Posted on Wed, Jan. 27, 2010
Engineer: Construction crux of Haiti earthquake tragedy
BY DOUG OAKLEY
Contra Costa Times
Haiti's construction industry is to blame for hundreds of thousands of deaths in a tragedy that will repeat itself unless their building practices change, a Berkeley, Calif., engineer said Tuesday.
In one of the first technical reports on this month's earthquake, Eduardo Fierro, president of BFP Engineers, presented his preliminary findings at the University of California at Berkeley following a week of reconnaissance in Haiti that started just two days after the 7.0-magnitude quake struck Jan. 12, killing an estimated 200,000.
His trip was partially funded by the school's Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.
``My God, this was not an earthquake disaster, it was a disaster caused by the construction industry in Haiti who didn't know anything about building codes,'' Fierro said.
``These were the people who caused the loss of human life. We have to design things and assume our children and mothers are going to be in the building when the earthquake hits.''
But if Haiti's construction industry is to blame, an equal amount is shared by a government that offers no building code and no enforcement of building design, he said.
``The engineers there also have no idea what an earthquake is because they hadn't had a big one there since 1770,'' Fierro said.
Fierro, who is an expert in post-earthquake fieldwork and has visited major quake zones in Japan, Armenia, Colombia, Peru and California, said a simple solution to making buildings that won't fall down in a quake is to offer Haiti's construction industry a cartoon-style book that shows how to build safely.
``I am originally from Peru, and there we have a cartoon booklet that depicts how to build things,'' Fierro said. ``This booklet tells the foreman how to put the rebar in and where to put the reinforcements. We have to give them easy technology to rebuild.''
Fierro flew into Haiti from the Dominican Republic on Jan. 14. He spent a week with three companions, sleeping at a construction camp owned by a company building a road outside Port-au-Prince, and touring the damage areas by day, he said.
Most of the buildings that collapsed and buried people were made of heavy substandard concrete or cinder blocks with no lateral supports and supporting columns that were too small in diameter, Fierro said. Those columns were formed of substandard steel, or rebar, that also was too small and smooth, so that it slipped when the earth moved in the quake.
Much of Haiti's construction concrete is made with beach sand that caused steel reinforcements to rust, he said. The columns supporting most buildings were too small to be able to compact the wet concrete from the top, he added.
People are already starting to rebuild, and they're doomed to failure if another quake hits, he said.
``They're building exactly the same thing they had before, reusing the concrete blocks and the same rebar,'' he said.
Fierro said one of the reasons the neighboring Dominican Republic did not have much damage from the quake is that the energy from the epicenter went in the opposite direction, putting the lion's share of the tremor on Haiti.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
HaitiEngineering.org in the news
CALTRANS NEWS
FEBRUARY 2010
Director's Corner
Director Randy Iwasaki
Teamwork is one of Caltrans’ core values. We are a department of tremendous diversity—diversity of people and functions. Many people think of highways, engineers, and maintenance workers when they think of Caltrans, but we are much more than just highways. We touch a part of people’s everyday lives whether they use buses, trains, highways, or airports to get to their destinations. But, those modes of transportation couldn’t run efficiently without all the people behind the scenes. These include planners, accountants, graphic artists, right-of-way agents, receptionists, analysts, and assistants, and these are only a few of the many members of our outstanding team.
Through our teamwork, we’ve also achieved savings to help our state’s strained budget, and I want to thank you for all your efforts. However, I have to ask you to do whatever you can to help us increase our savings. We’ve been asked to carefully evaluate our spending and purchases. I know this is difficult, especially since some of you are already using old equipment.
Please continue to turn off lights, computers, and other equipment when they aren’t in use, or when you will be away for an extended period.
One way we’ve been saving money is through live webcasts, such as the interregional blueprint series that will take place during March and April. This not only allows us to save money that we would spend on travel, but it also reaches a larger audience and allows more people to benefit from the information shared.
With your teamwork and innovative ideas, we can save more money that will allow us to continue to deliver our projects, which in turn helps our state’s economy. If you have innovative ideas to help us achieve more savings, please share them with your supervisor.
