U.N. conference on Haiti a farce?

A former presidential candidate in Haiti says the United Nations' donor conference in Haiti will be "a farce" without proper input and feedback from the people it affects. Representatives from more than 100 donor countries gathered in New York today to hear Haitian President René Préval unveil government plans to spend $3.9 billion rebuilding government offices, health centres, schools and courthouses over the next 18 months. Today's session represents the first phase of a 10-year, $11.5-billion reconstruction effort meant to shift more of the country’s population and economic activity away from Port-au-Prince.

We've had several articles looking at Haiti's rebuilding efforts in The Zweig Letter since the earthquake on Jan. 12, with the most recent piece in the March 29 issue noting that officials in the U.S. should also be doing a better job in preparing our buildings for such a disaster.

What do you think about the U.N. conference? Should Haitians have a say in where the money goes?

Killer quake in California?

Following two deadly earthquakes in Haiti and Chile in a six-week span, naturally the talk has turned to the potential of a similar natural disaster rocking the U.S. and whether we're prepared for the impacts of such a jolt. In the Room For Debate blog, Chris D. Poland, the head of Degenkolb Engineeers in San Francisco, says 80% of California's buildings were completed before our safest quake-resistant construction practices were put into effect; 10% of those structures will collapse and kill people, and the state's utilities and transit are quite vulnerable to long-term outages. Several other regions around the country "are facing major earthquakes and not doing enough about it," he writes.

In Chile, building standards pay off— for some

Bill Lewis, senior editor for ZweigWhite's newsletters group, chimes in with this look at the differences and similarities in the aftermaths of the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile:

"The effects of last weekend’s Chilean earthquake and the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti illustrate the benefits of earthquake preparedness, as well as the punishing effects of poverty in both countries.

"Even though the Chilean earthquake was much stronger than that in Haiti, the death and damage tolls are much lower. There’s been a sense of earthquake consciousness in Chile for a half century— ever since a 9.5-magnitude quake struck the country in 1960. Building codes emphasize earthquake preparedness and schools hold periodic earthquake disaster drills.

"Still, both earthquakes show the vulnerability of the poor to natural disasters, whether they’re in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, or in a relatively developed country like Chile. Architectural and engineering standards come at a price, one that’s apparently too high for the poorest areas of Chile. While the Chilean government initially declined offers of international disaster relief, it changed its mind two days after the quake, apparently underestimating the level of death and damage in the nation’s poorest urban and rural areas."