This one looks like it's going to turn out nasty. It will take hours or even days to get the full extent of the damage.

"It is a pretty significant earthquake," said Julie Dutton. "Given the size and location, we are anticipating some significant damage from the region."

According to wire service reports, witnesses say a hospital in the capital collapsed and that many buildings were damaged. Additional information from the island has been slow in coming, as telephone service from abroad has been disrupted.

Geophysicist Julie Dutton says she expects the damage to be severe, partly because the region is not accustomed to major quakes.

"This is actually the largest earthquake we have seen in the last 200 years in this region,"



I've been trying some webcams around Port-au-Prince and they are all down.



There are fears of a major loss of life following the quake, which measured 7.3 on the Richter scale, and two powerful aftershocks which followed.

http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/GSHAP/global/gshapfin.gif

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I would reason to say that the "500,000 dead" number below is hyped up but we are going to see a very large amount of deaths. I'm guessing that those numbers are hyped up to get more aid in quickly. This is a smart move to save lives. Many deaths could be avoided by quickly rescuing the buried and supplying food water, shelter and medical attention to the effected.

Compare the 1906 San Francisco 7.7-8.25 Quake that took down 28,000 Buildings and created 225,000 homeless out of a 400,000 population. That quake has death estimates of:

498 deaths in San Francisco
64 deaths in Santa Rosa
102 deaths in and near San Jose

Later on the Deaths might have climbed to more than 3,000 as people had very little in aid.

San_Francisco_earthquake Wiki



Looking at numerous pictures and the structures, building materials, composition and height of the buildings.
I'm also accounting for the time of day and how many people might be indoors when it happened.
I don't see the damage any greater then the San Francisco quake other then the almost ten fold increase in effected population.

Based on this I can't fantom how they are pulling figures like 100,000+ to 500,000 dead but I'm not sitting in the epicenter.
A ten fold death toll over the San Francisco quake would be more reasonable based on the effected population.
I'm just guessing with all the information I have at hand so don't take my thoughts as an accurate prediction.


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Officials fear more than 100K dead in quake

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake


His prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, tells CNN: "I believe we are well over 100,000,"
while leading senator Youri Latortue tells The Associated Press that 500,000 could be dead. Both admit they have no way of knowing.

Haiti occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, one of the Greater Antilles islands, situated between Puerto Rico and Cuba. At the longitude of the January 12 earthquake, motion between the Caribbean and North American plates is partitioned between two major east-west trending, strike-slip fault systems -- the Septentrional fault system in northern Haiti and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system in southern Haiti.

The location and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the event having occurred as left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system. This fault system accommodates about 7 mm/y, nearly half the overall motion between the Caribbean plate and North America plate.

The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system has not produced a major earthquake in recent decades. The EPGFZ is the likely source of historical large earthquakes in 1860, 1770, 1761, 1751, 1684, 1673, and 1618, though none of these has been confirmed in the field as associated with this fault.

Haiti earthquake after shocks should have been listed first....sorry.  I just wanted to compare 2 slip strike faults and their after shocks.  Haiti hasn't gone down significantly and thereby creates hazards when trying to dig people out and get aid to the populations there.    You can see that the Northern Cali earthquake from a few days ago started tappering off almost right away into the 2's and 3's.   Tip.

http://www.iris.edu/hq/files/programs/education_and_outreach/aotm/2/StrikeSlipFault.mov  

I pray for them there. The news is unbelievable to watch. Is it the worst earthquake ever in terms of life losses?

.interesting link...

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Now why would anyone want to "occupy" Haiti. It did make me a bit nervous, however, when Obama said something about our presence (sp?) being indefinate? What did that mean?

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