I also want to update you on the Bay Bridge project. Caltrans and its contractor American Bridge/Fluor Enterprises (AB/F), a joint venture, were hard at work over Christmas and the New Year’s Holiday, replacing a damaged eyebar that was discovered and repaired over the Labor Day Weekend while the bridge was closed. The top portion of the eyebar was cracked, and we had to remove it. Overall, we replaced and bolted approximately 12 feet of the eyebar to the original.
The first shipment of the new deck, for what will be the world's largest self-anchored suspension bridge, arrived in early January. Caltrans and AB/F went right to work placing the eight segments that arrived, each of which weighs over 1,000 tons. Four of the segments have already been placed, and the effort to place these first segments is on schedule to be complete by the end of March. People who are interested in following this historic work can use Google Earth. Caltrans has worked with Google to provide a 3D model that users can navigate around and watch the progress of the bridge’s construction. From there, people who want more information can click on the bridge, which will transport them to the project's Web site, where they can get video, pictures, animation, and more information on the construction.
After three years of drought, California is finally getting much-needed rain and snow. We’ve experienced some major storms throughout the state, and I want to thank our maintenance crews for their hard work keeping our roads open and storm damage to a minimum. The Grape Vine, Interstate 80, and other key routes serve as major lifelines for goods movement and travel, and it’s vital that these roads are available for use, so thank you.
Finally, as most of you know, a tragic earthquake hit Haiti in January. Some Caltrans employees lost loved ones in the quake’s devastation. As a result, some of our employees have teamed with other companies and departments of transportation across the nation to create a nonprofit organization of people who want to volunteer their skills to help rebuild Haiti. We’ve also let the Governor’s office know that Caltrans employees want to help. You can learn more about Caltrans’ efforts to help Haiti in the next issue of CT News.
As I’ve said before, I am proud to be the Director of an organization of employees who are not only committed to their work, but to other people. Thank you for all you do.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Fund Raising for HaitiEngineering.org to start soon
If you would like to help with fund raising efforts, have ideas on fund raising, or would like to donate your time or money, please send an e-mail to services@HaitiEngineering.org.
Thanks
~HGL~
Thanks
~HGL~
Tabou Combo to perform with Wyclef Jean and Carlos Santana at the 41st. NAACP IMAGE award in LA this Friday .
Tabou Combo to perform with Wyclef Jean and Carlos Santana at the 41st. NAACP IMAGE award in LA this Friday . This friday February 26, Haitians all over the world should focus their attention on FOX channel 5 at 8 pm Eastern standard time as our legendary WYCLEF JEAN is going to be honored at the 41 annual NAACP image award one of the most prestigious ever discerned by this institution. To back up his performance Wycleff has chosen Tabou Combo, Jerry Duplessis and Carlos Santana for this event." I wanted the people of the world to know the best Konpa group that my Country has ever produced, I am proud to share the stage with them. Jerry and I were kicked out of my father's church for playing Tabou Combo's music during the services .My uncle Samuel was a great fan of this legendary group. They deserve all my respect." http://www.naacpimageawards.net/41/home/
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Time to start rebuilding Haiti
Commission starts preparing plans for Haiti's rebirth
By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, February 22, 2010; A06
PETIONVILLE, HAITI -- Here on the hills above Port-au-Prince, a vision for a very different capital city is taking shape.
In a loft of architectural offices, a map of greater Port-au-Prince promises a reordering of the country's historic capital, overtaken long ago by sprawl and slums and struck last month by a cataclysmic earthquake.
"Expressway" is etched along the city's winding seaboard. "New Housing Area" is written over a swath of undeveloped land far from the detritus of downtown. And "Debris" is written in several spots where it is to be put to constructive use.
Presiding over the map, and over the massive reconstruction effort that will define the country for generations, is a Haitian-born Howard University graduate who serves as Haiti's tourism minister.
Working out of spare space far from his destroyed downtown offices, Patrick Delatour must sell a future for Haiti to his own people and an audience of international donors, who will help fund an urban rebirth starting from virtually zero.
