Has a city of 3 million people ever been destroyed like Port-au-Prince?

[Junkdrawer]

You simply cannot have 3 million people live for more than a week in the close confines of a city without sewage and running water.

If that place isn't evacuated soon, the death toll from building collapses will be dwarfed by the death toll from disease, starvation and violence.

I think we're in unexplored territory. And a big part of the problem is that no one wants to accept that many refugees.

[Xenotime]

1. New Orleans?

[cali]

3. not even close- terrible as it was.

[Junkdrawer]

6. Was ALL the sewage and running water destroyed? And New Orleans...

was evacuated: The middle class left before the hurricane and many of the poor were evacuated to Texas and other states.

[roguevalley]

43. there was a chinese earthquake that killed more than a million people

unspeakable isn't it.

[Recursion]

2. Nagasaki?

[ProfessorGAC]

8. Bad, But Not That Big

A horrible and devastating event to be sure, but it wasn't as populated as the most recent example.
GAC

[Recursion]

10. I was just wiki'ing Nagasaki: apparently it was founded by the Portuguese

Who knew? (Other than the guy writing the Wiki article, of course.)

[ProfessorGAC]

14. If I'm Not Mistaken. . .

. . . it was, for centuries, the center of Catholicism in Japan. So, that would seem to make sense that it was founded by the Portuguese.

In fact, in the documentary on the two cities (i think it was called "Black Rain") several of the women who survived the attack as children made references to having just been to church for Mass.

That had to be pretty common, i would guess.
GAC

[Bonobo]

25. Wrong. But it was ceded over TO the Portuguese to keep them out of the way. nt

[Bucky]

40. I believe it was a small fishing village before Portugal took it over

[Betty Karlson]

4. Lissabon, 1755.

Not a stone was left unturned.

[enid602]

7. Lisboa

You can still see the effects in Lisboa today.

[Junkdrawer]

9. Just looked it up. The population was 200,000 - 1/15th Port-au-Prince n/t

[Betty Karlson]

12. The world's population was 1/15th from today's in those days.

We were talking about the effect, right?

[Junkdrawer]

15. I'm saying that modern population densities are unsustainable without...

modern sewage systems, running water, and power (electricity, oil, etc.)

Primitive living arrangements won't work with that many people packed that close.

[Bucky]

39. You should've stopped before "without"

If it seems like we've got bigger human slaughters, bigger disasters, and deadlier epidemics today than in ages past, it's because of over population. True, a lack of infrastructure played a big role here--it will probably mean the difference between a five figure and a six figure death toll. But putting 50 million people on one third of an island the size of Hispaniola is the biggest contributing factor to this disaster.

[lunatica]

17. And the world's ability to come to their aid wasn't too good either

It's much better today. So your comparison simply doesn't work. There were probably very few, if any areas where the populations was a concentrated 3 million.

[sudopod]

26. You'd think if we could do a Berlin airlift

that Port-au-Prince would be a piece of cake. O_o

[Bucky]

41. Airlifts require airports at which you can land and local gov'ts to handle aid distribution

Also, Berlin had buildings, roads, functional hospitals, and experienced managers for handling distribution of food, policing crowds, and responding to other emergencies. Also fewer corpses in the streets making epidemic diseases less of a threat.

[enid602]

5. refugees

I don´t think accepting refugees will be a big problem; the US, Canada and France have a history of accepting Haitian refugees. Sending people to these countries will also beef up the amount of money sent to Haiti by Haitians overseas; this source was 20% of Haiti´s GDP prior to the quake.

[Mojorabbit]

42. I have had two people

already today complain that they are going to take in refugees here in Fl because we have been especially hard hit by this recession and jobs are hard to find. My response was that since our country is partially responsible to their lack of infrastructure that we can take in some refugees in reasonable amts.

[AngryAmish]

11. We burned down Tokyo

[JVS]

13. The 1923 quake in Japan

[Blue_Tires]

16. Baghdad? not quite in the same way, but still...

[Junkdrawer]

20. I don't know if it has ever been fixed, but didn't they create a temporary....

sewage lake in Baghdad? And they still had some running water and some electricity.

[Blue_Tires]

21. true...i was referring to the first months after the invasion

of course, the infrastructure is better now after years of pouring in cash to the tune of a billion per week...

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. Mexico city was damaged but not completely destroyed and 10,000 died in 1985

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake

[FarCenter]

19. 1923 Great Kanto earthquake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Kanto_earthquake

Richter 8.3 earthquake in the Kanto plain, which includes the greater Tokyo area.

100,000 dead and another 40,000 missing and presumed dead.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll for greater and more extensive disasters, but not necessarily focused on a single metro area.

PS: The population of Tokyo in 1920 was about 3.7 million. http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/PROFILE/appendix01.htm

[KharmaTrain]

22. Berlin, Stalingrad, Lenningrad...

All victims of wars where millions perished...many due to disease and malnurishment than to bullets. It's been said the Haitian disaster is as much a human one as a natural one as the country's lack of infrastructure is now being a major hinderance to relief efforts.

