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Preparedness is high on the list of any earthquake hazard mitigation strategy.  But in areas of developing countries with little to no expertise or infrastructure to deal with the secondary hazards of earthquakes like landslides or the earthquakes themselves — how do you prepare?  In Haiti, researchers have been working with people to help improve their resilience to earthquakes, such as developing hazard maps to identify the movement of faults in order to make local buildings, for example, resilient to future impacts.  An article in Nature, quoting Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University, describes the need for tapping into ‘local talent’ in order to equip Haiti with the expertise it needs to understand seismic data:

Having local talent is important, says Calais, because any of the resources installed in Haiti won’t be sustainable without researchers in the area “keeping the network alive”. Local seismologists can also help to ensure that good building codes are created and maintained, and can campaign for earthquake awareness in government, he says. Calais is hoping to start a seismological research lab to make it worthwhile for Haitian students to return to the country, although for now there are no concrete plans.

“It’s going to be a long-term project: we’re talking at least 5 years of work before resilience has improved significantly,” he says.

‘Haiti to improve quake preparedness.’ Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.670 Read more