Catastrophe in the Caribbean

IF THERE is one country in the Americas that cannot afford to suffer a natural disaster, it is dirt-poor and politically fragile Haiti. In 2008 four tropical storms killed 800 people, left 1m of the 9m population homeless and wiped out 15% of the economy. But the earthquake that devastated the country, including Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, just before 5.00pm on January 12th was a yet crueller blow.

Many died—how many nobody will know until Haiti's people and the rescue workers who began arriving the next day have completed the grim task of picking through the choking mounds of rubble and concrete. But by the morning of January 14th they were talking of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives lost as schools, hospitals, houses, offices, shops and the cathedral and the headquarters of the United Nations mission collapsed in those 45 murderous seconds. The president, René Préval, as stunned and dazed as the people seeking refuge in the streets, said simply, “It is a catastrophe.”