Haiti

Following on from the concluding lines of the last post where Rachael discussed the important link between both human and physical processes, this post will highlight an example of how both concepts directly affect each other.

On Tuesday 12th January, 2010 a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti and caused huge devastation. Reports estimated that over 200,000 people died, 1,000,000 had been made homeless and hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses had been destroyed. The following relief effort that began immediately often encountered problems which delayed necessary supplies. These problems stemmed from the human processes that had occurred for decades before the earthquake struck.

The infrastructure of Haiti was extremely poor. It was seen as the poorest nation in the world and had little exports to build its growth. What fuel, electricity and medical infrastructure did exist was demolished by the earthquake and was therefore unable to assist in the relief effort. There were frequent landslides during the aftershocks. The earth had already been made unstable due to the population stripping it of trees and vegetation to be used as firewood and building materials. The focus now is on the continued re-build of Haiti but more problems lie ahead for its inhabitants.

I have only scratched the surface in terms of the Haiti as a case study and there are thousands of websites available where further information can be gathered. Haiti is an excellent example of an event where the link between human and physical processes is clearly defined and one which would be suitable for classroom discussion. The video here is a short report by CBS news which clearly shows the devastation.