Could Haiti's Earthquake Tragedy Have Been Prevented?The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that devastated Haiti was long predicted by one group of geophysicists. Could the tragedy have been prevented?
By Cassie Rodenberg
Published on: January 13, 2010
A destroyed building is seen on January 12, 2010 in Port-au-Prince after a huge earthquake measuring 7.0 rocked the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. (Photograph by Lisandro Suero/AFP/Getty Images)
On January 12, around dinnertime, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, decimating the island nation and leaving hundreds of thousands presumed dead. A rescue effort is underway now, but as government officials and rescue agencies sort through the rubble, it is worth asking: Could this tragedy have been prevented?
One group of scientists thinks so. Back in 2008, Eric Calais and Paul Mann, geophysicists who study fault lines in the Caribbean, predicted that Haiti would soon face such a devastating quake. The researchers reported that the Enriquillo fault, the line that Haiti sits upon, could produce a 7.2-magnitude quake if strained enough. Using GPS measurements, the team said that the fault was inching along at 7 millimeters per year, a moderate crawl in the realm of fault lines. But since this highly strung fault line has stretched several millimeters per year for the last 250 years, it was time for it to snap.
"Unfortunately our number is fairly close to what happened yesterday. If you think of the fault as a rubber band, as being pulled 7 millimeters per year at a constant rate, it will eventually break," Calais says.
Mann equates the fault in Haiti with the San Andreas fault in California, as both have plates that slip and grind past one another in a horizontal direction.
The difference between the two, however, is that Haiti hasn't been quantitatively studied in the past. Calais says that because Haiti poses safety concerns and a difficult work environment with a poor road access system, it's been neglected by seismologists. Fortunately, he says, by measuring the speed of the Enriquillo fault line, his team has made substantial progress in Caribbean geophysics.
But his research didn't translate well enough to elicit safety precautions before the quake. Though Calais notes that earthquakes can't be prevented, he says there was enough advance warning for the Haitian government to make preparations, and, in fact, his team alerted the government four to five years beforehand.
"We've told the Haitian government that the Enriquillo fault is a major player," Calais says. "We've told them exactly where the fault is. We've told them how fast it was building up elastic energy, and we've told them that right now, if it was to go, it could produce a 7.2 in magnitude or larger event."
The government has worked with the team and listened to its foreboding reports, Calais says, but for the most part, Haiti has failed to implement emergency plans and restructure crucial buildings. Even with scarce resources, there were options, according to Calais. For example, "You can identify the few buildings that are critical, that have to stand up in the face of a large earthquake, like hospitals and schools, from which rescue operations can be organized. This hasn't been done," he says. "One of the first buildings that was reported to have collapsed was a hospital. That is unacceptable and could have been prevented."
Calais hopes that neighboring areas such as the Dominican Republic take note of the Haitian quake and learn the dangers fault lines exhibit. He plans to travel to Haiti next week to evaluate the fault zone and try to determine what happened during the quake.
"If countries don't learn from this and make preparations, it is very sad," he says. "Hopefully something positive will come out of this tragedy in Haiti, that people will learn the hazards of earthquakes."
