Comparing the Chilean and Haitian earthquakes
Time magazine’s Tim Padgett writes an entire piece comparing the damage in the Chilean and Haitian earthquakes without ever once mentioning one huge difference: the Chilean earthquake, although stronger, was deeper and further away from population centers.
The Time piece—and this one by Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post—speak of the quakes as though preparedness and building codes were the only factors differentiating the two. Yes, such things are very important. And yes, they almost certainly contributed a great deal to the relatively fewer deaths in Chile as compared to Haiti. But preparedness can only protect so much.
This Salon article also talks a great deal about building codes and the like. But at least it manages to factor in the following important additional facts:
The U.S. Geological Survey says eight Haitian cities and towns — including this capital of 3 million — suffered “violent” to “extreme” shaking in last month’s 7-magnitude quake, which Haiti’s government estimates killed some 220,000 people and left about 1.2 homeless. Chile’s death toll was in the hundreds.
By contrast, no Chilean urban area suffered more than “severe” shaking — the third most serious level — Saturday in it’s [sic] 8.8-magnitude disaster, by USGS measure. The quake was centered 200 miles (325 kms) away from the capital and largest city, Santiago.
In terms of energy released at the epicenter, said Calais, the Chilean quake was 900 times stronger. But energy dissipates rather quickly as distances grow from epicenters — and the ground beneath Port-au-Prince is less stable by comparison and “shakes like jelly,” says University of Miami geologist Tim Dixon.
And yet the WaPo’s Anne Applebaum ignores that reality in order to make her pre-determined point:
Despite a stronger earthquake and more damaging aftershocks, Chile will return to normal faster than Haiti. Luck has nothing to do with it.
Haiti is a poverty-stricken mess of a dictatorship. Chile is a richer country, and a democracy. These things do matter, very much. But it is hubris to leave out the elements of luck and chance, and imagine that we are able to control even more than we can when disaster strikes.
I saw a headline the other day..”Is nature out of control?”
Well duhhhh. What kind of idot ever imagined it was under control? As Micheal Crichton said in one of his excellent speeches..”This is the world we live in. Get used to it”.
SteveH: what sort of idiot even imagined it was under control?
Captain Ahab. And look where he ended up.
> But it is hubris to leave out the elements of luck and chance
HOLD IT!
WAIT….!?
WAIT….!?!?
WHAT?!?!?
I thought everything that happened in life was all luck and chance when you’re a libtard — you know, “life’s lottery”…?
Where’s this “preparedness” crap coming from?
Is this an explanation for why some people’s lives are a giant disaster, and others are quick-righting and smooth sailing?
NAWwwwwww.
They can’t be arguing that… can they?
.
the difference can be measured by the luxury of research into how to build that way, the luxury of extra costs to buiild that way… then there is the fact that the hatians had their culture destroyed, and have no moral connection back and so culturally are bankrupt compared to the chileans whose culture has lived and adopted the people to the events there and conditions. that many of the things that would change outcomes are luxuries that seem to be greate inefficiencies when different political ideas dominate.
just as you would like to toss it up to location and those differences, that really isnt the reason. you can see us as people doing the same thing now that we have similar ideological bents. but when we do it we dont see it. for instance… building regulations being so onerous and such that in the US and in mexico they went to jack and slab construction. that is, the state took the money that would go to the luxury of better construction (and lower liability)
move to cars… they mandate such thigns that the cars have to be thinner and lighter to meet the standards… so what you get is this thing that says hey we are better because of X, and behind that potemken bs, is the fact that they had to reduce structural integrity, weight, and other luxuries FOR WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL BENIFITS. in haiti, all the corruption insures that the cheapest building methods are used. that is, no special more expensive construction to handle vibratoins. and NO CULTURAL knowlege that would allow them to adapt. and no manufacturing skills, so that they could make things from wood and have it flex like the japanese in their much more earthquake prone islands.
they are as domesticated animals (thanks to africans that sld them into slavery to make a jesuit goodness out of an evil, which resulted in evil) with no owners who guide them to things. this is what happens when denuded of culture (as our progressives are doing) and then using other means to prevent any from forming, and so dissemination and cultural knowlege stays base and so they are much more sensitive to the negs in the world.
you can see this same effect in areas that have no earthquakes but the same cultural social, luxury atttudes.
so its not the ground shaking..its that the ground shaking makes you look over when normally you dont. what happened when the isrealis moved out of their land and left the hydroponics and other stuff for the new owners to use? what happens when luxiries are a sign of capitalism and thats not good… so people dont use better more expensive capitalist methods of building?
