The impact of earthquakes is far more disastrous in a country when corruption is widespread, people are poor, forests are depleted and the government is not functioning.

Haiti is devastated, 200,000 people are estimated to have died, and without water, food and medical aid more will die. More than a million are homeless and sleeping in the open without tents. The republic of Haiti was hit by an earthquake of a magnitude of 7, on 12 Jan.