And the Dominican Republic?

[steboyz]

Apparently nothing happened to Haiti’s neighbor during the earthquake.How could that be?

Any news?

ger

 

[seekerz]

Apparently nothing happened to Haiti’s neighbor during the earthquake.How could that be?

Any news?

ger

Apparently they felt the quake (as did part of Cuba) but no damage has been reported to my knowledge.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

The epicenter of the quake was farther away from the border with the DR. Also, it seems that because the DR has better infrastructure, they would have fared better than Port-au-Prince even if the quake had been closer to them.

 

[Adira]

It’s a good thing the DR was spared the destruction.

I’ve seen news reports about relief groups using the DR’s roads to get supplies to Haiti.

Also, some Haitians are starting to be flown to the DR for medical treatment at their hospitals.

Not all parts of Haiti were hit as hard as Port-au-Prince. There have been reports of very minor damage in outlying areas.

 

[Rolltide]

1. Hispaniola is NOT a little island! It’s over 300 miles from side-to-side.
2. Not even all of Haiti was destroyed. Most of the damage is within about 100 miles of Port-au-Prince. However, Port-au-Prince is a city of more than 2 million people, out of an entire population in Haiti of 9 million.
3. The type of earthquake that occurred happens when tectonic plates move side-by-side each other. These types of earthquakes are not usually as damaging as the kind of earthquake that happens when one plate moves UNDER another plate. HOWEVER… this earthquake was remarkably shallow, and it’s epicenter was virtually right under of Port-au-Prince. This magnified the damage many, many times.
4. Haiti is so poor, that it has almost NO building regulations of any kind. Even as poor as the Dominican Republic is, it still has VASTLY superior infrastructure to Haiti. While they felt the quake, this limited the damage.

Something to think about though… the tsunami of 2004 killed about 250,000 people, but did so over a huge portion of the globe… the entire Indian Ocean basin. This earthquake may end up killing even more people, but they will all have died within a shockingly tiny area.