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A man walks amid the rubble in Port-au-Prince two days after the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010. A study by USGS seismologist William Bakun concludes that the area should be prepared for another big quake. (Juan Barreto /AFP/Getty Images)
The island of Hispaniola, which includes the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, may soon experience a period of strong earthquakes on par with the one that ravaged Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas two years ago, according to a report by a report by a U.S. Geological Survey researcher.
USGS seismologist William Bakun, who spent the past two years studying the region, suggests that more quakes of a similar magnitude will take place in the near future, citing the region’s cyclical history of seismic activity in his 58-page manuscript for the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
“The 2010 Haiti earthquake may mark the beginning of a new cycle of large earthquakes on the Enriquillo fault system after 240 years of seismic quiescence,” he said, referring to the fault lines that lie under Hispaniola. The fault system, Bakun writes, “appears to be seismically active; Haiti and the Dominican Republic should prepare for future devastating earthquakes there.”
Bakun and his team noted there were a number of powerful quakes of magnitudes from 6.6 to 7.5 that struck the fault, beginning in 1701 and ended in 1770. They found no evidence of significant earthquakes on the Enriquillo fault in the 200 preceding years nor since—until 2010.
The seismologists used stories from the many European and African island settlers that were recorded to note the quakes’ intensity, location, and other aspects.
They discovered that the series of devastating quakes that struck Haiti in the 18th century started with the one on Nov. 9, 1701, the epicenter of which was very near the 2010 quake.
Bakun points out that the fault lines underneath the San Francisco Bay and surrounding areas in California have experienced seismic activity similar to the Enriquillo fault, with a period of intense activity followed by a period of relative calm.
In the past several weeks, low-to-moderate quakes have hit the Dominican Republic but there have been no reports of damage or injuries.
Ill-Prepared Then and Now
The Jan. 12, 2010, the magnitude-7.0 earthquake killed at least 300,000 people in Haiti and left more than a million displaced.
“The magnitude 7.0 Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, largely because the city was not prepared. Southern Haiti had been seismically quiet in living memory,” said the report.
The United Nations estimates that 500,000 Haitians remain displaced and many are still living in tents in the city, so another massive quake could be catastrophic.
“Building materials and construction practices in Hispaniola have likely been poor in both the near and the distant past,” the report stated. The January quake wrought significant damage to Port-au-Prince “because many structures were vulnerable to even modest levels of earthquake shaking,” it added.
According to independent journalist Giordano Cossu, who co-authored a Web documentary on post earthquake reconstruction in Haiti called “Goudou Goudou, The Ignored Voices of Reconstruction,” Haiti will be just as ill-prepared today if another quake hits any time soon.
Cossu says he and Haitian journalist Ralph Joseph with ENDK radio asked several local institutions what would happen in the event of another quake. “Most avoided to give a direct answer, but their hesitation was as meaningful to us,” Cossu commented via email.
Even two years later, there is still no centralized plan, no rules or bodies to oversee anti-seismic construction, and the money and training required to build safer structures are both desperately lacking.
“Despite the greater awareness of earthquake risks today people are confronted with hard choices: those who have the means, will accept spending money to live in a ‘safe’ house, where as the majority of the population will have to make do with what they can. Until the next earthquake,” says Cossu.
