Photographs via http://chamorrobible.org/gpw/gpw-201001.htm (55, 46, 37, 36, 59)
CAPITALISM,IMPERIALISM.
What’s the common denominator in all these hellholes? You know the answer.
There’s more to it than concrete construction w/o rebar, or even concrete construction with concrete diluted with sand.
First the fault ran right under Port au Prince, only the most advanced earthquake-proofing technologies are any good under those conditions (think about the bridge the Japanese built over the earthquake fault with its computer-directed stabilizing motors). Second, one has to explain why a poor country was using concrete, rather than wood. I suspect it has to do with the same foolish land-use policies under the Duvaliers that destroyed Haitian agriculture and made the place subject to landslides and flooding.
Eureka Ca had a nearby 6.5 quake just 3 days prior to Haiti and we lost a few brick chimneys and one brick building was condemned but they were all built before 1950 when stricter building codes came into effect. This area has probably had 12 quakes 6 or better in 60 years and there are many concrete block buildings here still standing...
cause haiti makes even WORSE concrete than China???Bush’s fault?
Primitivism
A good discussion of this and other challenges bedeviling Haiti’s population:
http://www.gold-speculator.com/conversations-casey/20448-doug-casey-haiti-january-27-2010-a.html
Sure. Export our rackets...er, building codes and land use regulations to Haiti. Then a flood of worthy folks from the US ‘burbs can replace the Haitians. Hmmm. Actually, that might be a good way to go. Send all of our busybody, rich, corporate, socialist neighbors there. If they come back again, we can arrange trips to Venus for them.
Oh, and for the maroons, tropical trees aren’t very good sources of lumber.
no building codes to speak of and high density pop
and big quake
and much of it on an alluvial plain which is worse than rock for ground agitation
actually I was partially incorrect...lots of damage up on the rocky heights too