the free market anti regulation types won't be pointing to haiti anytime soon...

The importance of good building codes 

The devastation in Haiti was not just because the earth shook, and hard. The quake there was 7.0. Harder than the 6.5 quake that hit Northern California a day before (remember, though, that the Richter scale is logarithmic, so 7 is many times harder than 6.5), but not so hard that widespread death and destruction had to be the result. But when you combine a powerful earthquake with bad building codes, all bets are off:

Before about 1950, a given-sized earthquake would do about the same amount of damage in the developed and underdeveloped world, said Ross Stein, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif. Now the loss of life is typically 10 times higher in developing countries and the damage can be as much as 100 times higher, he said.

For a list of organizations doing relief work in Haiti, head here. They desperately need donations. Or you can text "90999" from your phone, which because of an agreement between mobile manufacturers, will add a $10 contribution to the Red Cross onto your phone bill.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols