December, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Responding to Disaster: Lessons Learned from the Haiti and Japan Earthquakes
On December 5, 2011, a distinguished panel of experts convened for the purpose of drawing lessons for first responders from the experiences of the Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010, and from the East Japan earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Haiti, an impoverished developing country whose governance and logistical infrastructure were devastated by the earthquake, was forced to rely almost entirely on international responders. Japan, a wealthy developed country with ample domestic capacity, responded largely with its own resources. Nevertheless, the experiences of responders in both cases evinced interesting and important commonalities