If you have Google Earth, there's a way to get a better look at what's going on...

http://mw1.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/haiti/Haiti-Earthquake-nl.kml

These are satellite pictures and show both devestation, but also a lot of areas that weren't affected. My question to you is how do you evacuate and where? The city has one runway that is already overloaded...the docks are ruined and the roads, which were poor in "good times" are impassible. And, then, as you point out...who would take them?

I think the disease factor is the biggest threat right now...just looking at the Google Earth pics the city's streets were open sewers before the quake...getting food, water and temporary shelter into the city is the priority and my hopes are with all the international aid coming into the area that order can be restored and some relief will actually happen.

In many ways this country's poverty works in it's favor...we aren't seeing fires from ruptured gas lines...and due to their desolation many have learned to cope and become very resilliant. Here's my hope that the logistical problems can be worked out and aid moves to those who need it...and then to work on a long-term program that uses this opportunity to rebuild not just buildings, but an infrastructure and with it a nation.

[Junkdrawer]

23. I don't have answers. But all I'm hearing is how they're trying to bring aid in....

and I'm thinking "That won't work."

[KharmaTrain]

27. The Situation Is Still Fluid...

It's a day-to-day matter right now and let's see how things play out over the next day or so. Since neither of us are there and communications is spotty at best, it's hard to get a real handle on how good or bad things are "on the ground". However, I do have faith in the quick and large outpouring of aid headed into the country and the abilities of the military and NGOs to help avert a worse disaster than is already there.

Part of what makes this disaster different than past ones is our rapid communications age. In the past, such a disaster may have been a headline and photo in the paper and not much more. Malaise notes about the Kingston quake of 1907 that was just as devestating as this one and how those people were able to recover.

I'm hoping we'll see some positive results in the next couple days...and then the real hard work begins...how to help this country rebuild.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

24. Pompei and Herculaneum were both highly populated

towns (again, this is related to the number of people living at the time in the world), both razed to the floor by Vesuvius. Both terrific archaeological sites these days.

[Davis_X_Machina]

28. Tangshan, 1976

Possibly 3-5x stronger than Port-au-Prince. 250,000 dead.

[AngryAmish]

29. Cathage, 3d Punic war?

[Bucky]

37. I'm certain Carthage's population was well below 1 million, let alone 3 mil

But I'm like you. My first thought went back to the Great Lisbon earthquake of 17-something. I forgot all about all the horrible quakes and floods and tsunamis that have hammered China over the past 200 years. I believe the Japanese "Rape of Nanking" in 1937 totalled at least 300,000 people killed--and they not were killed en masses like with an accident, but murdered in retail.

[bikebloke]

30. Turkey in 1999

14,000 were killed.

Iran has had a couple in recent times that have killed thousands.

[starroute]

31. Here's something arguing social networks count more than infrastructure

Not that Haiti's doing well on either count...

Here's the abstract:

http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/7/7/8/3/pages277832/p277832-1.php

Despite the tremendous destruction wrought by disasters and catastrophes around the world, little quantitative research has connected potential theoretical explanations with the rate of post-disaster recovery. This article first lays out five theories explaining variation in the pace of rebuilding following disaster, with special attention paid to the popular but relatively untested factor of social infrastructure. Social networks have been singled out as a critical component of rebuilding, but few studies have had large scale datasets on which to evaluate their efficacy. Using new data from the recovery of Tokyo, Japan, which was struck by super catastrophe in 1923, this article tests these approaches and uncovers evidence that social capital, more than damage, physical capital, human capital, or economic capital, best predicts population recovery

[sharesunited]

32. Bill Clinton is sounding amazingly optimistic about the future of Haiti.

Is he just whistling past the graveyard?

[pansypoo53219]

34. i heard him say

he has been going there since 1976, so i think he knows the people.

[leveymg]

33. Large sections of PaP never had sewage and running water.

There are huge tracts of shantytowns made of scrapwood and corrugated iron in and all around the capitol. Most of these people survived on less than $2 a day. They never had utilities. The only good part is that the people living in the shantytowns may have survived when the shacks collapsed. Water largely comes from polluted communal wells. Sewage is the old-fashioned outhouse variety. However, what passed for infrastructure -- the movement of food from surrounding croplands and markets has been disrupted. There's no water available, except from the wells.

Water is the most pressing issue at this point.

[jberryhill]

35. This is sui generis

Your question is largely being interpreted as "name some large disasters", but the most apt analogies are the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad mentioned above. Even there, basic sanitation was not an issue.

If something like cholera gets started, the earthquake will have been a throat-clearing exercise for the real disaster here.

There was mention on the news of those who can, simply walking out of the city.

[amborin]

36. Sichuan, China 2008 earthquake, 68,000 dead

[amborin]

38. 2005 Pakistan, 73,000 dead