DISASTER BULLETIN

Writing posts for this blog is a mixed bag. The international news is followed closely for examples of hazards and disasters. In a certain sense therefore, one is pleased when there is a new occurrence that provides a basis for something to write. At the same time however these reports generally reflect misfortune and/or disaster befalling others and so clearly in that sense, it would be far preferable to have nothing to write about at all.


The weekend before last was tragically disaster strewn, though most of the stories were dwarfed by the enormous earthquake in Chile, we start below by returning to Haiti.

• Haiti. In the post of 23rd February it was noted that the seasonal rains, due to hit Haiti in the coming weeks, pose another great threat that of waterborne diseases breaking out in the unsanitary conditions of the temporary camps established by the newly-homeless. With Haiti in such a devastated state with services provision practically entirely destroyed by the earthquake such disease outbreak amongst the tens-of thousands camping out could lead to many, many more deaths particularly amongst children, the already injured and the frail. Enormous effort is hence being directed to build sanitary encampments on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince in an attempt to accommodate people before the imminent onset of the seasonal rains. Over the weekend heavy rains caused flooding in Haiti and caused at least 8 deaths by drowning in the south-western port town of Les Cayes. People were reported to be taking refuge from the water on the roofs of their homes and some houses are reported to have collapsed. The hospital there, so important in the ongoing treatment of earthquake victims, has also been flooded and the ground floor rendered unusable. Now what makes this even more remarkable is that the town of Les Cayes was in general unaffected by the earthquake in January. It has since then seen its population swell with the arrival of thousands of the displaced from Port-au-Prince. The real concern now however is that this may signal an early commencement of the rains and all the additional suffering that it may bring to those in the camps – people who have already suffered so much.

• Storm system Xynthia batters southwestern Europe and takes lives. The Iberian Peninsula and France were hit by storms over the weekend. At least 50 people have been killed, the vast majority in France, whilst at least a dozen are reported missing and 60 or more others have been injured. Winds of up to 140km/h in the Bay of Biscay drove huge waves into coastal towns causing the collapse of buildings and inland flooding. Several people were injured or killed by falling trees uprooted by the strong winds. There have been extensive power cuts along the west coast of France affecting more than a million homes. The storm system, named Xynthia, is moving north-eastwards and areas of Northern France have been put on alert for heavy rain and high winds.

• Madeira. The latest news from Madeira has the death toll at 42 from the flash floods and mudslides of the previous week. Efforts are ongoing, with divers and sniffer dogs, along the coast of the island to find 13 people missing feared dead. 19 people displaced by the disaster have been found alive and well. In the meantime the cleanup is ongoing with heavy machinery clearing mud and debris from the streets and other teams working to clear large boulders from water courses. Questions are now also being asked as to how such flooding could occur with some alleging that unauthorised development and poor urban planning have left Madeira vulnerable to flash floods.

• Chile. The main story over the weekend was of course the huge magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday morning (Seychelles time). The initial fatality counts were remarkably low for such a major quake but as the day progressed the news got worse figures going from 48 to over 700, with many more expected as response teams reach the worst hit areas. The images on the news highlighted the power of the quake with motorway flyovers collapsed and cars strewn all about. A lot of coverage has been given to the fact the Chile quake was vastly more powerful than that which hit Haiti, 8.8 magnitude as opposed to 7 for Haiti. The Richter scale is logarithmic and 8.8 is immensely larger than 7, but a key issue here is that the Haiti quake was very shallow at 13km down whilst the Chile quake occurred significantly deeper at 60km down. The vast difference in fatalities recorded to date relates to this and other aspects of vulnerability of the two sites – a subject covered in detail in the post of 23rd February below. Chile is a much more affluent country than Haiti and has a long history of earthquakes. As such resilience has been effectively integrated into their development planning and sectors something that has doubtless saved untold numbers of lives in this disaster.

National Media Coverage

The Nation newspaper has kindly printed an article on our work at DRDM and specifically the World Bank project that this blog covers. The article printed in the Nation of Monday 1st March builds on the blog post of Monday February the 8th (see below) and goes into more detail regarding the communications programme under the project.


To read the article simply click the photo below to enlarge.