The Disaster Profiteers: How Natural Disasters Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Even Poorer

by John C. Mutter

  28.Louisa Lim, “Five Years after a Quake, Chinese Cite Shoddy Reconstruction,” All Things Considered, NPR, May 13, 2013, http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/05/14/183635289/Five-Years-After-A-Quake-Chinese-Cite-Shoddy-Reconstruction.

  29.Sarah Chayes, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).

  30.Nicholas Ambraseys and Roger Bilham, “Corruption Kills,” Nature 469 (2011): 153–55.

  31.Haiti is 161st out of 175 countries ranked; China is at 100. “Corruption Measurement Tools: Haiti,” Transparency International, 2014, http://www.transparency.org/country#HTI.

  32.Geotechnical engineering is a branch of civil engineering that deals with the properties of natural earth materials and the effects of man-made interventions in the landscape. A branch of this field focuses on the effects of earthquakes on different Earth formations. The field differs from geology in that it studies mechanical properties specifically and not the origin and history of the formations.

  33.When the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, they each generated ground motion equivalent to a magnitude 2 earthquake.

  34.National Science Foundation, “Collaborative Research: Geoengineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association: Turning Disaster into Knowledge,” July 17, 2012, http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0825507; http://www.geerassociation.org/GEER_Post%20EQ%20Reports/Haiti_2010/Cover_Haiti10.html.

  35.United Nations Institute for Research and Training, “Haiti Earthquake 2010: Remote Sensing Based Building Damage Assessment Data,” 2010, http://www.unitar.org/unosat/haiti-earthquake-2010-remote-sensing-based-building-damage-assessment-data.

  36.Ellen Rathje et al., “Geotechnical Engineering Reconnaissance of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake,” Version1, February 22, 2010, http://www.geerassociation.org/GEER_Post%20EQ%20Reports/Haiti_2010/0-GEER%20Web%20Report%20Version%201/Haiti%20Report%202010.pdf.

  37.For more about the UNISAT Operational Satellite, see http://www.unitar.org/unosat/.

  38.Rathje et al., “Geotechnical Engineering,” 11.

  39.Mac McClelland, “Rebuilding Haiti for the Rich,” Mother Jones, January 11, 2011, http://www.motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2011/01/rebuilding-haiti-rich.

  40.Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department, Sonoma County Hazard Mitigation Map, Sonoma, CA, 2011.

  41.Strictly, a refugee is someone who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” See UN High Commission for Refugees, “Refugees: Flowing across Borders,” March 11, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c125.html.

  42.Megan Bradley, “Four Years after the Haiti Earthquake, the Search for Solutions to Displacement Continues,” Brookings Institute, January 13, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2014/01/13-haiti-earthquake-anniversary-bradley.

  43.Executive Office of the President, 2014 Native Youth Report, Washington, DC, 2014.

  44.Amanda Ripley, “The Gangs of New Orleans,” Time, May 14, 2006, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1194016,00.html.

  45.Athena Kolbe and Robert Muggah, “Haiti’s Silenced Victims,” New York Times, December 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/opinion/sunday/haitis-silenced-victims.html?_r=0.

  46.Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

  47.Alisa Klein, Sexual Violence in Disasters: A Planning Guide for Prevention and Response (Enola, LA: Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault and National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2008).

  48.Athena R. Kolbe and Royce A. Hutson, “Human Rights Abuses and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: A Random Survey of Households,” Lancet 368, no. 9538 (2006): 864–73.

  49.Ibid.

  50.Enrico L. Quarantelli, “Conventional Beliefs and Counterintuitive Realities,” Social Research: An International Quarterly of the Social Sciences 75, no. 3, (2008): 873–904.

  51.Melissa Lyttle, “Yet More on Fabienne Cherisma,” Prison Photography, February 10, 2010, http://prisonphotography.org/2010/02/10/yet-more-on-fabienne-cherisma/.

  52.James Oatway, “Haiti Earthquake Aftermath,” 2010, http://www.jamesoatway.com/haiti-earthquake-aftermath/.

  53.Jan Granup, “This Is 15-Year-Old Fabienne Cherisma, Shot Dead by Policeman after Looting Three Picture Frames,” Colors Magazine no. 86 (April 9, 2013), http://www.colorsmagazine.com/stories/magazine/86/story/this-is-15-year-old-fabienne-cherisma-shot-dead-by-a-policeman-after-lootin.

