storms.</p>
<p>Hurricane Irma, which raged across the Caribbean from late August to early September 2017, was the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/st-maarten-is-still-striving-to-recover-from-its-worst-hurricane-in-a-century">strongest</a> Atlantic hurricane since record keeping began in 1851. </p>
<p>In total last year, six major storms were Category 3 or greater, making 2017 the <a href="http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/extremely-active-2017-atlantic-hurricane-season-finally-ends">seventh</a> most-active year in history and the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-26/the-most-expensive-u-s-hurricane-season-ever-by-the-numbers">costliest</a> ever.</p>
<p>The Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction Technology, a German research institute, <a href="http://www.cedim.de/download/FDA_Irma_2017_Report1.pdf">estimates</a> that reconstruction on the islands hit by Irma alone will cost at least US$10 billion. </p>
<p>But having recently completed a monthslong <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ssrn.com_abstract-3D3179203&d=DwICaQ&c=yHlS04HhBraes5BQ9ueu5zKhE7rtNXt_d012z2PA6ws&r=JL_hOjIncQlUVNajGAoHFV3kgPvCLpsM-bmoVVK9u2I&m=tp4XNNzkLGC2Y98QQIysiMzzMro4yr2Cacp2arCMjRg&s=LaE7wOprzArY1OxuvsEBB1AOlsZfgGwj-CmEtbVrnJo&e=">human rights analysis</a> on the aftermath of last year’s deadly hurricane season, we believe that’s a low estimate. Our research identified another cost contributing to the challenges of rebuilding: corruption.</p>
<h2>Devastation in Sint Maarten</h2>
<p>We visited the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten, which is part of the Netherlands, in February. Hurricane Irma’s destruction was still apparent. </p>
<p>Massive trees had been ripped out of the ground and toppled, their roots exposed. Vehicles and debris were scattered across the landscape. Marinas, a key infrastructure for this 14-square-mile island, were left in ruins, littered with the stranded remnants of boats that had smashed onto shore. </p>
<p>Amid such chaos, cleanup and rebuilding after an extreme weather event becomes urgent. And urgency, we found, breeds opportunities for corruption. </p>
<p>Government malfeasance is already <a href="https://www.worldcasinodirectory.com/sint-maarten">prevalent</a> in Sint Maarten, which has relatively lax regulation and a cash-fueled economy driven by tourism and <a href="https://www.worldcasinodirectory.com/sint-maarten">casinos</a>. The <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3179203">influx of reconstruction funds</a> after Hurricane Irma created new opportunities for graft. </p>
<p>Local authorities told us, for example, that the initial days of debris clean-up in Sint Maarten involved over 1,000 workers, paid hourly, but only eight supervisors. Our interviews indicate that the scant oversight enabled fraudulent inflation of reported hours, wasting vital government funds on work left undone. </p>
<p>The Dutch government, which offered Sint Maarten $641 million in relief after Hurricane Irma, was concerned enough about misappropriation that it <a href="https://www.government.nl/documents/letters/2017/10/13/letter-from-minister-ronald-plasterk-to-the-government-of-st-maarten-concerning-the-conditions-relating-to-the-netherlands%E2%80%99-contribution-to-st-maarten%E2%80%99s-reconstruction">insisted on certain anti-corruption safeguards</a>. They included establishing an “integrity chamber” to receive and investigate complaints about corruption on the island. </p>
<p>Sint Maarten’s prime minister refused to accept the funds under such conditions and, in November, <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/dutch-saint-martins-leader-quits-over-hurricane-irma-aid-controversy/a-41525021">resigned in the ensuing scandal</a>. </p>
<p>Eventually, Sint Maarten’s government bowed to Dutch demands. The first installment of relief funding, <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2018/04/16/the-netherlands-and-world-bank-sign-us580-million-agreement-for-sint-maartens-recovery-and-resilience-post-irma">managed by the World Bank</a>, was released to the island in April, seven months after the hurricane devastated the island. </p>
<h2>Corruption kills</h2>
<p>Corruption in Puerto Rico may have actually contributed Hurricane Maria’s high death toll. While the government’s official tally is 64 storm-related deaths, a recent <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972">study</a> puts the figure closer to 4,600 – in part because a prolonged blackout <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972">prevented</a> many Puerto Ricans with chronic illness from getting necessary medical care.</p>
<p>After Hurricane Maria knocked out the island’s electric grid, the island’s power authority awarded a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/small-montana-firm-lands-puerto-ricos-biggest-contract-to-get-the-power-back-on/2017/10/23/31cccc3e-b4d6-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.6216df135649">$300 million contract</a> to the Montana-based company Whitefish Energy to repair it. The <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/in-puerto-rico-no-room-for-corruption-in-an-era-of_us_59fb443ae4b09afdf01c40ed">bidding process soon came under suspicion</a> because it was clear that the company, which had just two employees, could never complete the task. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221607/original/file-20180604-175438-xw1u0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Puerto Rico resident tries to reconnect his own electricity after Hurricane Maria.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources <a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2017-10-26_bishop_westerman_to_ramos_prepa_re_emsa.pdf">opened</a> an investigation and the Whitefish contract was <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40489546/puerto-rico-canceled-the-whitefish-contract-but-it-still-needs-help-with-its-electrical-grid">canceled</a>.</p>
