The 2010 Haiti and Chile Earthquake Disasters One Decade Later

• In Event: Disaster Politics and Policies in the Americas: New Research

Abstract

In 2010, two earthquake disasters – Haiti (magnitude 7.0, January 12) and Chile (magnitude 8.8, February 27) – revealed how much development levels and disaster risk reduction strategies matter, and a ten-year retrospective comparative analysis provides us with an even clearer picture. Indeed, disasters are “natural” social science laboratories or experiments, and significant urban earthquakes are especially revelatory. They provide social scientists with opportunities to study phenomena in suddenly altered environments. A disaster event interrupts the “normal” rhythm of the quotidian, revealing what is occurring beneath the surface of society “before,” “during,” and “after” the disaster’s intervention. Tracking the political and developmental trajectories and the complex cascade of events over the past decade demonstrate the power of historical legacies and the benefits of good governance for risk reduction. Disasters can be opportunities for changing a country’s course, but the weight of history, neocolonialism, aid dependency syndrome, and poor governance have locked Haiti into a seemingly perpetual state of vulnerability. Since 2010, political crises, popular protests, violence, corruption, cholera outbreaks, hurricanes, and tropical storms have plagued Haiti. When the earthquakes hit in 2010, Haiti ranked 149th (now 169th) and Chile 44th (now 42nd) on the Human Development Index. Haiti was also the 12th (still 12th) most failed/fragile state on the Fragile States Index while Chile ranked 155th (now 150th). Moreover, before the earthquake, Haiti was ranked by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index as one of the most corrupt countries in the world at 146th (now 161st) and Chile as among the least corrupt at 21st (now 27th). Interestingly, the 2016 WorldRiskReport ranked Haiti 21st (now 16th) and Chile 22nd (now 27th) in terms of indexed measures of exposure, vulnerability, susceptibility, lack of coping capacities, and lack of adaptive capacities. On just about every indicator, Haiti has remained stagnant or has backslid while Chile has mostly improved. How did development levels affect the earthquakes’ impacts, and how did the earthquakes affect the political and developmental trajectories of the two countries? What are the long-term impacts and legacies of these earthquake disasters? How were the reconstruction funds spent in each country? What lessons can we learn from the divergent political paths of Haiti and Chile?

Authors

• Vincent T. Gawronski, Birmingham-Southern College

• Richard S. Olson, Florida International University