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Haiti Earthquake

Of 2010

By: Grace

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Haiti is located on a fault between the North America and Caribbean tectonic plates. Since it is located on a fault, it is vulnerable to rare to have earthquakes but when Haiti does get struck by an earthquake, they are very violent and dangerous.

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Haiti is located on the island of Hispaniola which is located in the Caribbean Sea. The earthquake that had struck Haiti was about 10 miles south of Port-au-Prince.

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The earthquake Haiti had felt was massive. On a Richter Scale the earthquake was measured 7.0! This is equal to the explosive force of several nuclear bombs! In about 30 seconds, the earthquake had flattened almost all of the buildings in Haiti.

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One of the things that had killed many people during the earthquake was falling buildings. Others had been trapped under debris and any of the injured earthquake victims were not able reach medical care because the earthquake had destroyed all of the hospitals. During the earthquake many people had lost loved ones and about 200,000 people had died.

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Hospitals had been destroyed and many people were in need of medical help. During this earthquake schools had been destroyed and so were government buildings. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and was desperate for help.

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Haiti is located on a fault between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. This causes vulnerable to rare, but violent earthquakes. Haiti is located at a transform plate boundary. At this type of plate boundary the plates slide past each other. This is called a strike slip plate boundary. The North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate slid past each other and that is what caused the earthquake to happen.

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Works Cited

Aronin, Miriam. Earthquake in Haiti. New York, New York: Bearport Publishing, 2011. Print.

"Earthquake damage in downtown Port-au-Prince." Wikimedia Commons. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016. <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earthquake_damage_in_downtown_Port-au-Prince_2010-01-16_1.jpg>.

"Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions." infoplease.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2016. <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001439.html>.

"Haiti." Grolier Online. Scholastic Inc., 24 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

"The image shows the islands in the Caribbean Sea." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Sea>.

The image shows the Richter Scale. Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Apr. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale>.