"This," he said, looking out the window as his police driver navigated the swells of a ramshackle back alley, "is urban development without urbanism, architecture without architects, engineering without engineers."
While the international response to the Jan. 12 earthquake was swift, the international role in reconstruction is still taking shape, slowed by the scale of the humanitarian crisis and freighted by the often prickly relationship between the Western hemisphere's poorest country and the foreign actors who have loomed so large in its history.
The earthquake has spurred talk of remaking not only the capital and the country, but those complicated ties between Haiti and the rest of the world. Foreign governments, concerned about corruption, have long channeled much of their aid through nongovernmental organizations. That arrangement, some Haitians say, has stunted the Haitian government's own development and given the NGOs an outsized role that comes with little accountability for the country's persistent poverty.
Since the earthquake, foreign government and international organizations have been trying to send a different message, noting, at almost every opportunity, the role that the Haitian government has played in the rescue and relief operations and the leading role that it will play in the reconstruction of the country.
Next month in New York, the international community's commitment to Haiti's reconstruction will face its first big test. At a meeting of donor nations and international organizations, the Haitian government is to present its preliminary reconstruction plan, which it hopes will set the stage for a large and lasting commitment by the rest of the world.
Even before he knows precisely what sort of help his country will receive, Delatour has been talking to, among others, the French government and a number of American universities about providing technical assistance in planning and other disciplines critical to this early phase of the reconstruction effort.
Still, he said, Haiti's reconstruction must be shaped by the Haitian government and the Haitian people. "I'm confident in Haiti's ability to offer the leadership that is necessary."
Before the earthquake, about a quarter of Haiti's nearly 10 million people lived in and around Port-au-Prince, many of them in dozens of slums that dot the capital region.
But the problems that imperiled Port-au-Prince have some of their roots in distant, desperate corners of Haiti that for years have sent so many of their young people to the big city in search of work.
As the country's leaders cast the earthquake as an opportunity to remake the capital, the outcome of their efforts could turn as much on creating jobs in agriculture and tourism as drawing up a charming esplanade and a bigger airport for Port-au-Prince.
So it is that an architect and preservationist who has been championing the promise of tourism in places like Labadee and Fort Liberte, far from the capital, has emerged as a key government voice on the rebuilding of Port-au-Prince and the remaking of Haiti.
In a post that promises plentiful contact with the U.S. government, Delatour is no stranger to the Washington. As a teenager, he moved to the District, where he finished high school at Coolidge Senior High before studying architecture at Howard. He returned to Haiti for a time before studying historic preservation at Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree. For the past three decades, he has worked in the private and public sectors in Haiti.
Now, the commission that Delatour leads is drawing on architects, planners, bankers and others from the private and public sectors to work on setting up short-term shelter, clearing the wreckage and creating a new urban model. Among those who have been enlisted is Leslie Voltaire, an influential figure in Haitian politics who has a master's degree in city planning from Cornell University and is spearheading the commission's urban planning effort. As a veteran international emissary, Voltaire, even more than Delatour, brings to the job a familiarity with the United States and other foreign stakeholders.
The office here in Petionville is not the war-room environment one might expect. There are no whiteboards full of color-coded task lists. There are no PowerPoint presentations or overhead projectors. And there is no cacophony of office conversation -- only the din of the street market below.
From behind a big desk, Delatour juggles a pair of BlackBerry devices and confers with a small cast of aides huddled around a circular table. They are discussing with Delatour a February deadline for a report for the country's top officials. Everyone is using small note pads until architect Henry Robert Jolibois arrives with his silver MacBook.
On this afternoon at least, there is no talk of grand visions and sweeping changes. The conversations are more bureaucratic. At one point, the blizzards in Washington come up. A World Bank contractor in Washington who is supposed to travel to Haiti to help organize the country's needs assessment has been stranded by a snowstorm that seems almost unfathomable here in the Haiti's stultifying heat.
But to talk to Delatour and to economists and historians and other intellectuals, a vision is emerging of a city that while perhaps still the capital, would no longer plays the central role that led one Haitian historian to call it the Republic of Port-au-Prince.
