ABSTRACT
On January 12, 2010, an earthquake hit the small Caribbean island of Hispaniola, home to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Before the earthquake, Haiti was by almost all indicators one of the poorest countries in the world. From child and infant mortality to malnutrition, life expectancy, and income, Haiti was the worst-off country in the Western Hemisphere. At 4:53 p.m., the already precarious livelihoods of many Haitians were shattered by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake whose epicenter was just outside the capital of Port-au-Prince.
