Port-au-Prince - hazardous setting at a local scale

How far was the epicentre from PAP in the 12th jan 2010 earthquake?

25km

* focus 13km below the earth’s surface

Where is PAP?

On the coast, in the south of haiti

What type of fault is PAP on?

a **strike slip** fault, north american plate is sliding under the caribbean plate

What did the 2010 earthquake cause?

A localised tsunami, waves up to 3m

how high is haiti ranked in the 2016 world risk report?

21st overall

* **3rd for lack of coping capacity**
* **5th for vulnerability**
* 7th susceptibility

what is the gini coefficient of PAP?

0\.61 in 2012

What was Haiti’s GDP per capita in 2010?

$608

What are the community characteristics of PAP?

* rapid population growth = high population density
* urbanisation = slums (cite soleil)
* poverty
* poor governance
* gang warfare
* lack of opportunities →work, education
* lack of preparedness

What attitude do PAP residents have to disasters?

*acceptance, fatalist*

* poor education means there is little/inaccurate understanding of risk

→ impacts preventative methods, little or few
* not empowered to respond
* rely on aid

How do locals view humanitarian response?

* see it as financially unsustainable
* do not see any progress, view agencies collectively
* distrust → **UN workers involved in child-sex trafficking ring and got no punishment**

How do locals respond to hazards?

* save neighbours
* move bodies/debris
* rebuild

Why do people **choose** to stay in PAP?

* economic opportunities concentrated in the capital
* family
* underestimating risk

Why may people remain in PAP?

* lack of services and economic opportunities in countryside
* migration of around 600,000 to countryside in 2010, many returned due to these reasons
* poverty means they are unable to move

How rapid has population growth been?

70% increase in the last 30 years

What percentage of PAP live in informal settlements in ravines and gullies?

over half

What makes PAP vulnerable?

* dense buildings and population = slums
* **cite soleil** is in the lowest lying coastal region

→tropical storms
* shanty towns on unstable hillsides that are prone to landslides
* **40% of houses on hillsides at risk of landslide**
* extreme poverty
* high risk building structures, urban sprawl

What makes PAP vulnerable historically?

* national debt limited development
* aid dependence
* governance issues → can’t deliver aid programmes

What is the risk poverty nexus?

A cycle, similar to the pressure release model, showing the series of connections between events linked to hazards.


1. face extensive and intensive risks
* vulnerable people exposed to hazards
2. disaster loss
* death, damage, morbidity, agriculture etc
3. poverty outcomes
* short and long term impact on income consumption, welfare, equality
4. multidimensional poverty
* economic poverty, powerlessness, exclusion, illiteracy, discrimination = limited opportunities
5. everyday risk (leads to 1 and 4)
* food insecurity, crime, disease, lack of sanitation

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All of these are fuelled by global processes and underlying risk drivers.

* eg climate change →vulnerable ecosystems, declining rural livlihoods

How can PAP be linked to the poverty nexus model?

* low income households have to occupy the most hazard prone areas (cite soleil, hillsides)
* have worst infrastructure, worst social protection
* = low resilience
* people have little influence politically, socially excluded and marginalised

= rise in violent crime
* lack of tenure means planners avoid investing in better services or earthquake protection

PAP link to the vulnerability model?

Root cause → corruption, historical debt to France

Dynamic pressures → rapid pop. growth, lack of disaster training/planning

Unsafe conditions → settlements in unsafe areas, poor quality structures

PAP to Park model?

* aid agencies mainly focus on phase 3 and 4
* *aid architecture* tends to have separate relief and development channels
* generalised model → aid needs to start with focus on recovery (stage 5), there is no gap between relief and recovery

How poor is Haiti?

==poorest country in Western hemisphere==, **more than 59% below the national poverty line**

* one of the smallest economies, ==losses of $12bn was over x2 GDP==

How prevalent are gangs in PAP?

60% of the capital is controlled by gangs

How vulnerable were women in the tent cities?

Jan 2010 - Dec 2011, there were **246 reported rapes, 35 gang rapes**

How many homeless?

1\.5 million

How many hospitals or health centres collapsed in 2010?

8

* shows extent of poor building standards

How was the clothing industry impacted?

Structural damage in buildings, accounts for **2/3 of exports**

What was the impact of the earthquake on GDP?

5\.3% contraction in 2010

How many were food insecure in 2014?

600,000

In 2022, how many in PAP faced famine like conditions?

20,000

In 2014 what percentage of children were not at school?

24%

What percentage of the population was illiterate?

47%

What was the scale of aid after the earthquake?

over 8000 national and international agencies responded

* individuals got aid from multiple sources

What has been the impact of aid intervention?

* primary education rose to **90%**
* under 5 mortality rate dropped by **11%**
* UN workers reintroduced cholera to the population, had been eradicated

What were the primary political impacts?

* confusion over who was coordinating
* 25% gov employees dead

2 years after, how much of the aid promised had been sent?

only **49%**

What did the Haitian government do?

moved **235,000** from the capital to less impacted cities

* november elections saw fraud allegations and violent protests
* tensions between the government and the relief fund

How unstable is PAP today?

president assassinated in 2021

* has led to a reduction in aid, agencies don’t want to put workers at risk

How many have died from cholera since 2010?

over 10,000

How does the disproportionate impact of the earthquake show how inequality = extreme vulnerability?

* 5 years after many still in tent cities
* cholera outbreak → couldn’t control, poor sanitation and hospitals
* food shortages worsened by hurricanes

Why were mitigation efforts limited?

* fragmented response
* multi-hazard environment
* **risk poverty nexus model** →multidimensional and everyday risks makes long term recovery complex
* hard to alleviate poverty when governance is corrupt
* not enforcing new building codes

Why is resilience difficult to achieve?

community attitude

political environment