An earthquake prediction is a prediction that an earthquake of a specific magnitude will occur in a particular place at a particular time (or ranges thereof). Despite considerable research efforts by seismologists, scientifically reproducible predictions cannot yet be made to a specific hour, day, or month but for well-understood faults, seismic hazard assessment maps can estimate the probability that an earthquake of a given size will affect a given location over a certain number of years

Once an earthquake has already begun, early warning devices can provide a few seconds' warning before major shaking arrives at a given location. This technology takes advantage of the different speeds of propagation of the various types of vibrations produced. Aftershocks are also likely after a major quake, and are commonly planned for in earthquake disaster response protocols.[3]

Experts do advise general earthquake preparedness, especially in areas known to experience frequent or large quakes, to prevent injury, death, and property damage if a quake occurs with or without warning.

Current earthquake prediction methods may need to be revised in the wake of the recent Haiti and Asian earthquakes and tsunami.

University of Queensland researcher Dr Huilin Xing said current prediction methods were so far mostly based on recorded historical earthquakes and so it was difficult to make reliable predictions.

“That may need a different way of thinking, such as to combine modern computational and observational technologies with conventional prediction methods,” said Dr Xing, who is Deputy Director of UQ's Earth Systems Science Computational Centre.

Dr Xing said a number of recent large destructive earthquakes had occurred after an earthquake silence of different periods.

It was 600 years between the 2004 Boxing Day Sumatra earthquake/tsunami and a previous destructive earthquake in the region; about 5000 years to the 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake; and about 200 years to the current Haiti earthquake.

“However, the recorded earthquake history is relatively shorter for some cases,” he said.

Dr Xing said the Caribbean tectonic plate was moving eastward with respect to the North American plate at around 20mm per year, while Haiti was located close to the northern edge of the Caribbean plate.

“The January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake occurred as a left-lateral strike slip faulting on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system (EPGZ).

“This fault system accommodates about 8 mm per year, and it is the likely source of a series of historical large earthquakes in the region such as in 1751, 1761, 1770 and 1860,” he said.

“However, it had been quite silent (locked) along the EPGZ afterwards until the Magnitude 7 Haiti earthquake occurred on January 12, 2010.

“This earthquake and aftershocks are releasing the accumulated stress along it during the long time interval since the previous quake.”

American televangelist Pat Robertson has blamed the devastating earthquake in Haiti on a pact between the impoverished nation's founders and the devil.

It is feared that up to 100,000 people may have lost their lives when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake flattened massive areas of the capital Port-au-Prince yesterday.

Speaking on his television program The 700 Club, Mr Robertson said the pact happened "a long time ago in Haiti".

"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon III [sic] and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil," he said.

"They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story.

"And so the devil said, 'OK it's a deal'. And they kicked the French out."

Mr Robertson said after the pact, the Haitians "revolted and got something - themselves free".

"But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another," he said.

Haiti won its independence from France in 1804 after a slave rebellion.

Mr Robertson said the curse was evident when Haiti was contrasted with its neighbour, the Dominican Republic.

"That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle - on the one side is Haiti, on the other is the Dominican Republic," he said.

"Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island.

"They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come.

"But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."

Mr Robertson's outspoken comments have caused controversy in the past.

He was widely criticised for his 2005 call for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's assassination. He also said the 2006 stroke suffered by then-Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was punishment from God.

He blamed the September 11 terrorist attacks on civil liberties, promised a disastrous tsunami in America in 2006 and a terrorist attack on United States soil in 2007.

When both attacks failed to happen, Mr Robertson said people must have prayed to God, and "God in his mercy spared us".

Haiti's devastating earthquake has reversed modest signs of progress in developing the impoverished Caribbean island to the point it will take a massive, sustained global effort to rebuild the country.

Haitians have learned to be resilient in the face of a series of devastating hurricanes and a long history of violence and instability, but the latest disaster is a setback on a scale that few countries, rich or poor, would be able to deal with.

Once cast aside as a failed state, Haiti's government has slowly won the confidence of donors and investors through economic reforms, efforts to stamp out corruption and improve conditions for the 80 percent of Haitians who live in poverty.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton personally took up Haiti's cause, becoming a U.N. special envoy and visiting the country several times to showcase its potential to donors and investors.