  54.In some accounts of this shooting, the death is described as accidental. Policemen may have been shooting over the heads of a crowd in order to restore order, and Fabienne was hit by a stray bullet. If that is the case, no one actually took aim at her and deliberately killed her. I am not sure there is really much difference in the end. Certainly not for Fabienne’s family.

  55.Frank Bajak, “Chile-Haiti Earthquake Comparison: Chile Was More Prepared,” Huffington Post, April 29, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/27/chile-haiti-earthquake-co_n_479705.html.

  56.Transparency International, “Corruption Perception Index,” 2014, http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results#myAnchor1.

  57.World Bank, “Gini Index (World Bank Estimate),” March 11, 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI.

  58.UN Development Programme, Human Development Reports, March 11, 2015, http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/CHL.

  59.Cristián Larroulet, “Chile’s Path to Development: Key Reforms to Become the First Developed Country in Latin America,” Heritage Foundation, October 15, 2013, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/10/chiles-path-to-development-key-reforms-to-become-the-first-developed-country-in-latin-america.

  60.Council on Hemispheric Affairs, “The Inequality behind Chile’s Prosperity,” November 23, 2011, http://www.coha.org/the-inequality-behind-chiles-prosperity/.

  61.CIA, The World Factbook: Chile, March 11, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ci.html.

  62.Sara M. Llana, “Chile Earthquake: President Bachelet Opens Up to Foreign Aid,” Christian Science Monitor, March 10, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0301/Chile-earthquake-President-Bachelet-opens-up-to-foreign-aid.

  63.Patrick J. McDonnell, “Chile Sends Army into Post-Quake Chaos,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2010, http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/03/world/la-fg-chile-quake3-2010mar03.

  64.J. Busby, “Feeding Insecurity,” in S. E. Rice, C. Graff, and C. Pascua, Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2010), 140.

  65.Juan Forero, “Post-Quake Looting Challenges Chile’s Perceptions of Social Progress,” Washington Post, March 5, 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030304595.html.

  66.Felipe Cordero, “Chile: Earthquake Reveals Social Inequalities,” Global Voices, March 10, 2010, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/03/10/chile-earthquake-reveals-social-inequalities/; Felipe Cordero, “Chile: Army Deployments to Streets of Concepción,” Global Voices, March 2, 2010, http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/03/02/chile-army-deployed-to-streets-of-concepcion/.

  67.Ibid.

  68.Ibid.

  69.Ibid.

  70.Ibid.

  71.Useem Michael, Howard Kunreuther, and Erwann Michel-Kerjan. Leadership Dispatches: Chile’s Extraordinary Comeback from Disaster. Stanford University Press, 2015.

  72.Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Co
untries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  73.Paul Collier, “Haiti: From Natural Catastrophe to Economic Security: A Report for the Secretary-General of the United Nations,” United Nations Secretary-General’s Office, 2009, http://www.focal.ca/pdf/haiticollier.pdf.

  74.Center for Economic and Policy Research, “Haitian Companies Still Sidelined from Reconstruction Contracts,” April 19, 2011, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haitian-companies-still-sidelined-from-reconstruction-contracts.

  75.Ibid.

  76.For more information about the Caracol Industrial Park, see US Agency for International Development, “Caracol Industrial Park,” January 28, 2015, http://www.usaid.gov/haiti/caracol-industrial-park; and “Clinton Foundation in Haiti: Caracol Industrial Park,” https://www.clintonfoundation.org/our-work/clinton-foundation-haiti/programs/caracol-industrial-park.

  77.Jonathan M. Katz, “A Glittering Industrial Park in Haiti Falls Short,” Al Jazeera America, September 10, 2013, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/10/a-glittering-industrialparkfallsshortinhaiti.html.

  78.C. S. Prentice et al., “Seismic Hazard of the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden Fault in Haiti Inferred from Palaeoseismology,” Nature Geoscience 3 (2010): 789–93.

  79.CIA, “Distribution of Family Income—Gini Index,” The World Factbook, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html.

  80.“Black swan event” is from a book by Nassin Taleb in a book by the same name, subtitled The Impact of the Highly Unlikely (New York: Random House, 2007). It is used to describe extremely rare events. Taleb apparently does not know that there are thousands of black swans native to southwestern Australia. In Perth, people think white swans are rare.

  Chapter 4. Walls of Water, Oceans of Death

  1.International Tsunami Information Center, “10 Years Since Dec. 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami,” 2014, http://itic.ioc-unesco.org/index.php.

  2.Peter Symonds, “The Asian Tsunami: Why There Were No Warnings,” World Socialist Web Site, International Committee of the Fourth International, January 3, 2005, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/01/warn-j03.html.

