I will update a column of the NIED e-mail magazine which I wrote a long time ago because the content is not faded with time. (I will do this step by step in Japanese and English.) I will also add comments to update the situation.
Published March 5, 2010
NIED-DIL e-mail magazine: Recoveries from Disasters
■ Disaster Recoveries ■
Global attention is being focused on how recovery will take place after the Haiti earthquake. I have studied a lot about disaster recovery. Still, as a valid theory of thinking, a researcher named Haas says, “A rapidly growing city will recover quickly after the disaster but will remain unchanged, and stagnant or downhill cities will recover very slowly after the disaster or will quickly decline “(1977). When considering what kind of area or growing city it is in this case, the population before the disaster could be examined as an indicator. I’ve researched a lot and predict that no matter how massive the distraction, an area with a growing population may be easier to recover. For example, in the city of Nagoya, due to the Typhoon Ise Bay disaster, the scale of economic and social damages was plentiful, and the amount of aid was small, but it was said that it was revived in less than a year. In comparison, the scale of economic and social disasters in New Orleans due to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was not so large, relative to statistics, but the amount of aid was enormous. Nevertheless, it may be useful to say that five years have passed and that recovery has not yet been good. New Orleans was even expressed as a surviving city, even before the disaster. Regarding the recovery of the stricken area of the Indian Ocean tsunami, it is not clear here, but there were many similar trends.
Let’s return to the example of Haiti. Examination of the population growth rate in Haiti (Port-au-Prince) showed that it was overgrowing until the disaster occurred. Haiti’s revival should be relatively quick, given the population index alone. However, it is also possible that Haiti has an entirely different social situation that cannot be applied to the above example. You may have to think that Haiti’s revival will be heavily influenced by the very elusive variables of political steering and social conditions. There is an article in the magazine “ Economist ” that fears that similar problems may occur in Haiti, such as the problem of contributions and aid in the Indian Ocean cases where oversupply was unevenly distributed and the damage was widened.
What do you think of Haiti’s recovery?
P.S.
The data below indicates a lot about the theory.
Haiti Population Data
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/haiti-population/
Port-au-Prince Population Data
https://populationstat.com/haiti/port-au-prince