In the rebuilt Haiti they envision, government would be decentralized, with many state functions and jobs relocated outside of Port-au-Prince. Tourism would be built up in the provinces. Agriculture would be bolstered. And industry, which already has a presence in textiles, would be given the incentives to capitalize on the prospect of more tourists and more agricultural products.
On the streets of the city, where the ordinary people hardest hit by the quake come and go, little is known about the government's plans. Asking about expressways and esplanades elicits quizzical looks. For most people here, before and especially since the quake, the concerns are simply too day-to-day to be indulging in fanciful conversations.
"The first thing would be clean the streets," Sabine Desgraviers, 26, said last week as she walked near the university hospital downtown. She added concerns about the lack of jobs and the lack of reliable public transportation. But the earthquake had hardly given her hope that anything was going to change. "I don't see anything that can fix the country anymore," she said. "Only God can fix the country."
By Henri E. Cauvin
Washington Post Staff WriterMonday, February 22, 2010; A06
PETIONVILLE, HAITI -- Here on the hills above Port-au-Prince, a vision for a very different capital city is taking shape.
In a loft of architectural offices, a map of greater Port-au-Prince promises a reordering of the country's historic capital, overtaken long ago by sprawl and slums and struck last month by a cataclysmic earthquake.
"Expressway" is etched along the city's winding seaboard. "New Housing Area" is written over a swath of undeveloped land far from the detritus of downtown. And "Debris" is written in several spots where it is to be put to constructive use.
Presiding over the map, and over the massive reconstruction effort that will define the country for generations, is a Haitian-born Howard University graduate who serves as Haiti's tourism minister.
Working out of spare space far from his destroyed downtown offices, Patrick Delatour must sell a future for Haiti to his own people and an audience of international donors, who will help fund an urban rebirth starting from virtually zero.
"This," he said, looking out the window as his police driver navigated the swells of a ramshackle back alley, "is urban development without urbanism, architecture without architects, engineering without engineers."
While the international response to the Jan. 12 earthquake was swift, the international role in reconstruction is still taking shape, slowed by the scale of the humanitarian crisis and freighted by the often prickly relationship between the Western hemisphere's poorest country and the foreign actors who have loomed so large in its history.
The earthquake has spurred talk of remaking not only the capital and the country, but those complicated ties between Haiti and the rest of the world. Foreign governments, concerned about corruption, have long channeled much of their aid through nongovernmental organizations. That arrangement, some Haitians say, has stunted the Haitian government's own development and given the NGOs an outsized role that comes with little accountability for the country's persistent poverty.
Since the earthquake, foreign government and international organizations have been trying to send a different message, noting, at almost every opportunity, the role that the Haitian government has played in the rescue and relief operations and the leading role that it will play in the reconstruction of the country.
Next month in New York, the international community's commitment to Haiti's reconstruction will face its first big test. At a meeting of donor nations and international organizations, the Haitian government is to present its preliminary reconstruction plan, which it hopes will set the stage for a large and lasting commitment by the rest of the world.
Even before he knows precisely what sort of help his country will receive, Delatour has been talking to, among others, the French government and a number of American universities about providing technical assistance in planning and other disciplines critical to this early phase of the reconstruction effort.
Still, he said, Haiti's reconstruction must be shaped by the Haitian government and the Haitian people. "I'm confident in Haiti's ability to offer the leadership that is necessary."
Before the earthquake, about a quarter of Haiti's nearly 10 million people lived in and around Port-au-Prince, many of them in dozens of slums that dot the capital region.
But the problems that imperiled Port-au-Prince have some of their roots in distant, desperate corners of Haiti that for years have sent so many of their young people to the big city in search of work.
As the country's leaders cast the earthquake as an opportunity to remake the capital, the outcome of their efforts could turn as much on creating jobs in agriculture and tourism as drawing up a charming esplanade and a bigger airport for Port-au-Prince.