the chinese state exterminates pet dogs with ruthelss abandon as pets are a middle class luxury. but the truth is that by doing this, they remove a servant of the servants!!! and the response is for these people to move their homes and such to be against their barns and animal stocks. that is, we dont realize that the american west and the fact that dogs are very common in western farms, that we could afford the luxury of moving our animals a distance from our living quarters. the dogs will attack, bark, and help tend. but in china, where dogs are a luxury, you have to have your pigs, and chickens live practically in your house… that way you can wake up fast enough to stop them from benig stolen.
the result… swine flu, bird flu, etc. but as long as they see it as a luxury… they will destroy that which comes from that.
self determination is also a luxury
“Better to be lucky than good”
Thats what she said
“Neoneocon?” said I
In fairness to Applebaum and Padgett (I did not read their articles by the way) they are layman who probably did not interview a geophysicist, or if they did, did not know what questions to ask or the significance of the information. Energy released is one thing as noted, but earthquake damage is caused by surface waves and that is where the problem arises. An unconsolidated soil will turn to a semi-liquid state, I don’t have to tell anyone what happens when a quake hits a muddy hill side. the type typical of much of Haiti.
As far as building codes, look at California with their multi-million dollar mansions built on the sides of hills consisting of unconsolidated sediments.
I think Californians are funny.
The ‘elements of luck and chance’ to which neo refers are prima facie evidence of life’s essential ‘unfairness’.
That’s important because all ‘isms’ of the left are essentially a protest against life’s inequalities. Thus the Applebaum’s of the world must ignore that existential component of reality because that is what most distresses them. That distress arises from a failure to understand the reason for life’s essential inequalities.
Failing to understand they react with the belief that if only we could control life, people and circumstance enough, we could make outcomes be fair enough.
It’s a philosophy based in a premise that is fundamentally oppposed to the existential reality within which it exists and is thus doomed to failure.
And, that is why Artfldgr social justice will eventually be thrown upon history’s ash heap. In the long-run, it cannot succeed despite all the efforts of those who support it.
“Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests.
In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” —Thomas Jefferson
The first category of which Jefferson spoke is always in the minority and that is why in the end they cannot prevail through tyranny. The majority can be led but not permanently compelled.
One other thing not always mentioned is that ground motion from subduction earthquakes (e.g. Chile 1960 or Alaska 1964) can last a really long time compared to slip-strike quakes. The shaking in places like Seward during the Alaska 1964 quake lasted over 5 minutes!! Structures that might survive a 30 sec slip-strike quake (albeit with significant damage) probably collapse with the longer period of shaking. I recall that the frequency profile is different as well.
As the NYTimes pointed out today(IIRC in an otherwise forgettable article), Chile is one of the closer analogs to the Cascadia subduction zone (OR/WA/British Columbia), which is moving into the historical window for the next big quake (500 ± 200 years…the last one is thought to have occurred in 1700…determined by geological excavation and tsunami records in Japan…no written historical record exists). New construction is up to the latest code standards (WA has been ahead of OR, but I think everybody is now up to level 4 [the highest]) and WA DOT has been actively retrofitting older structures where not cost-prohibitive. But there still a lot of old work that will just fall down in a big shake, especially structures on alluvial/glacial till around the Sound and in the river valleys. We have the the hillside issues (view property!!) you mention too.
And if the quakes don’t get us, Tahoma (Mt. Rainer..I prefer the native names) might. The danger is lahars rather than eruption; volcanic soil is weak, there’s a lot of water (in the form of ice) up there, and at 14400 ft it has a lot of potential energy.
And, that is why Artfldgr social justice will eventually be thrown upon history’s ash heap. In the long-run, it cannot succeed despite all the efforts of those who support it.
never said that that wouldn’t happen
but like bloodletting its going to cause a lot more deaths as they apply their cures than otherwise.
I will point out that that is the exact line that is given for communism… that its dead…
a dead ideology in which a majority of states follow, and ZERO states have avoided incorporation!
think of that for a minute… there are no more 100% free self determined meritocracies left..
NONE…
all of the states are variations of a ‘failed’ ideology called socialism which is replacing the only successful one capitalism.
explain how the dead replaces the living, or is it just an empty assertion we are so used to saying that we say it despite our socialization? (and its antithetical position to the ideals we enjoy)
ever hear of praxis?
The picture in the cited article is quite telling. Multistorey high-rise fell, like chopped tree, and broke in the middle into two pieces, but was not damaged otherwise. Two immediate conclusions: at least there, in Concepticion, earth movement was severe, may be, even worse. Second, construction codes were exelent and meticulosly fulfilled. What I do not understand, why world press mentioned only Richter scale of magnitudes, that is, energy release in the focus, but not Mercalli scale, which measure actual amplitudes of ground movement? The first, of course, can be easily measured by seismometers in any point on the globe, even in the opposite hemisphere from location of the quake. The second can be measured only locally, at the site itself. Usually it is derived from picture of destruction and needs a specialist in geology to assess. But actually only Mercalli scale numbers are comparable for different earthquakes. Our press usially mention both measures, magnitude and local amplitudes, when reports such disasters.
