Haiti sits on the edge of the Caribbean Plate, it's heading towards Africa. Scraping past it on the northern edge, where Hispanola sits is the huge North American Plate which is heading west toward Japan. At the boundry region near Haiti the fault between these two plates is called a slip-strike fault because, like the well known San Andreas fault, the two plate edges are slowly grinding past each other. In other regions of contact the North American plate is subducting below the Caribbean plate. The Caribbean plate also has the South American plate traveling north and subducting under its southern edge and the Cocos plate traveling eastward and subducting under its western edge. The Caribbean plate's tectonics are among the most interesting on earth. There are volcanic island arcs on its eastern edge caused by the subducting North American plate. A volcanic arc along its western Central America side caused by the subducting Cocos plate. More islands on its southern edge as the South American plate dives below it on that boundry. On it's northern edge, where the deadly earthquake occured, the islands of Cuba, Jamica and Hispaniola are being lifted from the seafloor by the slip-strike fault. Thus has it been for millions of years, thus will it continue for many million more.
Giant earthquakes have been, and will continue to be, rumbling along this boundry, lifting it's islands and their mountains until the grinding stops and erosion washes everything back to the seafloor hundreds of millions of years into the future.
Why wasn't Haiti prepared for this inevitable calamity? Poverty. Haiti's poverty is as grinding as its geology. Forced into huge debt by France 200 years ago to pay for its freedom. Haiti sucked its resource base dry for about 150 years trying to pay off its huge debt to France. Then when they had no resources left to sell off the IMF and World Bank started 'lending' Haiti money to service its debt. Most of that money was stolen by the series of military dictators who ruled Haiti through the second half of the 20th century. Haiti's debts grew, its people suffered, its elites lived, and still do, like kings. The solution, no more structural adjustment bullshit from the billionaire bankers, no more sweatshops, no more economic slavery. Eliminate-forgive Haiti's international debts. Begin a Vandana Shiva type Earth Democracy, heal the land, heal the people, let Haiti's economy rise like its mountains.