Later, the IMF and World Bank canceled $1.2 billion in Haiti's debt, freeing up funds for the government to pour more cash into building roads, bridges and social programs.

But donors have not always reliably delivered on their aid promises, and Clinton appealed on Wednesday for them to make good on their pledges in the country's time of need.

While relief teams rescue people from wrecked buildings and provide food, water and medicine to survivors of the 7.0 earthquake, development experts can't help but look ahead and see opportunities for rebuilding Haiti in meaningful ways.

Helene Gayle, chief executive officer for U.S.-based development group CARE, said Haiti could no longer survive from crisis to crisis. Donors need to think harder about how to put the country on a path of long-lasting, sustained change, she added.

Gayle likened Haiti's tragedy to the Asian tsunami, and said it was a chance for the world to be generous and commit to helping Haiti beyond the current disaster.

"These short-term crises and disasters can't have just short-term responses, they have to have long-term responses so that we're not continuing to put Band-Aids on societies," she told Reuters.

"We need to make sure that we're building back in a way that does not only return them to where they were but gives them an opportunity to really get a leg up after this is all over," she added.

"You can't do this on the cheap. This is a situation that demands we do what is necessary now to be able to get communities to a point where they can stand on their own feet," she said.

Yvonne Tsikata, World Bank country director for the Caribbean, said that before the earthquake foreign investors were increasingly seeing opportunities in Haiti thanks to the U.S. HOPE 11 Act, which allows textiles made in Haiti into the United States duty free.

"The earthquake really is a tragedy because there was an energy and a fantastic feeling about prospects in Haiti," she added.

The World Bank has pledged an extra $100 million in aid to Haiti and urged an urgent response to helping Haiti rebuild.

Rebuilding Haiti, however, not only means repairing physical structures but also investing in health and education, she said. This was a long-term effort that could take between two to five years, she said.

Haitians, politicians and lawyers in Southwest Florida are calling for temporary immigration relief that would allow Haitians here illegally to stay in the wake of the earthquake.
American Immigration Lawyers Association, which has more than 11,000 members, Wednesday asked the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for temporary protected status for Haiti.

Other countries have received the benefit that’s doled out for an ongoing armed conflict, natural disaster or temporary conditions for years. Honduras continues to have it after Hurricane Mitch in 1999.

But it’s never been extended to Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere and one pummeled by four ferocious storms in 2008, said Charles Kuck, the group’s immediate past president.

“We have pressed for years for (temporary protected status) for Haitians and I believe it’s been racially denied for years,” he said, “If this is a kinder, gentler administration, this is a first step.”

The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement halted all removals to Haiti on Wednesday because of the devastation, said Matt Chandler, the department’s deputy press secretary.

“ICE continues to closely monitor the situation,” he wrote in an e-mail in response to questions from The News-Press on whether Napolitano would consider extending the status.

Immigrants who have entered illegally or overstayed visas are typically eligible for the benefit while people with criminal records are not, Kuck said.

Halting deportation to Haiti is a gesture in the right direction, said Lara Chrisphonte of Cape Coral, who was raised in Haiti.

“Stopping right now would not only be the human thing to do but the right thing to do because they really have nowhere to go,” said Chrisphonte, 35.

She hopes the earthquake will spark a dialogue about expanding immigration relief for Haitians.

“I hope they look into the whole immigration laws when it pertains to us and at least open up the lines of communication.”
The scale of devastation — hundreds of thousands are presumed dead — might bolster the case for granting status, said James Mills, a supervising immigration attorney for area Catholic charities.

“It seems very obvious that the situation in Haiti is intolerable,” he said. “Hurricanes are one thing, it’s an island in the Caribbean. This may be a different thing.”

But, if granted, it could be hard to then stop the highly sought benefit, said Fort Myers immigration attorney Ricardo Skerrett.

“It’s like opening a Pandora’s box. Once you open that door, it’s very hard to close it,” Skerrett said.

Difficulties could arise when trying to document Haitians’ entry if they came illegally, he said.

Sauveur Pierre, a Haitian paralegal with Florida Rural Legal Services in Fort Myers, believes it’s unfair his country hasn’t received the designation.

The 2008 storms killed as many as 800.

“We’re right here and suffering years and years and nobody ever looks at us,” Pierre said. “To me, it is wrong. It is time to do something.”