Bob from Virginia: if they are laypeople and know nothing about geology, and didn’t even think to interview someone who does for the article, then they are fools who should not be writing for the public. And their editors are fools to give them these assignments, and to keep employing them.
I am a layperson myself, but I know enough to know to ask these questions. Plus, just a tiny bit of reading about the quake had alerted me to the differences in depth and distance from the epicenters. It is unacceptable that journalists in publications such as Time and the WaPo would lack such basic knowledge and/or such basic curiosity.
neo: Perhaps this could be called “Post-Normal Journalism”.
I just read the articles. Neither qualifies as investigative journalism, more like pontificating journalism. It looks like the reporters had to put together something quick to meet a deadline and satisfy an editor. Or they were just lazy.
Also a few definitions for the above comments:
1) the Ritcher scale has not been used in years, it was geared for California anyway. When journalist say Richter scale now days they mean moment magnitude or seismic magnitude. See http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/magnitude.html for more.
2) A lahar, mentioned by Soviet of Washington, is a landslide or mudflow of volcanic debris originating on the flank of a volcano. One such in Columbia killed 21,000 in 1985. The book No Apparent Danger is an excellent read concerning aspects of the disaster.
Many populated areas in California have the soil types that will really shake… When a similar size earthquake hits the US in those areas it will be a mess… building codes or not.
When I was a student, we learned that the Mercalli scale measured earthquake intensity in terms of noticeable environmental effects and the reactions of people. It wasn’t very scientific, but in the absence of a more rigorous contemporary metric (it was developed in the early 1900s), it at least told people something about the intensity of the event. We used to laugh at some of the ratings on the scale, describing as they did such things as the breaking of railroad ties and the fact that, at 5 on the Mercalli scale, people inside would run outside.
The articles Neo refers to are yet another couple of illustrations of the pitiful state of scientific knowledge amongst news reporters, and their inability to consider much of anything beyond political implications of events in the natural world. Yes, the two quakes differ in their tectonic settings, depths, proximities to population centers, crustal expressions–in just about every way possible. It’s true that quake damage can be mitigated by appropriate structural engineering is valid enough in milder quakes, but near the epicenter of a great quake, my guess is that all bets would be off–especially in areas where soils are unconsolidated and sediments form the uppermost crust. It’s easy for people to think they can out-engineer nature, but I wouldn’t bet anything I couldn’t afford to lose on it.
You guys forget that one thing that saved Chile from taking as much damage as Haiti is the fact that the US has no facilities in the southern hemisphere for testing their Super Earthquake Dynamo Weapon. If we did, Hugo Chavez would have told the world by now.
Oh yeah, that’s true, I forgot about the Super Earthquake Dynamo Weapon. Well, that changes everything, of course. This weapon, certainly, is one of the primary reasons everyone else in the world hates us so much.
I think we can assume Dick Cheney had a lot to do with its development.
Nah, Betsy
Dick Cheney was too busy cleaning the algae out of his drop-in piranha tank. That and finding the best way to put “friggiin’ lazer beams” on sharks.
Want to know which nation is more corrupt? Just check out the ratings on Transparency International.
Plus he was pretty busy shooting his hunting buddies upwith his 12-gauge on some kind of trumped-up “hunting trip.” That Cheney. You just can’t trust Dude.
Over time, capitalistic countries build up capital. That is why their called capitalistic! The build up of capital is wealth or surplus.
Chile is a capitalistic country, Haiti is not.
When disaster strikes poor countries (ie, not capitalistic), if the capitalistic countries feel generous, they send some surplus to be generous.
But when disaster strikes capitalistic countries, the country generally helps itself from its surplus. I guess we might help Chile a little. And if an earthquake hits California, Chile might help us.
But when a disaster strikes Chile or the US, Haiti won’t be helping. They have no surplus, so nothing to offer.
James
betsybounds Says:
“I think we can assume Dick Cheney had a lot to do with its development.”
He did, although I guess that is a small blessing. I.e., that they didn’t have it at the start of their administration… if so, imagine all the damage they’d have done. Just look at Bush’s use of the weather machine… which he did have when he took office…
There were no mudslides in Gaiti. This proves that the quake itself was not so severe, and most of damage was in principle preventable if the most elementary rules of construction codes were abided. The quality of buildings here was not simply bad, but awfull, and this is typical for all poor and dysfunctional countries.
Here are some USGS earthquake summary posters concernnig the two quakes.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/2010/20100227.pdf
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/poster/2010/20100112.jpg
Cherry picking facts pretty much sums it up –
90% Haiti and 10% Chile faux reporting.
Prayer, prayer, prayer…