<p>After $3.8 billion in federal aid for the power grid, some 11,000 Puerto Ricans are <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/puerto-rico-hurricane-season-maria-without-power-electricity-us-weather-a8379646.html">still without electricity</a>. Officials <a href="http://time.com/5296589/puerto-rico-power-grid-fragile-storm/">say</a> even a mild hurricane could disable the grid again. </p>
<p>We believe progress would have been quicker if Puerto Rico’s first big energy contract had been correctly executed. After a disaster, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/469153a">corruption can literally kill</a>.</p>
<h2>Unaccountable donors</h2>
<p>In the Caribbean, a developing region where some governments may be too <a href="http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sp091913a">small and cash-strapped</a> to lead a wholesale recovery effort, corruption after natural disasters may be compounded by a lack of transparency among the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-20949624">international donors and humanitarian organizations</a> that rush in to help.</p>
<p>After Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, for example, an <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/12/376138864/5-years-after-haiti-s-earthquake-why-aren-t-things-better">unprecedented</a> $13.5 billion in aid money flowed onto the island – more than <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/dpr.12321">double</a> its gross domestic product. </p>
<p>Much of this money never made it to those who needed it. A 2011 study by U.S. researchers <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/dpr.12321">found</a> that only 44 percent of Haitians affected by the quake received any aid at all. </p>
<p>According to a comprehensive <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/publication/haiti-where-has-all-money-gone">analysis</a> by the Center for Global Development, Haiti’s government received just 1 percent of humanitarian aid and perhaps 15 to 20 percent of longer-term relief aid. The rest was channeled to charities and nongovernmental organizations, whose resulting projects were in many cases impossible to identify.</p>
<h2>Time to get ready</h2>
<p>The United Nations, which also offers valuable guidance on fighting corruption in its 2005 <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/corruption/tools_and_publications/UN-convention-against-corruption.html">Convention Against Corruption</a>, will soon launch an <a href="http://sdg.iisd.org/events/launch-of-un-global-compact-action-platform-for-sustainable-ocean-business/">anti-corruption initiative</a> offering tools catered toward small island developing states like those in the Caribbean. </p>
<p>Our work also identified several ways that Caribbean countries could limit how corruption harms future hurricane recoveries.</p>
<p>Better disaster preparedness – including building code compliance, zoning enforcement in exposed locations like beaches and hillsides and transparent, well-resourced disaster-response teams – would <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Caribbean-Regional-Disaster-Response.pdf">reduce</a> turmoil after extreme weather. That, in turn, would minimize opportunities for the kinds of chaos-related corruption we documented across the Caribbean. </p>
<p>Island nations might also consider banding together for the purpose of <a href="https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/in_the_wake_of_disaster_preventing_corruption_in_tsunami_relief_and_reconst">receiving, dispersing and tracking relief funds</a>, as Indian Ocean nations did after the region’s 2004 tsunami. </p>
<p>The European Commission created a similar task force in 2013. Today, European countries aren’t left scrambling to respond when disaster strikes. Instead, the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/echo/what/civil-protection/emergency-response-coordination-centre-ercc_en">Emergency Response Coordination Center</a> monitors the disaster, continually poised to offer expertise, relief funding and first responders as needed across the continent.</p>
<p>Scientists <a href="http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/forecasters-predict-near-or-above-normal-2018-atlantic-hurricane-season">predict</a> that hurricane activity this year will likely be above average <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/extreme-weather">due to climate change</a>. For the Caribbean, preparing for extreme weather means being ready for the human-made disasters that can follow it, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Corruption has made hurricane Caribbean countries’ recovery less efficient and more expensive, new research shows. Misuse of funds may also trigger more disaster-related deaths.Juliet S. Sorensen, Harry R. Horrow Professor in International Law, Northwestern UniversityElise Meyer, Schuette Clinical Fellow in Health and Human Rights, Northwestern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/868052017-12-12T02:51:32Z2017-12-12T02:51:32ZTo prevent the next global crisis, don’t forget today’s small disasters<p>In an era of seemingly ceaseless tragedies, it can be hard to stay on top of the news. This week, six wildfires have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/07/us/ventura-fire-california/index.html">burned up over 141,000 acres in California</a> – an area <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/11/us/california-wildfires/index.html">larger than the cities of New York and Boston combined</a> – killing two people.</p>
