I don’t know what to do about Port-au-Prince. From the reports I am hearing, not only are around 100,000 people dead but no, or virtually no, buildings in the city are structurally sound. Over a million people live in the city and another nearly two million live in the metro area. The country was already the poorest in the Western Hemisphere before this catastrophe. The world can provide food, water, and temporary shelter, but what can be done about the capital’s infrastructure? It reminds me of the great earthquake and tsunami of 1755 that leveled, drowned, and burned the city of Lisbon to the ground. But Lisbon was part of a prosperous Portuguese empire, and had resources to rebuild.
The Lisbon disaster inspired Voltaire to write Candide, ou l’Optimisme, wherein he introduced the character of Dr. Pangloss. Dr. Pangloss liked to exclaim “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” which was a reflection of Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy in Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l’homme et l’origine du mal . Voltaire thought this optimism was nonsense, and pointed to Lisbon for evidence.
I don’t know if this is the best of all possible worlds or not, but I know it would be better if this earthquake had not occurred. I have no idea how Haiti can recover from this.
