From Popular Mechanics, which just had its 108th birthday:
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.
I don’t see anything in the article stating the “earthquake” could have been prevented. The tragedy? According to the article, possibly.
Nice headline, doofus.
As the story unfolds, we will learn that this quake was triggered by the same technology that Haliburton used to trigger the 2004 quake and caused the tsunami. The culprit is deep water oil well drilling, and the injection of super heated steam into the fault lines.
Really? “Hundreds of thousands?”. I cannot remember a single disaster where the “number of presumed dead” that was thrown around in the first days was anything close to the actual number. Most recently, I remember the Mayor of New Orleans telling Anderson Cooper that “At least 10,000 people were dead” during the Katrina fiasco.
Also, you can’s prevent earthquakes. You can prevent deaths from earthquakes by relocating populations and rebuilding buildings with earthquake resistant construction. Haiti was in no position to do either.
After a major event, it is interesting to see the people coming out saying, “I predicted this!” The media gives them their 15 minutes of fame and then they fade into obscurity as they don’t have any other successful predictions.
It could have been prevented. According to Pat Robertson it was the deal with the devil that did Haiti in. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/robertson-blames-haitians-for-earthquake/6v65qmd
And Danny Glover said that it was climate change:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/pact_with_gaia/
Clowns to the left of me jokers to the right……
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I hear Danny Glover blames the Haitian earthquake on Global Warming.
Actors are such pathetic creatures without a script.
I agree, the headline sucked. I hope Dvorak is not paying Cherman.
I think Horror-witz predicted this too
Would we have this many did if it hit the Dominican Republic instead?
Have to agree, this headline needs to be toss. It’s almost “literally” nothing except being written.
Prevented? By immediately retrofitting all buildings? By evacuation? By stabilizing the fault?
Brilliant!
I’m already sick of the headlines. Of course scared, hurting, hungry people will get angry. Yes there will be looting. The first flights needed to be heavy equipment. If you just drop aid from helicopters there will be rioting. You have to face the facts that those in the ruble alive are already dead. You can’t get to them in time. There’s hard choices to be made in situations like this, but they have to be practical. There has to be control and authority. Lets start by throwing CNN out and bring in some Caterpillars.
Preparing for earthquakes is the global warming issue.
Huge future disasters don’t cause alarm in the general population — no matter how certain — and are an easy target for irresponsible opportunists.
What do you expect from Charmin? He’s only good for wiping you know what. Who the hell picks these people to write here? If it’s Dvorak, I a slowly losing respect for him as the quality of bloggers on here is as bad toyota’s floor mats.
Let me stick up for Cherman… It could have been prevented in the sense that we knew it was coming, so building could have been made to withstand earthquakes better.
But Haiti had no money to do so. Was everyone supposed to move out of the cities for an unspecified time?
@RTaylor #13 – I’m already sick of apologists covering for looters. This happened a day and a half ago. Nobody is starving.
Many of the same apologies were made for the Katrina looters. I watched TV coverage all through the days after Katrina. I remember the “poor scared hungry people” walking out of Wal Mart with armloads of DVDs, breaking down the gate of a jewlery store (lots of food and emergency supplies in there) and floating a stolen ATM down the street in a rowboat.
Why would you want CNN thrown out? It seems that early news reports have already generated millions of dollars of donations.
The “Big One” has yet to strike the Pacific Coast of North America. Hopefully I just averted a tragedy with this warning.
3 Postman:
Who knew Haliburton is a 200 million year old company?
Now read about plate tectonics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-ocean_ridge
RBG
Thank you, Cherman.
Agreed, the headline is ridiculous, there’s nothing in the article about preventing the earthquake, nor could we do anything whatsoever to prevent the earthquake, we just don’t have the technology. We might be able to evacuate or retrofit the buildings to make them better able to withstand the earthquake, but since Haiti is a poor nation that can’t afford to do anything, that’s unlikely as well.
Personally, I think Cherman’s first name is pedro.
By the way, where is everybody? Only Cherman seems to be posting subjects. And his ability to choose sensibly is suspect.
#3 dude, wahtever you’re smoking, I’d love a hit
“geophysicists who study fault lines in the Caribbean, predicted that Haiti would soon face such a devastating quake.” Please define soon in geological time please.
I’m predicting a 7.0 magnitude quake along the San Andreas Fault in the next few years. You heard it here first.
Let me know how this could be prevented.
Thanks
cherman/pedro
Great job !!! You should be proud of yourself.
Basically I go with #4. Haiti is on a major fault zone that has produced large quakes before and predicting that one would occur sooner or later wasn’t all that hard to do.
The people of Haiti didn’t have the resources to do anything about it. They had no safe place to move to and most were lucky to have any shelter much less earthquake proof shelter.
My prediction is also that in the future, Haiti will be hit by a hurricane.
Can I work for Popular Mechanics now?
I believe what Danny said is true.And I don’t see you coming up with something better”Dr.Todd.You’re the that’s pathetic!