(Those were the numbers, I think)

Anyway, when I first heard about the northern California earthquake, I was annoyed. Not because of the quake, but because the news people (I was watching cable news while at the gym... gotta love those university gyms, and you should, because you're paying for them in your tuition whether you like it or not). Anyway, the news people were being totally dumb about how earthquakes work, saying that it was described as "wavey" (or something like that, forgot the exact quote) so that means it was really big. (For the record, earthquakes send out two types of waves, P waves and S waves. P waves are like pulses, so the ground moves back and forth, while S waves are more like ocean waves, so the land moves up and down and such. So the wavey earthquake was just the S waves, and had nothing to with how strong the earthquake was... that's what the 6.8 on the Richter Scale [or whatever its called nowadays, I think they changed the name]) I was planning to blog about this earlier, but never got around to it. The main point: Cable News People are mostly stupid and should take a Geology class before they try to act smart when reporting on geological events.

Then the 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, and totally devastated the country. Horrible disaster.

But let's think through this for a moment. California had a 6.8 quake, which shook some buildings, maybe injured a few people, but there was no major damage (from what I heard) and nobody died.

In Haiti, in a slightly bigger 7.0 quake occurred. (I forget exactly how much stronger it was, but it wasn't a great amount. All I know is a 7.0 is ten times greater than a 6.0 on the Richter scale. 6.8 and 7.0 are pretty close) And this earthquake caused untold damage, millions injured or killed, one of the worst tragedies in the country. Send your aid there! (And I fully support that, even though I can't myself being a poor student whose bank account ran dry last quarter...)

But... why did the quake in Cali cause little damage and the one in Haiti was a disaster? Maybe it's because Haiti is dirt poor, has horrible infrastructure that can't handle quakes. And it's not like quakes are unusual there; I've seen a tectonic plate map, I know the Caribbean plate is bordering Haiti. They were just asking for trouble. And they couldn't do anything about it because they were poor.

In my mind, I see this as a Katrina. (Although you can't blame quakes on global warming... even I have not seen that sci fi yet) The place needs our help, and it just takes a huge natural disaster to bring our attention down there.

So, yeah, donate if you can to help those in Haiti, but just let this be some food for thought. (And if you're living ontop of a plate boundary, at least educate yourself about the basic geology of the area)

(And cable newscasters are stupid in science)