<p>A few weeks prior, the headlines were on <a href="https://theconversation.com/kurdistan-earthquake-politics-creates-roadblocks-to-relief-87928">Iran’s deadly earthquake</a>. Before that, it was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-in-limbo-the-rohingya-refugees-trapped-between-myanmar-and-bangladesh-71957">Rohingya refugee</a> crisis.</p>
<p>You may have managed to take in all that information. But do you know about the <a href="http://www.who.int/csr/don/15-november-2017-plague-madagascar/en/">November plague outbreak in Madagascar</a> that has infected 2,119 people and killed 171? What about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/world/asia/floods-south-asia-india-bangladesh-nepal-houston.html">flooding in South Asia</a> a few months back, which affected more than 41 million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal?</p>
<p>If it’s all new to you, you’re hardly alone. According to <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/silentdisasters">the International Federation of the Red Cross</a>, 91 percent of global crises go unnoticed. </p>
<p>As a researcher at the <a href="https://hhi.harvard.edu/">Harvard Humanitarian Initiative</a>, a Harvard University center dedicated to advancing the science and practice of humanitarian action, our aim is to change that. Why? Evidence shows that ignoring all these small crises is a recipe for global disaster.</p>
<h2>The many sides of world crises</h2>
<p>Crises can take many forms, from hurricanes and floods to epidemics and complex emergencies like war. They also have varying levels of intensity: Taking only Latin America and the Caribbean, between 1994 and 2014, for <a href="http://www.fao.org/americas/noticias/ver/en/c/472904/">every one large-scale crisis, there were approximately 177 smaller crises</a>.</p>
<p>November 2017 saw not only a 7.1 magnitude earthquake kill over 400 people in Iran and Iraq, for example, but also flash floods, a typhoon and earthquakes in <a href="https://reliefweb.int/disasters">Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia</a>, among <a href="http://www.gdacs.org/alerts/">other countries</a>.</p>
<p>People generally pay less attention to these events, in part because <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212420917302613">there isn’t much data</a> on them. Still, while the impacts of an individual small crises may be less – both in terms of death toll and physical damage – together minor crises can <a href="http://www.ghf-ge.org/human-impact-report.pdf">have huge human consequences</a>.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/42809">2015 United Nations report</a>, the accumulated losses from small and recurrent events like flash floods, fires and drought account for <a href="http://www.preventionweb.net/risk/intensive-extensive-risk">42 percent or more of total economic losses in low- and middle-income countries</a>. </p>
<p>For particularly disaster-prone nations, the toll can be much higher. In Madagascar, for example, the <a href="http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/2015/en/gar-pdf/GAR2015_EN.pdf">annual economic losses from minor crises between 2001 and 2011 were equivalent to 75 percent</a> of annual public investment during that same period. This is a serious economic erosion challenge for any country, but especially a low-income nation like Madagascar.</p>
<p>Plus, even in places where insurance exists, such events are <a href="http://www.preventionweb.net/risk/intensive-extensive-risk">rarely covered</a>. As such, small crises can plunge families into debt. They also create <a href="http://www.ghf-ge.org/human-impact-report.pdf">food insecurity, drive environment damage</a> and hurt mental health. </p>
<p>Small crises may also lay the foundations for greater tragedy to come. Before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-us-missile-strike-be-the-turning-point-in-syrias-shifting-war-75574">Syrian civil war</a> began in 2011, for example, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/11/3241">drought and food shortages</a> were compelling out-of-work farmers to leave rural areas starting in 2007. </p>
<p>Over several years, people from the countryside migrated en masse into big cities like Damascus. This influx, in turn, exacerbated Syria’s existing political instability and contributed to the initial waves of political unrest that began rocking <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-21797661">the country in 2011</a>. </p>
<p>The end result is now one of <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-drought-a-spark-in-igniting-syrias-civil-war-38275">the biggest humanitarian crises of our time</a>.</p>
<h2>Neglected crises</h2>
<p>I call the kind of incidents that occasionally grace international headlines but tend to fade quickly into the background “neglected crises.” </p>
