Haiti Earthquake Research Paper

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On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti, an island nation located in the western half of Hispaniola. The epicenter was determined to be 25km south of the capital Port-au-Prince, with the focus at a depth of 13km, occurring on or near the Enriquilla-Plantain Garden Fault, a transform fault that separates the Caribbean and North American plates. The resulting damage destroyed 300,000 homes and caused over 300,000 deaths, making it the deadliest earthquake on record.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with more than half of its 9.6 million inhabitants subsisting on less than $1 US per day. Due to abject poverty, there were no seismic networks in the country and the local building codes were badly outdated.