The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophicmagnitude 7.0 Mwearthquake, with an epicenter near the town of Léogâne, approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti'sUTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. As of 12 February 2010, an estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Government reports that between 217,000 and 230,000 people have died, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 homeless. The death toll is expected to rise. They also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged.
Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritisation of flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince's morgues were quickly overwhelmed with many tens of thousands of bodies having to be buried in mass graves. As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and some looting and sporadic violence being observed.
On 22 January the United Nations noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors.
On January 12, around dinnertime, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, decimating the island nation and leaving hundreds of thousands presumed dead. A rescue effort is underway now, but as government officials and rescue agencies sort through the rubble, it is worth asking: Could this tragedy have been prevented?
One group of scientists thinks so. Back in 2008, Eric Calais and Paul Mann, geophysicists who study fault lines in the Caribbean, predicted that Haiti would soon face such a devastating quake. The researchers reported that the Enriquillo fault, the line that Haiti sits upon, could produce a 7.2-magnitude quake if strained enough. Using GPS measurements, the team said that the fault was inching along at 7 millimeters per year, a moderate crawl in the realm of fault lines. But since this highly strung fault line has stretched several millimeters per year for the last 250 years, it was time for it to snap.
"Unfortunately our number is fairly close to what happened yesterday. If you think of the fault as a rubber band, as being pulled 7 millimeters per year at a constant rate, it will eventually break," Calais says.
Mann equates the fault in Haiti with the San Andreas fault in California, as both have plates that slip and grind past one another in a horizontal direction.
The difference between the two, however, is that Haiti hasn't been quantitatively studied in the past. Calais says that because Haiti poses safety concerns and a difficult work environment with a poor road access system, it's been neglected by seismologists. Fortunately, he says, by measuring the speed of the Enriquillo fault line, his team has made substantial progress in Caribbean geophysics.
But his research didn't translate well enough to elicit safety precautions before the quake. Though Calais notes that earthquakes can't be prevented, he says there was enough advance warning for the Haitian government to make preparations, and, in fact, his team alerted the government four to five years beforehand.
"We've told the Haitian government that the Enriquillo fault is a major player," Calais says. "We've told them exactly where the fault is. We've told them how fast it was building up elastic energy, and we've told them that right now, if it was to go, it could produce a 7.2 in magnitude or larger event."
The government has worked with the team and listened to its foreboding reports, Calais says, but for the most part, Haiti has failed to implement emergency plans and restructure crucial buildings. Even with scarce resources, there were options, according to Calais. For example, "You can identify the few buildings that are critical, that have to stand up in the face of a large earthquake, like hospitals and schools, from which rescue operations can be organized. This hasn't been done," he says. "One of the first buildings that was reported to have collapsed was a hospital. That is unacceptable and could have been prevented."
Calais hopes that neighboring areas such as the Dominican Republic take note of the Haitian quake and learn the dangers fault lines exhibit. He plans to travel to Haiti next week to evaluate the fault zone and try to determine what happened during the quake.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Little Rami....!
my child hood was abit different them others. i was raised in different cultures. i am from Libya and i grow up in Russia. i spend 5 years of my life in the extremely cold of Moscow. it was nice to learn about Russia's culture but sadly i learnt too much. my father registered me in a Russian nursery which i spent my whole day with Russian kids. it was really nice for me but not for my father. he soon discovered that i was into Russia more than Libya. i even started to speak Russian fluently and broken Arabic. i really enjoyed living there. the snow is perfect. its very cold but after few months you can get used to it. the Russian trying there best to use the snow in the direction. they recycle the snow to reduce mineral water. they also used it to get tourists. they built everything with ice. they built iced playgrounds and restaurants. now they even built a whole accessorise hotel in ice. i lived in there in a part of my life which i will never forget. i went to Russian nersurey from 8am until 6pm. the nersurey were my second home where i feel secured and comfortable. the teachers are nice and the student were all my friends. i can remember once when my dad took me and my brothers for sking. that day i didnt wear enough clothes so i al most freezed to death.
Monday, February 1, 2010
I love you, I won’t say it again
I love you, I won’t say it againI love you, won’t repeat it, I want you and you do the sameI love you abnormal love, my feeling are from another time (when love was real) Your soul is living in mine, in your heart I’ve seen my veinYour tears run in my eyes, and all my sadness is gone (he means that his sadness is nothing when his love is sad) I get happy and life is happiness if you’re satisfied and forgivenThe sun laughed in my morning either for you or for me Your soul is living in mine, in your heart I’ve seen my veinYour tears run in my eyes, and all my sadness is gone (he means that his sadness is nothing when his love is sad)
Khod balak 3alya
translation: Pay attention to me This is not how you should treat me And remember that I've tired in my days because of you If only you would just understand me and not consider me insignificant Along you remain hurt and don't clear up This is loneliness As much as you sacrifice and bear As soon as you think you'll forget you don't ask permission There were things you were lacking and I completed them And many things not nice about you that I made beautiful If you've lost an opportunity you will be angry about it Who but me lives caring for you for all her life? Who but me would leave her soul for you if you left her? Who but me if you needed her would you find her right away?
it was a lovely sunny day as usual.i didn't have allot of work to do, so i went to my friends house for a sleep over. at my friend's house i met his friend who's going back to Libya at the end of this week. we sat all night chatting and playing PS3. suddenly we start talking about the nice places that we have seen in Malaysia.
unfortunately my friend's friend didn't have much time to go anywhere.
so me and my friend decided to take him to at least one or two places to enjoy himself before living this beautiful country.
At the end we planned to go to Genting Hilands.......
it's just seven of us and I'm the only foreigner...... all eyes on me...!
at first i thought its going to be tough for me to communicate with them especially when they are all from Malaysia(local)....on the other hand, they were very kind with me. we talked with each other about the our past, told some jokes,we even went to lunch together.
we also discussed about the differences between my country which is Libya and Malaysia.
i think we are blessed to be together unlike us there are allot who doesn't like to enjoy their time together.
everything was going perfect for the first day....unlike my first English class which nearly missed.. could you believe that the lecture called to tell that i had to come, this was terrible for me
this made me look bad to him...
i hope that it my first and my last to miss any of my classes....
i hope that mange to finish this foundation year successfully(in sha'allah) and to make allot of nice friends.
at the end of the day i wish that i enjoy my staying in Malaysia which will be part of my life that i will never EVER forget.....!
0 homeless. The death toll is expected to rise. They also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. 
appeals from aid workers and survivors, and some looting and sporadic violence being observed.
st one another in a horizontal direction.