<p>Currently, repeated famines in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/feb/03/somalia-famine-fears-un-call-immediate-massive-reaction">Somalia</a> and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/01/ethiopia-drought-happen-160121084103587.html">Ethiopia</a> fall into this category, as do the ongoing civil wars in <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57675">Yemen</a> and the <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/the-forgotten-war-in-the-central-african-republic/a-38645938">Central African Republic</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"867036410406207490"}"></div></p>
<p>Protracted violence and displacement in <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/afghanistan-displacement-challenges-country-move">Afghanistan</a>, the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/dr-congo-violence-displaces-38-million-170826214837895.html">Democratic Republic of the Congo</a> and <a href="https://www.nrc.no/uganda-receives-most-new-refugees-worldwide">Uganda</a> have also made brief appearances in international news, only to disappear for those not suffering through them.</p>
<p>These problems aren’t just neglected in the news – they’re also critically underfunded. From 2016 to 2017, the United Nations fell short of its requested US$22.8 billion in global humanitarian assistance by fully <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Humanitarian%20Funding%20Update_GHO_31MAR2017_0.pdf">$20.1 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Consequently, neglected crises tend to get little economic and humanitarian support, even when great human suffering results from them. More than <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA-CAR-Overview-Oct2017%20-%2023102017.pdf">a million people have been uprooted by conflict in the Central African Republic</a>, yet budget shortfalls compelled aid workers distributing food to displaced people to <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsId=57433#.WafsWzYrJyp">withdraw in early 2017</a>. </p>
<h2>Silent crises</h2>
<p>Then there are what I call “silent crises.” These events may be noteworthy for local government and the United Nations, but less so internationally. </p>
<p>Zika is a case in point. For two years before this mosquito-borne illness exploded across Latin America in 2015, it <a href="http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus/articles/one-year-outbreak/en/index1.html">infected 30,000 people in French Polynesia</a>. But as no deaths were reported and the consequences of infections remained uncertain, almost no one paid attention.</p>
<p>Unseasonably wet or dry weather is another issue that both the media and humanitarian relief organizations tend to neglect. That, too, is short-sighted. </p>
<p>The United Nations has <a href="http://www.fao.org/americas/noticias/ver/en/c/472904/">found</a> that between 1990 and 2014, the cumulative effects of droughts and floods in Latin America “generated more than half of all human losses due to climate events.” Bad weather during those 15 years damaged the homes, crops and land of 115 million Latin Americans.</p>
<p>And because climate change-related disasters are strongly associated with <a href="http://www.preventionweb.net/files/670_72351.pdf">poverty and inequality</a>, these aberrant weather phenomena disproportionately hurt people in low- and middle-income countries. </p>
<p>Neglected rural problems often culminate in <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956247817722731">big urban crises</a>. Take the 2010 Haitian earthquake, for example. </p>
<p>Its epicenter struck near Port-au-Prince, a city that had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/arts/design/31planning.html">doubled in size between 1986 and 2006</a> as government neglect of agricultural policy and the well-being of people in the countryside forced millions of farmers to relocate to the capital.</p>
<p>By 2010, <a href="https://www.dec.org.uk/articles/haiti-earthquake-facts-and-figures">86 percent of Port-au-Prince residents lived in dense informal settlements</a>, many of them located on mountainsides, along rivers and in other fragile areas.</p>
<h2>Urban crises</h2>
<p>Haiti’s exploding urban growth echoes a <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/integration/pdf/fact_sheet.pdf">global trend</a>. In 1950, only 30 percent of people lived in cities. Today, the global urban population <a href="http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/urbanization/urban-rural.shtml">exceeds the rural population</a>. Exploding urban populations, combined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-urban-population-is-growing-so-how-can-cities-plan-for-migrants-49931">poor planning</a>, have led to overcrowding, insufficient public services and rising urban inequality. </p>
<p>When disaster then strikes in such cities, the death toll can be astounding. Haiti’s <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/haiti-earthquake-anniversary_us_5875108de4b02b5f858b3f9c">2010 earthquake</a> claimed approximately 310,000 lives, including 25 percent of all the country’s civil servants, and displaced more than 1.5 million. Today, <a href="http://interactive.unocha.org/publication/2017_appeal/#p=28">2.5 million Haitians still subsist on humanitarian assistance</a>.</p>
<p>Seven years later, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-haiti-recovery-story.html">more than $13.5 billion in international aid money</a> has gone into funding the country’s recovery, including the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-37596222">added toll of 2016’s Hurricane Matthew</a>. </p>