Pierre believes race and poverty have played roles.

“Most people think, ‘If you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,’” he said. “If you don’t have anything to offer, why scratch?”

South Florida politicians also are pushing for the status since the disaster.

Mario Diaz-Balart, a congressman who represents part of Collier County, was among three Florida Republicans who repeated a request to grant the status to Haiti in a joint letter to President Barack Obama on Tuesday.

“The combined destruction from today’s catastrophic earthquake and the previous storms clearly makes forced repatriation of Haitians hazardous to their safety at this time,” the letter said.

Lee County Haitians welcome the prospect of relief, but they’d rather see a long-term solution.

Temporary protected status “would be a good thing instead of nothing,” said Joseph Jerome, 39, of Fort Myers. “But what the Haitian community needs is a path to citizenship.”

The US military says its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be used to help with relief efforts in Haiti.

'It's a resource that's available if we need to take advantage of it for various reasons,' General Douglas Fraser, head of Southern Command, told a press conference on Wednesday.

Fraser was asked if the Guantanamo base, which also includes the controversial US military prison for terror suspects, could be used to house refugees or even to take in inmates from prisons in Haiti that may have collapsed in Tuesday's massive earthquake.

'We're looking across the region to just understand what the possibilities are there,' he added.

A Coast Guard helicopter earlier Wednesday evacuated four critically injured members of the American embassy staff in Haiti to the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, where they were receiving medical treatment, officials said.
US President Barack Obama has vowed a swift and aggressive effort to save lives in Haiti and said search and rescue teams would arrive within hours of the 'heart wrenching' earthquake.

'I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives,' Obama said in a televised statement at the White House on Wednesday.

'Search and rescue teams from Florida, Virginia and California will arrive throughout today and tomorrow.'

Obama said that images of devastation and human misery following Tuesday's earthquake were 'truly heart wrenching,' even for a nation as scarred by poverty as Haiti.

'This tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible,' he said.

'The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble and to deliver the humanitarian relief, food, water and medicine that Haitians will need.

Haiti Before and after—still a hope?

Ours (am Haitian living in London) was the first nation after the US to gain its independence from European colonialism, in 1804, and it was the first sovereign black nation in a region still blighted with slavery. Haiti throughout the 19th century was a beacon for freedom fighters such as Simón Bolívar and José Marti. Haitians have a lively and rich culture and have consistently produced some of the best artists in the Caribbean: in music, with bands such as Tabou Combo, Michel Martely and Wyclef Jean; and in art, with internationally renowned painters and sculptors such as Edouard Duval, Philome Obin, and Prefete Duffaut.-- Isabelle Dupuy

Before a massive earthquake struck Haiti, fortunes had begun looking brighter for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Just last October, former President Bill Clinton was hosting a trade mission to Haiti, challenging international donors and investors to think big about the country's potential for manufacturing and tourism.

"There is enormous potential here," Clinton told about 200 interested investors at a session in which he invited them to spend freely on job-creating industries.

But a day after the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the former president found himself pleading for money for the most basic tools of survival. "We need cash to buy water, food and first-aid supplies," he told NPR's Melissa Block.

Clinton spoke from his New York office at the United Nations, where he and his colleagues were trying to assess the casualties among U.N. personnel in the collapse of the hotel that served as headquarters for the organization's mission to Port-au-Prince.
But even in the wake of a tragedy, the former president said that after the first few weeks of humanitarian rescue and relief work, he plans to go back to implementing a plan that he and others have been working on for more than a year.

A New Focus On Haiti

Last July, when Clinton visited the Caribbean nation after being appointed special envoy to Haiti by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, hopes were high that Haiti was on its way to recovery. Clinton was eager to draw international aid and investment in new, more focused ways.
Haiti's situation was, if anything, more dire than ever: Political instability, environmental degradation and a relentless pounding from natural disasters had left the country unable to survive without international aid.

The United Nations, which maintains a 9,000-member peacekeeping force in Haiti, estimates that 4 out of 5 Haitians live below the poverty line, on less than $2 a day. More than half the population is considered to live in "abject poverty," or on less than a dollar a day.

In 2008, soaring world food prices stripped ordinary Haitians of the ability to buy even basic staples, such as rice and beans. The crisis triggered riots in April of that year and toppled the government of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis.

