ARTICLE - UN GEOPHYSICIST - EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS

UN GEOPHYSICIST SAYS HAITI WOULD'VE HAD FEW QUAKE DEATHS IF AS PREPARED AS JAPAN
(CP) - By Anita Snow, AP

Far fewer people likely would have died in last year's earthquake in Haiti had the Caribbean nation been as well prepared as Japan, a geophysicist working with the U.N. said Monday.

Eric Calais, a Perdue University geophysicist advising the United Nations Development Program in Haiti on ways to reduce risks associated with future quakes, told a news conference that the death toll could have been as small as a few dozen people.

Instead, the Haitian government estimates 316,000 died in the 7-magnitude quake that struck the Caribbean nation in January 2010. Japan says its far more powerful 9-magnitude quake and tsunami on March 11 left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.

"Unfortunately, it often takes a disaster to learn how to deal with a disaster," Calais said. He said because of the Asian country's more robust construction "there was little damage structure in Japan caused by the shaking."

Calais, who has studied quakes in Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean for two decades, said he's working with the government there to develop its first ever seismic monitoring system — something that most countries in quake-prone areas already have — to be run by a team of trained Haitian professionals.

Calais said new sets of maps are being devised to show the soil weaknesses in the capital of Port-au-Prince and other areas that can be used as guides for future construction. Sturdier construction on solid ground could also protect lives in Haiti's other common natural disasters — floods and hurricanes, he said.

"Port-au-Prince has the opportunity to rebuild in a way that is economically viable, but won't collapse as it did in the last earthquake," said Calais. "We would be fools not to use the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti to build a more resilient country."