When an Earthquake Strikes

One moment, all was well – students learning peacefully in schools, workers sweating it out in the factories and farmers tending to their crops. But what happened next – it’s practically next to indescribable. It was probably mayhem at best, with the whole of Port au Prince and its surrounding areas in the tiny nation of Haiti suffering from one of the most devastating earthquakes in recent history.

The powerful earthquake, measuring 7.0 on the Richter’s scale, has displaced more than 500,000 folks around the capital city of the country, Port au Prince, and is thought to have taken away the lives of some 100,000 to 200,000 innocent people.

For the past week or so, search-and-rescue operations have been ongoing in full-swing. Many countries, international organisations and celebrity personalities have come together, working hand in hand with one another, to lessen the burden and ease the pain of the Haiti people.

Humanity at work in tandem for a good cause. Amazing ain’t it? To see all the world-powers come together, forgetting their political rifts to help a nation in grief. Basic amenities, such as food, water and clothing, are in  constant demand. And servicemen such as the US Troops have been responsible to disseminate the supplies to the masses.

Even better, during the recently concluded Golden Globes awards ceremony, the actors, actresses, directors and what-not spread the urgency that we have the chance to make the lives of those suffering in Haiti a tad better. They wore ribbons to support their cause and Nicole Kidman made an appeal for contribution to the ongoing relief effort in Haiti.

Amid all the positivity surrounding the cause to help Haiti post-earthquake, the Haiti nationals are themselves making things hard for the authorities and the general population. They have resorted to ungodly manners such as looting and plundering homes and dead-bodies destroyed in the earthquake to get cash in their hands. The police, on the other hand, are powerless to stop the looters.

Worse still, the national detention centre, where the most dangerous criminals in all of Haiti were being detained before the earthquake, has been all but destroyed. This has led to the surviving criminals to roam the streets and this could pose an even larger danger to the nation after it recovers from this trauma as the people know that the criminals would regroup and they would therefore feel unsafe.

In addition to that, there are the little children who have been orphaned as a result of their parents dying due to the quake, or mothers unable to comprehend with the fact that their young, lovely children are no longer with them. Even if the managed to survive, the young are especially at risk due to lingering diseases that thrive in these sort of situations, such as Malaria.

Still, even with all the help that the world has poured into this relief effort, it isn’t quite enough. Not to save all of the Haiti population at least. Food is still scarce, clean and drinkable water even more. The people there walk around barefootedly, and their filthy clothes remained unchanged. The communication lines that have been severed in the process has only made relief operations worse.

On a bright note, search and rescue officials have been able to dig up survivors after up to six days being buried under the rubble, with most of them surviving without food and water. However, in some cases, those trapped have been said to have sent out text messages via SMS to say they were trapped, whilst others that were trapped under supermarkets survived on the foodstuff from there.

Scientists, geologists and meteorologists of the highest order have been incapable to exactly pinpoint when and where are earthquakes bound to strike. So has been the case here. Again, “If only...”.

Whatever it is, this earthquake has resulted in a comparatively extensive damage for a 7.0 quake as the structure of the buildings are not as strong as those in earthquake prone areas such as Japan and Indonesia.

The truth is, many of us think, “Pity those who have been hit. Why do they need to suffer like this?” It is only natural for us to think in such a manner, but nobody, not even a single soul, can actually go against the will of God. Whatever that has happened has its own reasons, for God does things in peculiar fashions that are unknown to us humans. We can only pray for the goodwill of all.

Do you think it is possible to predict earthquakes? How can we help these people? What happens to them next? Feel free to share your thoughts.

*Pictures credited to Cnn.com