Poverty Makes Natural Disasters Worse: Wealth Mitigates Natural Disasters.

The earthquake in Haiti was a magnitude of 7.0. According to Wikipedia, the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in San Francisco was either 7.0 or 6.9 depending on which scale is used. In other words, the intensities were fairly similar. Haiti is devastated. If the New York Times is correct, the death toll could be in the tens of thousands. The death toll in the 1989 quake was 63, if you include indirect deaths due the quake.

The difference is wealth. San Francisco is one of the wealthiest areas in our part of the world, while Haiti is the poorest. Poverty makes natural disasters worse. Wealth mitigates natural disasters.

From "Wealth, Poverty, and Natural Disasters: Prosperity saves lives" by James Peron in January/February 2010 issue of The Freeman.