Haiti Quake Caused $14B in Damage: Study

Natural disaster one of worst ever, compared to size of country
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 17, 2010 10:48 AM CST
Haiti Quake Caused $14B in Damage: Study
US army soldiers, of the 82nd Airborne Division, patrol destroyed buildings in Port-au-Prince, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2010.   (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Haiti’s earthquake caused up to $14 billion in damages, or 117% of Haiti’s annual economic output, according to a new study from the Inter-American Development Bank. That makes it the most costly natural disaster since World War II, relative to the size and economy of the affected country. The figure is a preliminary one—an official estimate hits in a few weeks—but a veteran of the Hurricane Mitch rebuilding effort says it's probably “relatively conservative.”

Rebuilding after Hurricane Mitch cost $6.3 billion, and that disaster killed only about 10,000 people. The Haiti quake killed roughly 250,000, a staggering per-capita loss of 25,000 out of every million Haitians; for comparison, 772 of every million Indonesians died in the 2004 tsunami. “This disaster, given the size of Haiti ... is the most devastating catastrophe that a country has experienced possibly ever,” said one of the study’s authors. (More Haiti earthquake stories.)

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