<p>That’s because post-disaster response is incredibly expensive. In 2013, the Red Cross calculated that for <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/fr/nouvelles/nouvelles/common/disasters-preparedness-saves-lives-and-saves-money-61204/">every $1 spent on preparedness activities, $4 could be saved in response internationally</a> </p>
<p>So, if saving lives is not reason enough to pay more attention to small crises, perhaps money will be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86805/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tilly Alcayna does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From California’s fires to the Rohingya, headlines can be overwhelming these days. But that doesn’t mean we should neglect so-called ‘silent crises,’ which can quickly erupt into global disasters.Tilly Alcayna, Researcher in disaster preparedness, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/729232017-03-10T04:21:11Z2017-03-10T04:21:11ZHow disaster relief efforts could be improved with game theory<p>The number of disasters has doubled globally since the 1980s, with the damage and losses estimated at <a href="https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9480.pdf">an average US$100 billion a year </a>since the new millennium, and <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470444967.html">the number of people affected also growing</a>. </p>
<p>Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the costliest natural disaster in the U.S., with estimates between <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/23/us/hurricane-katrina-statistics-fast-facts/">$100 billion and $125 billion</a>. The death toll of Katrina is still being debated, but we know that at least <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/08/28/no-one-knows-how-many-people-died-in-katrina">2,000 were killed</a>, and thousands were left homeless.</p>
<p>Worldwide, the toll is staggering. The triple disaster of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that started March 11, 2011 in Fukushima, Japan <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-thousands-have-died-thousands-more-will-die/5469979">killed thousands</a>, as did the 2010 Haiti earthquake.</p>
<p>The challenges to disaster relief organizations, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), are immense. The majority operate under a single, common, humanitarian principle of protecting the vulnerable, reducing suffering and supporting the quality of life. At the same time, they need to compete for financial funds from donors to ensure their own sustainability.</p>
<p>This competition is intense. The number of registered U.S. nonprofit organizations increased <a href="http://gradworks.umi.com/37/24/3724707.html">from 12,000 in 1940 to more than 1.5 million in 2012</a>. Approximately <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10479-011-0967-3">$300 billion</a> are donated to charities in the United States each year. </p>
<p>At the same time, many stakeholders believe that humanitarian aid has not been as successful in delivering on its goals<a href="http://bit.ly/2n3Utwv"> due to a lack of coordination among NGOs</a>, which results in duplication of services.</p>
<p>My team and I have been looking at a novel way to improve how we respond to natural disasters. One solution might be game theory.</p>
<h2>Getting the right supplies to those in need is daunting</h2>
<p>The need for improvement is strong. </p>
<p>Within three weeks following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti,<a href="http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR300/RR304/RAND_RR304.sum.pdf"> 1,000 NGOs were operating in Haiti</a>. News media attention of insufficient water supplies resulted in immense donations to the Dominican Red Cross to assist its island neighbor. As a result, <a href="http://transp.rpi.edu/%7EHUM-LOG/Doc/Vault/HaitiReport.pdf">Port-au-Prince was saturated with cargo and gifts-in-kind</a>, so that shipments from the Dominican Republic had to be halted for multiple days. After the Fukushima disaster, <a href="http://transp.rpi.edu/%7EHUM-LOG/Doc/Vault/Japan.pdf">there were too many blankets and items of clothing shipped</a> and even broken bicycles.</p>
<p>In fact, about <a href="http://transp.rpi.edu/%7EHUM-LOG/Doc/Vault/matcon.pdf">60 percent</a> of the items that arrive at a disaster site are nonpriority items. Rescue workers then waste precious time dealing with these nonpriority supplies, whereas victims suffer because they do not receive the critical needs supplies in a timely manner. </p>
<p>The delivery and processing of wrong supplies also adds to the congestion at transportation and distribution nodes, overwhelms storage capabilities and results <a href="http://bit.ly/2n3LUS7">in further delays of necessary items</a>. The flood of donated inappropriate materiel in response to a disaster is often referred to as the second disaster. </p>
<p>The economics of disaster relief, on the supply side, is challenged as people need to secure donations and ensure the financial sustainability of their organizations. On the demand side, the victims’ needs must be fulfilled in a timely manner while avoiding wasteful duplication and congestion in terms of logistics. </p>
<h2>Game theory in disasters</h2>
<p>Game theory is a powerful tool for the modeling and analysis of complex behaviors of competing decision-makers. It received a tremendous boost from the contributions of the Nobel laureate John Nash. </p>
<p>Game theory has been used in numerous disciplines, from economics, operations research and management science, to even political science. </p>
