Residents of Santiago gather in the street for fear of aftershocks. Reuters/Marco Fredes, courtesy www.alertnet.org

by Rick Perera 

We’re watching from Haiti with shock and sadness as the news comes from Chile: another merciless earthquake, more powerful than ever.  So soon after the devastation here in and around Port-au-Prince.  (Was that only a few weeks ago?  It feels like an eternity.)

Haitians understand all too well what the people of Chile are enduring.  The desperate search for missing loved ones… sleepless nights in the street outside unstable houses…  lack of communication to the outside world… the fear of what the future holds.  The terror does not subside easily.

And yet, there’s an additional heartache for Haiti in hearing this news.  Why was it so much worse here?  Chile’s quake registered at 8.8, about 500 times more powerful than Haiti’s.  But the numbers of Haitian dead have already surpassed 220,000 – close to the horrendous toll of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  Chile’s dead, at last report, number some 700 – a tragic loss, but orders of magnitude fewer than Haiti’s.  What explains this deadly disparity?

The answer lies partly in bad luck, but largely in poverty and human frailty.  Where Chile had strict building codes, Haiti suffered from haphazard construction. Poor, rural people had for years flooded into the capital, living in precariously built shantytowns.  Lack of enforcement, corruption and weak governance all contributed to grossly magnify the proportions of the catastrophe. It’s easy enough to see the exceptions here, which might have been the rule if earthquake-resistant building codes had been enforced: a few solid structures still tower above the rubble – scarred and cracked, to be sure, but standing all the same.

The news media have refocused their attention on Chile now, leaving Haiti behind for the most part.  I don’t blame them -- they’re doing their jobs.  But I worry that, as so many times in the past, Haiti will quickly fade from public consciousness, once the world’s TV screens are no longer broadcasting terrifying pictures from Port-au-Prince.

All the more important that those of us who are working hand in hand with the Haitian people maintain our commitment for the long term, not just with material support but with the determination to rebuild safely and prudently.  We can help provide the know-how.  The Haitians will supply the courage and integrity.

(Just now, we felt another aftershock.  A rude reminder that the crisis is not over yet for Haiti, not for a long time.)

To donate for the Haiti emergency, please contact your closest CARE International member.