So it is that an architect and preservationist who has been championing the promise of tourism in places like Labadee and Fort Liberte, far from the capital, has emerged as a key government voice on the rebuilding of Port-au-Prince and the remaking of Haiti.
In a post that promises plentiful contact with the U.S. government, Delatour is no stranger to the Washington. As a teenager, he moved to the District, where he finished high school at Coolidge Senior High before studying architecture at Howard. He returned to Haiti for a time before studying historic preservation at Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree. For the past three decades, he has worked in the private and public sectors in Haiti.
Now, the commission that Delatour leads is drawing on architects, planners, bankers and others from the private and public sectors to work on setting up short-term shelter, clearing the wreckage and creating a new urban model. Among those who have been enlisted is Leslie Voltaire, an influential figure in Haitian politics who has a master's degree in city planning from Cornell University and is spearheading the commission's urban planning effort. As a veteran international emissary, Voltaire, even more than Delatour, brings to the job a familiarity with the United States and other foreign stakeholders.
The office here in Petionville is not the war-room environment one might expect. There are no whiteboards full of color-coded task lists. There are no PowerPoint presentations or overhead projectors. And there is no cacophony of office conversation -- only the din of the street market below.
From behind a big desk, Delatour juggles a pair of BlackBerry devices and confers with a small cast of aides huddled around a circular table. They are discussing with Delatour a February deadline for a report for the country's top officials. Everyone is using small note pads until architect Henry Robert Jolibois arrives with his silver MacBook.
On this afternoon at least, there is no talk of grand visions and sweeping changes. The conversations are more bureaucratic. At one point, the blizzards in Washington come up. A World Bank contractor in Washington who is supposed to travel to Haiti to help organize the country's needs assessment has been stranded by a snowstorm that seems almost unfathomable here in the Haiti's stultifying heat.
But to talk to Delatour and to economists and historians and other intellectuals, a vision is emerging of a city that while perhaps still the capital, would no longer plays the central role that led one Haitian historian to call it the Republic of Port-au-Prince.
In the rebuilt Haiti they envision, government would be decentralized, with many state functions and jobs relocated outside of Port-au-Prince. Tourism would be built up in the provinces. Agriculture would be bolstered. And industry, which already has a presence in textiles, would be given the incentives to capitalize on the prospect of more tourists and more agricultural products.
On the streets of the city, where the ordinary people hardest hit by the quake come and go, little is known about the government's plans. Asking about expressways and esplanades elicits quizzical looks. For most people here, before and especially since the quake, the concerns are simply too day-to-day to be indulging in fanciful conversations.
"The first thing would be clean the streets," Sabine Desgraviers, 26, said last week as she walked near the university hospital downtown. She added concerns about the lack of jobs and the lack of reliable public transportation. But the earthquake had hardly given her hope that anything was going to change. "I don't see anything that can fix the country anymore," she said. "Only God can fix the country."
Friday, February 19, 2010
Grace Industries
HaitiEngineering.org (HE) was contacted by Grace Industries (GI) to help assess its buildings throughout Haiti. Grace Industries is a nonprofit religious organization that provides food and shelter to the poor in Haiti. HE will meet with Grace Industries in Haiti on March 31st to discuss their needs. HE has already consulted with Grace Industries and provided recommendations to help expedite the inspections of their facilities.
HE looks forward to partnering with Grace Industries, and others, to help bring about a better tomorrow for the people of Haiti.
~ Staff ~
Earthquake Details
Magnitude 7.0
Date-Time Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 21:53:10 UTC
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 04:53:10 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 18.457°N, 72.533°W
Depth 13 km (8.1 miles) set by location program
Region HAITI REGION
Distances 25 km (15 miles) WSW of PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
130 km (80 miles) E of Les Cayes, Haiti
150 km (95 miles) S of Cap-Haitien, Haiti
1125 km (700 miles) SE of Miami, Florida
Location horizontal +/- 3.4 km (2.1 miles); depth fixed by
Uncertainty location program
Parameters NST=312, Nph=312, Dmin=143.7 km, Rmss=0.93 sec, Gp=
25°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID us2010rja6
USGS Issues Assessment of Aftershock Hazards in Haiti Felt Reports Severe damage and casualties in the Port-au-Prince area. Felt throughout Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in Turks and Caicos Islands, southeastern Cuba, eastern Jamaica, in parts of Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, and as far as Tampa, Florida and Caracas, Venezuela.
