Wednesday, January 20, 2010

6.1 Fault - What's News Tonight

News that a 6.1 aftershock struck Haiti at 630 am on Wednesday 20, 35 miles north of the city and 6 miles below the surface (shallow), is consistent with the report from Russell Seitz, Harvard Physics, that the Caribbean Plate is a most active region moving east while the North American Plate, where we stand in NY, moves west. The whole region is at risk routinely to shocks. The crime is to build a city without rebar, without the routine information as to how to build for quakes. Spoke Bret Stephens Tuesday 19, and he made the argument that the $100 million of World Bank aid flowing to Haiti recently was wasted on what? Where are the earthquake proof buildings and codes? The US Embassy remains sound because it as constructed to withstand earthquakes and assaults. It has rebar. Who is responsible at the World Bank, at the IMF, at the UN, for permitting construction in Port Au Prince that did not anticipate major quakes? These people, these teams and review panels, are guilty of extreme negligence and a kind of institutional malpractice that resembles the Inquisition, or eugenics. Plate Tectonics was a new theory in 1966. It is an established piece of urban planning in 2010. There is no excuse. Crime of the state. Rene Preval must answer. The UN's Ban Ki Moon must answer.

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