Sincerely, The last 200 years. But, yeah, I'm still trying to grasp the whole Caribbean earthquake thing. Where exactly is the fault line in this part of the world?
The entire carribean is basically a circle of volcanoes that came up from the ocean, etc. There are two plates, one that runs along the north side of the ring, one along the south side, and obviously they are not happy with each other right now.
The distance from the epicenter near Port au Prince to Santo Domingo is about the same as the distance from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe. When the major quake happened in San Francisco in 1989 (roughly equal in magnitude to the Haiti earthquake), I don't think anybody expected to find Lake Tahoe in ruins.
That is very possible, first with so many building collapsed and very limited rescue resources it is likely that many people trapped are likely to die. Second is that given the extreme lack of sanitation infrastructure and ability to deal with the number of dead it is possible that thousands could still die from disease. As terrible as it sounds I find it very believable that more could die from this than the tsunami.
What I read is that this part of the country hadn't had an earthquake in 240 years. The buildings, as a result, were very old, run down,and certainly not built to any kind of modern standard. The people, as hard as it may be for us to believe, never thought this could happen to them. None of their seniors had any stories to pass down about big earthquakes. The government is a shambles anyway, and what government there was, and large amounts of the aid already there, has been destroyed with great loss of life not only to the people, but to those working in aid agencies. This is a horrific disaster. A report I saw said there wasn't a hospital left standing in the capital. the terror and the horror Tens of thousands of people were left homeless. France's foreign minister said the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was apparently among the dead. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/galleries/haiti_earthquake/haiti_earthquake.html#ixzz0cZjCgH18
The last major quake to hit DR was approximately 800 years ago -- it is very overdue for a large event.
Former President Bill Clinton, who serves as a U.N. special envoy to Haiti, writes that “small contributions will make a big difference in the aftermath of such destruction.” To make a $10 contribution to the Red Cross recovery effort in Haiti, simply text “HAITI” to 90999. (It will be charged to your cell phone bill.)
Not really. As Ottomaton pointed out there is a fair amount of distance between the epicenter and the Dominican Republic. Also the geography in between might've helped absorb or deflect the waves. Finally while 7.0 is big its not a giant Earthquake like the one that spawned the tsunami. The devestation that this one caused is likely due to that it was very shallow and that building standards in Haiti are poor and not designed to handle an earthquake.
cool. i saw some nba team who has a player who is affected gave $10,000. it would be nice to see every team give something. it makes me wonder if the rockets are going to do anything? i think they should.
Dude, two states are only separated by an imaginary line, the same with Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing... kind of amazing that people don't seem to understand earthquake science, but then again I spent 14 years in California, so they were always in the news.
I believe it actually was the Indianapolis Colts who gave $10,000 initially. WR Pierre Garcon has family in Haiti as both of his parents are from there. He's also heading up a large donation drive. Samuel Dalembert is the 76'er who hails from there. The Sixers hadn't released any figures that I've seen, but they're putting together donations now.
