The country is not out of the woods yet

May 21, 2010 14:57 GMT  ·  By
Earthquake intensity showing which areas of Haiti were most affected by the January 12 earthquake
   Earthquake intensity showing which areas of Haiti were most affected by the January 12 earthquake

A group of investigators from the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) announce in a new study that Haiti is still not safe from earthquakes over the coming months and years. These conclusions are based on studies of the tectonic plate system that exists in the Caribbean Sea, the team says, and the data doesn't look good for the country, or its neighbors. The impoverished island was struck by a powerful earthquake on January 12. The tremor killed about 230,000 people, injured twice as many, and left 1 million homeless. About 52 aftershocks struck the area within two weeks of the original devastation, further contributing to losses.

But, apparently, the massive magnitude 7 tremor did little to release pressure accumulated within the fault lines around the island. The WHOI team says that tension is actually building up pretty fast in the region, which means that another major earthquake may already be on its way. Jian Lin, a senior scientist at the Institution, was on-site in Haiti on January 12, as he was already studying the fault lines around the island of Hispaniola, which contains both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Lin and his team were particularly well informed about the possibility of a major disaster taking place, but they could not give an exact date.

This is almost always the case – scientists know a tremor is coming, but they can't really put a date on when it happens. By definition, fault lines are extremely unpredictable, as some of them can endure under a state of high tension for thousands of years, while others can only do so for a matter of days. “For us, the risk of earthquakes in this region is not really a surprise,” Lin explains. The tectonic around Hispaniola is delimited by the Caribbean and North American plates, which grind against each other with incredible force. “It's building up stress every year, every month, every day, basically,” the WHOI specialist told LiveScience in an interview.

The new data on the risks Haiti faces were presented about three weeks ago in Vienna, Austria, at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly. At the meeting, the team explained that the January 12 devastation ruptured about 25 miles (40 kilometers) of the Enriquillo fault, which lies in close proximity to the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince. Two other sectors of the same fault line, that lie adjacent to the ruptured portion, are currently showing “a significant increase in stress,” the WHOI team concludes.

“What will happen next? Aftershocks will continue in the regions around each of this year’s major earthquakes sites. It is unlikely that any of these aftershocks will be larger than the earthquakes experienced so far, but structures damaged in the previous events could be further damaged and should be treated with caution. Beyond the ongoing aftershock sequences, earthquakes in recent months have not raised the likelihood of future major earthquakes; that likelihood has not decreased, either. Large earthquakes will continue to occur just as they have in the past,” experts at the USGS wrote in an official press release on their website.