Navel gazing

The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti is the sort of tragedy that makes one think about one's own personal safety; at least it does for me. I grew up in earthquake country, and the memories of those tumblers form a central core of my childhood experiences. Now I still live somewhere prone to earthquakes, though the ones here in Iceland are usually shallow, which means they are much shorter in duration than the ones in California, as far as I understand it. To me it is more nerve wracking to live on an island, knowing how easy it would be to get cut off from the world, how much one has to be able to rely on the resources available right here. Iceland is better off than Haiti both in the sense of having more resources and having building practices that withstand earthquakes, I know that.  I can't help but feel, though, this morning a little more grateful for the wind whistling outside my door, and the rain wetting the window panes.


Comments

Jon Frimann said…
Þú átt heima á svæði sem er beint ofan í eldfjalli. Ég er ekki að grínast með það.

Það verða ekki stórir jarðskjáltar á Reykjanesinu, þeir geta ekki orðið stærri en Mw6.2 þarna. Hinsvegar geta orðið eldgos þarna án mikils fyrirvara. Þó svo að eldgosin á Reykjanesinu komi í hrinum, og það er langt síðan síðasta eldgosahrina átti sér stað þarna.

Annars er jarðskjálftinn í Haiti einn sá stærsti á þessu svæði í amk 200 - 300 ár.
January 13, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Valur said…
Port-au-Prince höfuðborgin er verulega þéttbýl. Yfir 2 milljónir með yfir 28 þús manns á ferkílómetra. Reykjavík er með 436 manns á ferkílómetra! (Skv. tölum af Wikipedia.) Mikið af slömmum þarna og þar er verst hin alræmda Sólarborg sem var helvíti á jörð fyrir jarðskjálftan, þar sem morð, nauðganir, barsmíðar eru daglegt brauð og hverfið stjórnað af gengjum. Ég get ekki ímyndað mér hvernig það er að vera þarna núna.
January 13, 2010 at 12:28 PM
Lissy said…
I hold out a little bit of hope that in the aftermath of a tragedy like this, what is rebuilt, through the help of the international community, is something closer to what it should have been all along. Haitians have had tremendous difficulties for such a long time, it is just unbelievable.

Jón, I've never experienced a volcanic eruption, and thus I do not have a fear complex around it.
January 13, 2010 at 1:16 PM
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