How was the Earthquake in Chile different from the Earthquake in Haiti?
The one that hit Chile was 500 times more powerful than the one that hit Haiti, but the Chilean one hit many miles offshore and deep in the earth. What is more, Chile has experienced two decades of steady economic growth thanks to a steady stream of private investment from their privatized version of social security. This has allowed construction of recent decades to satisfy standards learned and set after a quake in 1960. Haiti, born of a slave revolt, has been in a rut since its independence in the early 19th century. Its population is impoverished. Poor agricultural and forestry methods (cut everything in sight and sell it as cheap charcoal) have left it open to massive floods and dangerous mudslides with every torrential rainfall. Much of its population lives in shantytowns. What sophisticated construction exists was not and is not earthquake-ready. Its infrastructure is poor and slow in the best of times. its population is comparable to the neighboring Dominican Republic but with
