List of earthquakes in Haiti

This is a list of earthquakes in Haiti. Some of them have been very destructive to the country.

List of major earthquakes

As of 2010, the following major earthquakes have been recorded in Haiti.

• 1564 Concepción de la Vega and Santiago de los Caballeros destroyed.
• 1701 Tiburon Peninsula from Leogane to Petit Goave - on 9 November severe destruction occurred and "part of the shore sank into the sea".
• 1751 Port-au-Prince earthquake (18 October): According to French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry, "only one masonry building had not collapsed" in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital city.
• 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake (3 June): The city was levelled by a magnitude 7.5 quake, which killed over 200 people.
• 1783 Santiago de los Caballeros - a strong quake partially destroyed the church.
• 1842 Cap-Haitien earthquake (7 May): An earthquake destroyed the city of Cap-Haïtien and other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic; this earthquake also destroyed the Sans-Souci Palace. 10,000 people were killed. It has been estimated that its magnitude was 8.1.
• 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake' (4 August): This 8.0-magnitude quake in Samaná also shook Haiti horrifically, producing a tsunami that killed 1,600 people.
• 2010 Haiti earthquake (12 January):. The epicentre of this magnitude 7.0 M_w earthquake was near Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince. at a depth of 13 km (8.1 miles). The United States Geological Survey recorded a series of at least 33 aftershocks, 14 of which were between magnitudes 5.0 and 5.9. The International Red Cross estimated that about three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Government reports that over 316,000 people had been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless.

12 January 2010 earthquake

Main article: 2010 Haiti earthquake

Eric Calais, a geophysicist at Purdue University who has researched in the area for years, and Ross Stein of the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, and colleagues have independently calculated that the earthquake has increased the risk on other segments of the Enriquillo fault and perhaps on other faults, although the quake probably did not increase the risk (which is already known to be high) of a major tremor on the Septentrional fault. Stein suggests that if the calculations are right—noting that they may well not be—something may be "fundamentally locked in some fashion, on pretty much all scales, and might be capable of popping off something large". Historical accounts, although not precise, suggest that there has been a sequence of quakes progressing westwards along the fault, starting with an earthquake in the Dominican Republic in 2010. There are concerns that the 12 January earthquake could be the beginning of a new long-term sequence of both earthquakes and tsunamis: "the whole region is fearful".

See also

• Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone
• Lists of earthquakes