A report By Richard A. Kerr on the ScienceNOW Daily News website, dated January 13, 2010, reveals that the earthquake that has devastated Haiti could have been much worse. While viewing news reports from the stricken island makes one wonder how the destruction could have been much worse, the report quotes seismologist William McCann as saying that there have been larger quakes along the same fault in the past. The quake ruptured only a part of the fault segment that caused a magnitude-7.5 quake over 200 years ago, he says, and that quake was about five times more powerful than the one that struck near Port-au-Prince yesterday. According to Kerr's report:

McCann, who works at Earth Scientific Consultants in Westminster, Colorado, has spent decades studying the earthquake risks in the Caribbean. Nothing like yesterday's quake had struck Haiti since 1770--and that's what worried him. “We were concerned because it's been 240 years since the last major earthquake on this fault,” he says. "Centuries have passed, and this area has been extremely quiet." That meant stress was building on the San Andreas-like fault just 16 kilometers south of Port-au-Prince's population of 1 million--without any quakes to relieve the strain.

Earthquakes in the 1700s (years and magnitudes in red) rocked the island of Hispaniola. The magnitude-7.0 quake of January 12, near Port-au-Prince, ruptured part of the fault (black line) broken in the 1770 quake. Credit William McCann/Earth Scientific Consultants.

When compared with historical precedents, says McCann, yesterday's “quake is not really big.” Despite the 7.0 quake on January 12, plenty of accumulating strain remains to be released. That means the region could be hit by stronger quakes in the future. “We may be coming out of the quiet time we've had” for the past 60 years, says McCann, with a return to the turmoil of the 18th century a real possibility. “People should be better prepared than they are.” For the sake of the poor people of Haiti, let us hope science is wrong.

Former American Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton have put aside politics in order to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Bush and Clinton appeared on five Sunday talk shows as part of their effort to lead private fundraising efforts for Haitian relief, including immediate needs and the long-term rebuilding effort. President Barack Obama asked them to lead the bipartisan effort.

“You've got people who are ... children who've lost parents. People wondering where they're going to be able to drink water,” Bush said. “There's a great sense of desperation. And so my attention is on trying to help people deal with the desperation.” Clinton added that a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti “reminds us of our common humanity. It reminds us of needs that go beyond fleeting disagreements.”

Contributions can be made at their website, clintonbushhaitifund.org.

According to an AP report, scientists who detected signs of growing stresses in the fault that caused this week's devastating earthquake in Haiti said they warned officials there two years ago that their country was due for a major earthquake. Their sobering findings, presented during a geological conference in March 2008 and at meetings with the Haitian government two months later, predicted that the fault was capable of causing a 7.2-magnitude earthquake.

The scientists' conclusions lacked a specific timeframe that could have prodded quick action to shore up the hospitals, schools and other buildings that collapsed and crumbled, said Paul Mann, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas' Institute for Geophysics. Given how poor Haiti is, there was probably nothing they could have done anyway.