<p>In the context of disaster relief, however, there has been little work done in harnessing the scope of game theory. It is, nevertheless, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10479-011-1038-5">clear that disaster relief organizations compete for financial funds</a> and donors respond to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092552730900365X">the visibility of the organizations in the delivery of relief supplies to victims</a> through media coverage of disasters. </p>
<p>We <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1366554516303283">modeled the costs</a> incurred in delivering relief supplies, including congestion, the gain from delivering goods (since these NGOs are nonprofits and also wish to do good), plus the financial donations they stand to acquire from media exposure at the disaster sites and compete for. </p>
<p>These comprised each NGO’s “utility” function, which each sought to individually maximize. The NGOs also faced constraints in the volume of relief supplies that they had prepositioned and could distribute to victims of the disaster.</p>
<p>We examined two scenarios:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When the NGOs were free from satisfying common minimum and maximum amounts of the relief item demands at points of need (a Nash Equilibrium model); </p></li>
<li><p>When the NGOs had to make sure they delivered the minimum needed supplies at each demand point for the victims but did not exceed the maximum amounts set by a higher-level organization.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Such constraints guarantee that the victims would be served appropriately while, at the same time, minimizing materiel convergence and congestion associated with unnecessary supplies (a Generalized Nash Equilibrium model because of the common/shared constraints). Such bounds would correspond to policies imposed by a higher-level humanitarian or governmental organization. </p>
<h2>Policies and implications</h2>
<p>We used a case study of Hurricane Katrina, because of its historic catastrophic nature. </p>
<p>We built the models using publicly available data, with the NGOs corresponding to the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and “Other” NGOs collectively. Since Louisiana suffered the brunt of the damages, we selected, as demand points, 10 parishes in Louisiana. </p>
<p>Applying computer-based algorithms, we computed the relief item flows and the utilities of the NGOs in the noncooperative games without imposed policies in the form of bounds (Nash Equilibrium) and with (Generalized Nash Equilibrium).</p>
<h2>An actionable framework for NGO decision-makers</h2>
<p>A comparison of the outcomes under the Nash and Generalized Nash Equilibria quantifiably showed that coordination is critical to achieving better outcomes in humanitarian relief operations. </p>
<p>The Generalized Nash solution is not only capable of eliminating the possibility of having under- or over-supply, it guarantees – through competition – the efficient allocation of resources once the minimum requirements are met. </p>
<p>Without such imposed bounds, relief organizations may choose an “easy” route in delivering supplies because it is less costly, rather than the route that will end in a destination where there are the most in need. </p>
<p>Therefore, the game theory framework has significant benefits both for the disaster victims and for the NGOs. In addition, we also demonstrated that, under certain circumstances, the Generalized Nash solution is capable of attracting more donations than the unrestricted, competitive solution.</p>
<p>Our study has numerous implications to guide coordinating authorities. It provides a strong argument for the importance of these coordinating bodies in successful humanitarian relief efforts. </p>
<p>Specifically, our research demonstrates that, if authorities can impose the constraints on upper and lower demand levels for relief supplies, they can provide an effective mechanism to improve the disaster response. Response teams need a certain amount of supplies to save lives but not so much that it results in congestion and waste.</p>
<p>Governmental agencies or NGOs need to come together to set these values.</p>
<p>The Generalized Nash Equilibrium Game Theory model provides managers of NGOs with a strategic framework to analyze their interactions with other NGOs, while also providing insights into their own operations. Moreover, as our study reveals, the framework answers fundamental questions that every NGO must address: (1) How and where should we provide aid? and (2) How can we finance those operations? A computer-based model that can answer these questions provides an actionable framework for NGO decision-makers. </p>
<p>Our study further suggests that, despite the competition among NGOs for fundraising, there are strong reasons for them to collaborate, thereby strengthening their disaster response and achieving better results for those in need. In fact, our game theory analysis quantifiably shows that cooperation among NGOs may increase financial donations to all NGOs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Nagurney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>March 11 marks the anniversary of the Fukushima earthquake. Natural disasters here in the US also have wreaked havoc. There may be a way to improve response to these natural disasters.Anna Nagurney, John F. Smith Memorial Professor of Operations Management, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.