From the Yahoo News report on the Haiti earthquake:
Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated.
That is an odd thing to say. It was a commonplace in the ancient world that earthquakes differentially afflicted the rich. Those who lived in fine stone houses or apartment blocks (ancient Rome had ’em, complete with atriums and doormen, so I suppose other cities did too) were much more likely to be killed than the poor in their huts of mud or sticks.
From the little I know of Haiti, I should guess that some similar calculus applies. Actuarially one would expect the death toll to be highest among those in shoddily-built concrete structures — non-elite office buildings (the quake hit around 5 p.m.), hospitals, schools, second-quartile slums. Next worse afflicted would be people in well-constructed buildings, which I suppose means a few rich people and high government functionaries. (Though I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there are no well-constructed buildings in Haiti.) Least afflicted would the the bottom-quartile shanty poor. Having a shanty come down on your head is surely an unnerving experience, but not likely fatal.
If anyone with good civil-engineering knowledge want to chime in on this, I’d be interested to hear their opinions.
One would think so. A tin and cardboard shanty coming down on you will not kill you. The kind of concrete buildings that are common to the tropics and developing world will most certainly kill you if it comes down. Its likely that most concrete buildings in Haiti have no re-bar in them. However, many more poor people will die in the aftermath because of the lack of food, water, and santitation as well as any kind of shelter. Diseases such as cholera and typhus show up and kill many people in such disaster situations.
This is a horrible mess. The only thing that can be done is for the U.S. military to drop in lots of supplies (food, water, medicines) for everyone. Its unfortunate that it occurred at this time because Haiti has taking the fist halting steps towards sustained economic growth for the first time in a century.
The Daily Mail website has this:
I’d guess that hospitals were badly hit, so if kurt9 is right about the disease threat, it’s a double threat.
kurt9 said :
” Its unfortunate that it occurred at this time because Haiti has taking the fist halting steps towards sustained economic growth for the first time in a century.”.
I know a family friend who came back from there and was happy about how it was again safe to walk out at night after many, many years.
The little bit of human capital that haiti has ( foreign workers and native middle class and upper class people) will surely be dispropotionally hit by this. An enormous proportion of educated haitians work for the UN type of organisations whose buildings have collapsed. Hospital have collapsed too so goodbye doctors and nurses. A lot of them will have died, in a country where they were already too rare.
I see that Pat Robertson has already blamed this on the so-called pact with the devil that Haitians supposedly made in 1802 🙁
As if that wasn’ t bad enough, thousands, maybe millions of haitians will agree with Pat on this. I come from a fundamentalist haitian protestant background and that “devil curse” stuff is widely believed.
Speaking as an agnostic, in times of emergency evangelical Christians should make their first priority to locate Pat Robertson and lock him in a closet.
Ancient Rome was full of apartment buildings, but I don’t think many members of the elite lived in them. They lived in houses which, while constructed of masonry and stone, and therefore posing some risk, were usually single-story structures.
The real dividing line for earthquake fatalities, as Rousseau notoriously pointed out after the Lisbon earthquake, is urban/rural, proving, he thought, that God does not want us to live in foul, corrupting cities.
Pat Robertson
That guy’s almost as goofy as a muslim.
“note: roughly half of the population practices voodoo”
Almost forgot – So-called Reason mag had an article “Why Is Everything Still Standing In the Dominican Republic?” which claims “Keeping in mind that there can always be a bigger earthquake, in general the poorer you are, the more vulnerable you will be to any natural disaster” and which links to an article that helpfully explains “Haiti is poor.” Then Reason concludes: never mind, the earthquake did more damage to Haiti than to the Dominican Republic because it didn’t really hit the Dominican Republic. It’s got a map and everything!
I think Pat Robertson is experiencing age-related cognitive decline, to put it charitably.
Accoring to Slate(http://www.slate.com/id/2241439/):
What’s safer, big buildings in the city or ramshackle houses outside?
That depends entirely on the construction. Big-city buildings with steel-reinforced columns and strong joints are sturdier than slapdash country houses made of stacked concrete blocks…But a rural house made of a wood frame with sheet metal nailed to the outside is going to be a lot safer than a giant office building without proper reinforcement. In other words, the height and location of a building matter less than how well it’s built.
Rural folks are also closer to their sources of water (however polluted) and food (however poor). They’re also less densely packed and thus less vulnerable to disease. It’s people in big cities that need constant inflow of supplies who will suffer most.