North Miami False Red Cross Fund Collection: Don’t Trust the Government?

Could the monies end up in the hands of organizations, friends of the city council?  This behavior is truly outrageous.  It will hurt future collections for other towns.

Despite outcry from donors and concerns from the Red Cross, North Miami officials did not come to a consensus Tuesday on how they will spend more than $116,000 raised for Haiti relief immediately after the January earthquake.

Officials had put the issue on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting to discuss the fate of the funds raised ostensibly to be handed over to the American Red Cross in the days following the disaster.

At the meeting, the council decided to accept proposals from other organizations seeking the donated money to carry out Haiti reconstruction efforts.

via North Miami delays decision on Haiti funds – North Miami / NMB – MiamiHerald.com.

Reason for Rebuilding Haiti at Higher Cost Building Standards

This is a lesson in humility for all of the geologists that worked at explaining the source of the Haiti earthquake.

The news for future quakes is not good.  It is better that Haiti be sure to reconstruct to a higher building code, even at a higher cost.  This will save money in the long haul–the next time they have an earthquake.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that caused more than 200,000 casualties and devastated Haiti’s economy in January resulted not from the Enriquillo fault, as previously believed, but from slip on multiple faults — primarily a previously unknown, subsurface fault — according to a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience.

In addition, because the earthquake did not involve slip near Earth’s surface, the study suggests that it did not release all of the strain that has built up on faults in the area over the past two centuries, meaning that future surface-rupturing earthquakes in this region are likely.

via NASA Study of Haiti Quake Yields Surprising Results | International Space Shuttle Station NASA Missions Google Earth Science Technology Mars.