Post Earthquake Jacmel (Haiti) Report and EMMA

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Table 6: Summary of Impacts
Category
Natural environment
Houses and buildings
6. Summary of impacts
Impact
Minimum. Some reports of springs going dry
and some rock slides in the mountains.
Urban: heavy damage to cement homes and
buildings. Widespread fear of second quake.
Rural areas: walls in many poorer quality
cement and rock homes collapsed but most
roofs, with supports made of wood beams and
often lashed together with a special type of
vine remain intact. Few rural people sleep
outdoors in tents but rather in the quake-tested
house of family or neighbors or in a joupa,
(palm-thatch covered A-frame structures used
throughout Haiti as garden shelters.
Rural household Livelihood strategies Peasant household livelihood: agriculture
(including tree crops), livestock raising:
earthquake had little if any impact, indeed,
crisis arguably illustrates the successfulness of
the strategy as supported many urban refugees.
Recent drought, swine epidemic, and cabbage
infestation are greater problems.
Urban livelihood strategies
Availability of cash
Fishing: Some damage due to ―sunami‖ but
seasonal winds are greater problem.
Petty commerce (see markets below)
Charcoal production: intense as people turn to
this traditional crisis resource.
Construction at standstill and market demand
reportedly down; but difficult to see with
intensity of trading and in light of other
economic stimulate (aid, remittances, NGO
jobs, cash for work)
Urban areas: economic fallout in terms of
occupational loss and income. But aid has
benefitted people in form of food distribution,
cash for work, full employment as aid
employees, and expenditures that aid workers
and refugees and receivers of remittances; also
influx of IDPs has meant increased business
for moto-taxis and phone cards