Why did the earthquake in Haiti cause so many casualties?

1. The epicenter was located near the capital Port-au-Prince, with a population of about 2 million. Its influence is like a big earthquake in Beijing. Although the magnitude is not large, the population density has caused such a considerable number of deaths.

2. You may ask, not even in Beijing, right? This brings us another problem. Haiti is one of the least developed countries in the world, and its infrastructure gap is similar to that of rural China (lamenting our It's a Wonderful Life). What followed was that people were unprepared for the earthquake, a disaster that few people could resist or even predict.

3. Post-disaster rescue. Because of the second point, the Haitian government has a very high mortality rate among civil servants at all levels except the president's business trip! So far, no ministerial officials have been contacted. In other words, in the current Haitian government, no one is appointed by the current president except the Prime Minister (a one-man army). In addition, about 4,000 criminals escaped from prison, and the attendance rate of the police dropped sharply, which led to the paralysis of the Haitian government, so that many wounded people died without treatment.

Because there are fugitives among the fugitives, robbery and murder cases are increasing day by day, and social order is chaotic. The abnormal death rate of the population has increased again.

About this earthquake, it is the horizontal vibration of the plate, which is different from the deep vibration of the vertical plate in Wenchuan. Moreover, the quality of houses in Wenchuan is much better than that in Port-au-Prince (this is what Time magazine said). So although the order of magnitude is small, it still suffers a lot.

PS: Unlike Wenchuan, when Wenchuan collapsed, all the people in China could get up again, but not in Haiti. Even if it is merged into the United States, I'm afraid the United States doesn't like it ... What UN officials are worried about now is whether Haiti will become the most chaotic place in the world. ...