January 12th

On this day - January 12th 2010 - The Haiti earthquake

In the afternoon this day a earthquake hit Haiti, the epicenter was around 25 kilometers from the capitol. This massive earthquake measured 7.0 on the richter scale. Twelve days later there had been 52 aftershocks measuring over 4.5 on the richter scale. The number of deaths is estimated from 100,000 to 160,000 people. The estimated numbers of residences that were destroyed is 250,000 and 30,000 commercial buildings. The earthquake even caused a tsunami but its damages was limited. Many countries pledged to help Haiti and did so, but some of the effort was lost in bad management. Nobody knew who was in charge and air traffic congestion combined with problems with prioritising of flights complicated the early relief work. On the 22nd of January the UN called that the emergency phase of the catastrophe was over and the following day the government sized the search for survivors.