Tectonic Summary
The January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. This plate boundary is dominated by left-lateral strike slip motion and compression, and accommodates about 20 mm/y slip, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate.
Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba. At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems -- the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.
The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 18.457°N, 72.533°W
Depth 13 km (8.1 miles) set by location program
Region HAITI REGION
Distances 25 km (15 miles) WSW of PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti
130 km (80 miles) E of Les Cayes, Haiti
150 km (95 miles) S of Cap-Haitien, Haiti
1125 km (700 miles) SE of Miami, Florida
Location horizontal +/- 3.4 km (2.1 miles); depth fixed by
Uncertainty location program
Parameters NST=312, Nph=312, Dmin=143.7 km, Rmss=0.93 sec, Gp=
25°,
M-type=teleseismic moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID us2010rja6
USGS Issues Assessment of Aftershock Hazards in Haiti Felt Reports Severe damage and casualties in the Port-au-Prince area. Felt throughout Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in Turks and Caicos Islands, southeastern Cuba, eastern Jamaica, in parts of Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, and as far as Tampa, Florida and Caracas, Venezuela.
Tectonic Summary
The January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate. This plate boundary is dominated by left-lateral strike slip motion and compression, and accommodates about 20 mm/y slip, with the Caribbean plate moving eastward with respect to the North America plate.
Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba. At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems -- the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.
The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.
The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system has not produced a major earthquake in recent decades. The EPGFZ is the likely source of historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1770, and 1751, though none of these has been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.
Sequence of events possibly associated with the Enriquillio fault in 1751-1860 are as follows.
October 18, 1751: a major earthquake caused heavy destruction in the gulf of Azua (the eastern end of the Enriquillio Fault) which also generated a tsunami. It is unclear if the rupture occurred on the Muertos thrust belt or on the eastern end of Enriquillio Fault.
Nov. 21, 1751: a major earthquake destroyed Port Au Prince but was centered to the east of the city along the Cul de-Sac plain.
June 3, 1770: a major earthquake destroyed Port Au Prince again and appeared to be centered west of the city. As a result of the 1751 and 1770 earthquakes and minor ones in between, the authorities required building with wood and forbade building with masonry.
April 8, 1860: there was a major earthquake farther west accompanied by a tsunami.
Aftershock Report
As of 12:00 UTC January 28, the USGS NEIC has located 54 aftershocks of magnitude 4.5 or greater. Fifteen of these aftershocks have magnitudes of 5.0 or greater. The two largest aftershocks were each magnitude 5.9. The first M 5.9 aftershock occurred 7 minutes after the main shock on January 12 and the second M 5.9 event occurred at 11:03 UTC on January 20.
Earthquake Information for Caribbean
Tsunami Information Tsunami Information NOAA West Coast & Alaska Tsunami Warning Center NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center The earthquake locations and magnitudes cited in these NOAA tsunami bulletins are very preliminary and may be superceded by USGS locations and magnitudes computed using more extensive data sets.
Tsunami Information Links
USGS Podcast Interview: Michael Blanpied, associate coordinator for the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program, answers questions about the earthquake, its severe shaking, and the possibility of additional hazards, such as landslides and a tsunami.
People Get Ready
Welcome to the HaitiEngineering.org Blog. We are a group of professionals that have come together to share our varied skills to help rebuild Haiti. We plan to start our efforts literally at ground zero for the earthquake – Leogane. The town of Leogane experienced the full force of the earthquake, which destroyed 90 percent of all structures in the town, and killed tens of thousands of people.
It’s our hope that we will be able to make a positive impact on the lives of those imp effected by this catastrophic event.
~ Staff ~
It’s our hope that we will be able to make a positive impact on the lives of those imp effected by this catastrophic event.
~ Staff ~
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)