Haiti: after the dust settles

Haiti was 'catastrophe waiting to happen'

Excerpt:

Haiti's infrastructure was among the world's worst even in the best of times, the country's ambassador to the United States said Tuesday.

"It was a catastrophe waiting to happen," Raymond Alcide Joseph told CNN from Washington shortly after a 7.0 earthquake leveled parts of his home country, cutting power and phone lines in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. "Sadly, it has happened."

He called the result "a catastrophe of major proportions." The capital city is surrounded by hills to which "little flimsy houses" were struggling to hold on, he said.

Experts warned of Haiti earthquake risk

Excerpt:

Scientists have warned for years that the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, was at risk for a major earthquake.

Five scientists presented a paper during the 18th Caribbean Geological Conference in March 2008 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, stating that a fault zone on the south side of the island posed "a major seismic hazard."

Tuesday's potentially disastrous 7.0 earthquake occurred in Haiti along the same fault line, known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.

Comments - Please be praying! Consider giving as the Lord leads you:

• I aware of several missionaries missing in Haiti. I'm sure many others are missing as well
  
• Readers may wish to consider giving towards relief efforts. Kathee and I gave to Baptist Haiti Mission that operates a hospital in Fermathe.
  
• I pray that before another masonry brick is ever laid in Haiti or any concrete mixed and poured, that the country adopt modern building standards! And then enforce them.