It’s my uneducated assumption that the death toll from an earthquake in a place like Haiti comes mainly from the collapse of man-made structures. So in a city of poorly built masonry/adobe/brick/stone buildings that can add up fast.
But how do rural areas fair? Say outside of town where most people were probably outside at 4:30p.m? Dirt roads, farm fields, yards, etc.
I’ve been to the rural Jamaican countryside and I can’t imagine Haiti is much different. Beside being inside one of their meager homes when it collapses how else are they getting hurt?
Once you fell to the ground (if it was strong enough) and no telephone poles landed on you, you are pretty much in the clear. That is, unless the earthquake was strong enough to open cracks on the earth or produce landslides, burst dams, panic cattle and all those things that would result in secondary causes of death.
In some third world areas larger buildings, even rural, are made of fairly thick stone or mud. That’s a serious risk if you get buried in one of thse and nobody comes by to help in time. Also, thatch or wood roofs with open fires are a risk too. If you’ve ever seen a real thatch roof, like Anne Hatheway’s cottage - that roof is over a foot thick with wood beams on the inside. You don’t want to be under that. If you are buried under a burning roof, you better get out quick. If it’s a close-packed village like some much older areas, one fire could take out the whole village. Corrugated thin steel sheet roofs have probably been very helpful for some areas.
But yes, generally, the risk is far far lower in small, single-story buildings.
Right, IMO, the earthquake itself rarely causes death. Earthquakes can make a lot of bad things happen, which are the direct reasons for the deaths. If you are out in the fairway of a golf course, the chance of death is pretty remote.
Something else to consider is the death toll just isn’t collapsed buildings, but destroyed infrastructure. Water and sewer lines burst and run their offal everywhere, gas lines rupture and start fires, which then turn to conflagrations.
Granted, in Haiti I’m not sure how extensive that is, especially in the rural areas. Probably very little.
My nephew was playing tennis in Berkeley during the big one in San Fransisco in, what 1989. The one that interrupted the World Series. He didn’t feel a thing and found out about the quake only afterwards.
That is surprising. I was in Berkeley for that. Where I was there was a lot of movement. When I went outside during the quake you could feel the movement. My parked car looked like two people were rocking it back and forth.
I’m with gazpacho; your nephew must’ve had an early happy hour that day.