Haiti Earthquake

On Tuesday, January 12, 2010, an earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale struck Haiti. The Haitian government estimates that over 316,000 people died as a result of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami, marking this earthquake as one of the most destructive and fatal in history. The earthquake occurred at approximately 5pm local time and the epicenter of the quake was approximately twenty-five kilometers from the country's capital, Port au Prince. The country (and the Dominican Republic) continued to experience several dozen aftershocks during the remainder of January 2010 that registered as high as 4.5 on the Richter scale. The number of people injured by the quake is the approximate number of people who died from it. More than three times as many people who were injured or killed were left homeless as a result of the quake.

The damage was severe and catastrophic. Thousands of buildings collapsed,...
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