Haiti faces long road to recovery, expert warns
A senior British academic has warned that earthquake-ravaged Haiti faces a prolonged period of recovery and reconstruction. Dr Neil Thomas, an expert in earth sciences at Kingston University in London and a member of the UK Disaster Risk Reduction Forum, said the sheer scale of devastation meant the island nation would face years of reconstruction once the more immediate phases of the rescue and aid operation had wound up. Dr Thomas describes the earthquake as having the potential to become one of the worst natural disasters of its kind in the western hemisphere in recent times. He pointed out that, given Haiti’s location in a complex geological region, such severe earthquakes were not totally unexpected, adding that this made the lack of rigorous disaster planning and management strategies all the more surprising.