I can’t even imagine….
Along with the News and the gossip bloggers, I check the USGS Maps of earthquake activity fairly often. For the last few years, I’ve had a feeling that ol’ Mother Earth is going through massive changes. It’s not very scientific, just a feeling I have.
When I heard about the earthquake in Haiti last week my first thought was, ‘those people are really poor….they’re going to need help” Poor in ways average Americans have never experienced. Haiti is like one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, just a cruise ship’s ride away from the US Mainland.
Today the magnitude of the loss of life, hit me. They’re estimating 200,000 dead now, and likely to go higher. That’s loss of life on a par with the Asian earthquake-tsunami, which was huge and affected 14 countries.
So this earthquake in the nation comprising one-third of the island of Hispaniola, population around 10 million, is going to go down in history in the top ten of planetary natural disasters.
In places like Japan and California, knowing that earthquakes happen, there are building codes in place….nothing like that existed in Haiti. I think most of this loss of life is being caused by poverty- not the earthquake.
