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International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction: Assessment of the 2021 Haiti Earthquake

In the aftermath of the 2021 M7.2 Haiti earthquake, MTPTC (Ministère des Travaux Publics, Transports et Communications), UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) and Miyamoto International implemented a damage and repair assessment program. Between Octo- ber 2021 and February 2022, 380 trained engineers evaluated 179,800 buildings in the Sud, Grand’Anse and Nippes departments, reaching over 600,000 beneficiaries. The assessments were executed in compliance with ATC-20 and the Haitian standards, through an innovative digital- ized approach. More than 11,000 buildings were collapsed or not repairable; over 89,000 build- ings were damaged and repairable. Approximately 88,000 buildings were in confined masonry and over 26,000 of them could be repaired as per MTPTC guidelines; around 80,000 buildings were in the timber and stones vernacular technique. The examined dataset is one of the largest studied in recent humanitarian history and it is critical to learn from past seismic events. We herein analyze the observed structural weaknesses and make a comparison with the 2010 earth- quake.

Haiti Earthquake Recovery Begins

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — In the first week of October 2021, 179 highly trained Haitian engineers and social communicators were equipped and dispatched to Les Cayes, a major capital of the region that was severely affected by the recent earthquake, to begin damage and repair assessments. This program employs a first-of-its-kind post-earthquake assessment that combines rapid damage assessment, debris assessment and repair quantity assessment in a simultaneous process. Each assessed structure will be digitalized by a state-of-the-art field application and categorized in the damage index by attaching QR codes in addition to red-yellow-green tags. Residents will be able to access the information concerning the damage and repair of their homes by smartphones.