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Hurricanes are a natural process that needs certain conditions to be met to allow their formation. Hurricanes are also known as tropical cyclones and are storms that typically form in the summer or autumn period when the correct atmospheric ingredients come together. Several factors go into the formation of a hurricane, of which they are; low pressure, warm ocean water, the Coriolis effect, moist mid-atmosphere, and upper atmospheric divergence. The low-pressure area has to form to start winds uplifting, the water has to be heated for a specific depth so that it can hold the energy required for a hurricane normally around 20 Celsius at a depth of approximately 50 meters. If the air is dry it will weaken the updraft of the clouds and then the hurricane won’t form therefore the air has to be moist. Moreover, upper atmospheric divergence allows the movement of mass away from the hurricane, and the Coriolis effect illustrates the spinning of the earth and how it affects the movement of air in each hemisphere. Hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere currents from high-pressure systems pass low-pressure systems to their right, whereas in the Southern Hemisphere, they deflect fluids to their left. As a result, hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere rotate anticlockwise and in the Southern Hemisphere clockwise (Society, 2019).
If all the conditions are met sufficiently then rain clouds and storms will start to gain momentum as the lower-level winds come together in the center of an area of low pressure. As convection increases with the formation of bands the hot air close to the surface rises and then cools which in turn allows the water vapour to condense. Subsequently, there is a great amount of heat generated from the condensation of the water vapor that then warms the center region of the low-pressure area. As the core temperature of the hurricane rises it produces lower pressure that increases the intensity of the winds. As the rotation of the hurricane becomes quicker an eye will form in the center, and the higher-pressure air will be sucked from above into the eye. (Nasa.gov)
To be officially classified as a hurricane the winds must reach a sustained value of 74mph and they are scaled on how fast the relative wind speed is by using the Sadfir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale which classifies hurricanes from 1 to 5. This scale is used to predict potential hurricane damage to buildings and properties, all hurricanes are dangerous to a certain extent, however, a hurricane measuring 3 on the scale is classed as a major hurricane (Vickery and colleagues, 2009). Major hurricanes are a threat to life and can cause serious damage to buildings due to catastrophic wind speeds. The most aggressive hurricanes form along the equator can range up to 600 miles wide and can typically last up to a week. (Vickery and colleagues, 2009)
On January 12th, 2010, Haiti experienced an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale at a depth of 8.1 miles whereas on March 11th, 2011 Japan experienced an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale at a depth of 20 miles below the sea bed. The Haitian earthquake killed a total of 230,000 (Bilham,2010) people in comparison to Japan’s which by April 18th had killed 13,392 nationally and an additional 15,132 missing (Norio et al., 2011), the figure now known to be 19,500 deaths, this accentuates the difference in the humanitarian impact between an LEDC and an MEDC. Haiti and Japan have comparable physical geography, both countries are small, mountainous islands that are commonly hit by earthquakes. One of the key differences between the earthquakes is the positioning of the epicenter, the quake that hit Haiti was recorded to be directly under Leogane. This would have been a contributing factor to why the damages were so extreme in Haiti compared to that in Japan from the direct damage of the earthquake. Moreover, the standard of building in Haiti is inferior and it is estimated that the number of people killed by collapsed buildings is around 200,000. This illustrates the sub-standard building of houses in Haiti, following the quake an additional 1.5 million Haitians were left homeless (Bilham, 2010). Before the earthquake Haiti was the lowest-ranked nation in the Western Hemisphere on the Human Development Index (WHO Haiti, 2012), moreover 86% of people living in the capital, Port au Prince were living in slum conditions, mainly in poorly built concrete buildings.
On the day of the earthquake, it is estimated over 300,000 people were injured, over 188,383 houses were badly damaged and 105,00 were destroyed. Furthermore, there were 19 million cubic meters of debris in the capital, 4,000 schools were destroyed or damaged, 60% of government buildings were destroyed or damaged and at its peak, 1.5 million people were living in shelters of which 100,000 people were at risk of storms and flooding (Disasters Emergency Committee, 2015). The overall damage of the earthquake was estimated to cost around £7 billion. These statistics when compared to those of Japan considering Japan was hit with a subsequent major tsunami as a result of the earthquake are not comparable from a humanitarian standpoint.
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