The World Bank and other donors provided emergency funding to get through that crisis, but just a few months later, Haiti was hit by devastating storms. In August and September of 2008, three hurricanes and a tropical storm caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides, leaving at least 800 people dead and thousands more homeless.

But the sheer size of the calamities helped refocus world attention on the island.

Reasons For Hope

Haiti seemed on track for a new beginning. The worldwide recession hurt the country's efforts to build its textile industry, but it also reduced the food and fuel prices that had caused so much pain to ordinary Haitians. Business leaders such as Georges Sassine, president of the Haitian Association of Industries, saw the coming years as a period for rebuilding the country's infrastructure, especially roads and port facilities, in preparation for steady growth in exports.

During Clinton's trade mission in October, the situation seemed so positive that he told attendees, "Your political risk in Haiti is lower than it has ever been in my lifetime."

The former president's hopes for political stability took a blow just a few weeks later, when Haiti's Senate voted to oust Pierre-Louis, saying that she had failed to promote the economic recovery. President Rene Preval appointed the country's planning minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, as the new prime minister.

As the transition took place, Haiti's ambassador to the U.N., Leslie Voltaire, noted that one reason for the slow pace of development under Pierre-Louis' government was that only about 15 percent of the money promised at the April donors' conference had been delivered.

Now, with Haiti in the throes of a new disaster, pledges of international aid are flowing once again. It remains to be seen whether those pledges will be met, and whether the world's attention to Haiti's development will survive the current fixation on the country's survival.

In his interview on NPR's All Things Considered, Clinton called the earthquake "a terrible economic setback" for the island nation but said he believes it could intensify the determination of Haitians to rebuild their country.

"Every tragedy in life shapes the future," he said, "depending on how you respond to it."

Sayings from Hope For Haiti (The Charitable Organisation)

As the aftershocks of the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake continued to rock Port-au-Prince into Tuesday night, Hope for Haiti, a non-profit organization based in Naples, Fl has launched its emergency response to help in the aftermath of this catastrophic event.
Hope for Haiti is mobilizing both in Les Cayes, Haiti and in Naples to get aid to
the dust-covered capital’s countless victims. The organization’s large network of
supplies and technical expertise in Haiti is based in the south. The challenge
today is getting the most crucial materials four hours north to Port-au-Prince as
quickly and safely as possible.

Emergency Relief Buckets containing fortified dried food supplies, matches,
candles, antibacterial soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, detergent, and
Aquatab water purification tablets are the thrust of Hope for Haiti’s response.
One 5-gallon bucket is intended to sustain a family of five for about a week, and
1,000 buckets are packed and on their way.

In addition, Hope for Haiti is sending to Port au Prince, medications, medical
supplies, Haitian Dr. Steve Victor, and 7,308 bags of Kids Against Hunger
fortified dried meals. Led by Country Director Mike Stewart and in coordination
with the Naples staff, this effort was coordinated throughout the night.
“We’re asking the public to support our efforts through prayers and financial
assistance,” said Hope for Haiti Founder and President, JoAnne Kuehner. “We
need donations to help send medical supplies and medical personnel to Haiti.”
Financial donations can be made directly through the organization’s Web site
www.hopeforhaiti.com

As of 10 a.m. today, a large public bus filled with these supplies is on its way to
Port-au-Prince. Hope for Haiti staff, equipped with shovels, pick-axes, tools, and
a gritty will, determined to bring aid to any along their way are also headed to the
capital.
Hope for Haiti has been working in Haiti since 1990. While its primary focus has
been education, nutrition, and healthcare for the poorest country in the western
hemisphere, the organization also provides emergency disaster relief. During the
2008 hurricanes it deployed a massive Emergency Disaster Relief program and
has true on-hand expertise in disaster assistance.

Hope for Haiti supports eight schools, a nutrition clinic, a hospital, and several
orphanages in the Port-au-Prince area. The staff and volunteers are working
tirelessly to establish contact with in-country friends and partners, many who
have not yet been reached. “We’re holding out hope for their wellbeing,” said
Kuehner.

“We need your help,” said Hope for Haiti’s Executive Director, Elizabeth
Davison. “In a disaster like this, awareness is critical. Advocacy is a power tool.
So spread the word. Send a donation. Say a prayer. And pass this along.”