  3.Maryann Mott, “Did Animals Sense Tsunami Was Coming?” National Geographic, January 4, 2005, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0104_050104_tsunami_animals.html; Charles Sabine, “Senses Helped Animals Survive the Tsunami,” NBC News, January 6, 2005, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6795562/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams/t/senses-helped-animals-survive-tsunami/%20-%20.U—P7EgfmHk#.VQcG6Y7F-So.

  4.World Bank, “Sri Lanka Overview,” February 2015, http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/srilanka/overview#1.

  5.A. K. Jayawardane, “Recent Tsunami Disaster Stricken to Sri Lanka and Recovery,” International Seminar on Risk Management for Roads, Vietnam, April 26–28, 2006.

  6.Harvard University, “What Did Sri Lanka Export in 2012?” Atlas of Economic Complexity, March 2015, http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore/tree_map/export/lka/all/show/2012/. The clever diagram of exports in the Harvard Atlas doesn’t even include fish products, which means they must represent less than 1 percent of Sri Lanka’s gross domestic product (GDP).

  7.Sisira Jayasuriya and Peter McCawley, The Asian Tsunami: Aid and Reconstruction after a Disaster (Cheltenham, UK: Asian Development Bank, Edward Elgar, 2010), http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/bookentry_main.lasso?id=13668.

  8.World Bank, “Data: GDP Growth (Annual %),” 2015, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?page=1.

  9.Nishara Fernando, “Forced Relocation after the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Case Study of Vulnerable Populations in Three Relocation Settlements in Galle, Sri Lanka,” UNU-EHS Graduate Research Series, Bonn, 2010, http://www.ehs.unu.edu/file/get/10660.pdf.

  10.Ibid.

  11.World Bank, “Sri Lanka: Country Snapshot,” 2014, http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/10/20305899/sri-lanka-country-snapshot.

  12.National Police Agency of Japan, “Damage Situation and Police Countermeasures Associated with 2011 Tohoku District—Off the Pacific Ocean Earthquake,” 2015, https://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/biki/higaijokyo_e.pdf.

  13.Kazuhiro Morimoto, “The Tohoku Economy Three Years After the Great East Japan Earthquake,” April 30, 2014, http://www.iist.or.jp/en-m/2014/0230-0927/.

  14.Molly Schnell is now in a doctoral program at Princeton. See Molly K. Schnell David E. Weinstein, “Evaluating the Economic Response to Japan’s Earthquake,” Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry Policy Discussion Paper Series 12-P-003, 2012, http://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/pdp/12p003.pdf.

  15.Preston Phro, “Nearly 290,000 People Still Living in Shelters 2 1/2 Years after Tohoku Disaster,” Japan Today, September 18, 2013, http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/nearly-290000-people-still-living-in-shelters-2-12-years-after-tohoku-disaster.

  16.Tim Stephens, “Slippery Fault Unleashed Destructive Tohoku-Oki Earthquake and Tsunami,” University of California, Santa Cruz Newscenter, December 5, 2013, http://news.ucsc.edu/2013/12/slippery-fault.html.

  17.David Funkhouser, “Lessons from the Japan Earthquake,” State of the Planet: Blogs from the Earth Institute, March 31, 2011, http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/03/31/lessons-from-the-tohoku-earthquake/.

  18.Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 2009); William Easterly, The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).

  Chapter 5. Malevolence by Neglect in Myanmar

  1.CIA, The World Factbook: Myanmar, March 11, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bm.html.

  2.T. T. Win, “Composition of the Different Ethnic Groups under the 8 Major National Ethnic Races in Myanmar,” 2008, http://www.embassyofmyanmar.be/ABOUT/ethnicgroups.htm.

  3.CIA, World Factbook: Myanmar.

  4.Emma Larkin, Everything Is Broken: A Tale of Catastrophe in Burma (New York: Penguin Books, 2010).

  5.Win, “Composition of the Different Ethnic Groups.”

  6.For instance, Kallie Szczepanski, “The 8888 Uprising in Myanmar (Burma),” March 2015, http://asianhistory.about.com/od/burmamyanmar/fl/The-8888-Uprising-in-Myanmar-Myanmar.htm.

  7.Barbara Crossette, “Burma’s Eroding Isolation,” New York Times, November 24, 1985, http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/24/magazine/burma-s-eroding-isolation.html.

  8.Arakan Oil Watch “Burma’s Resource Curse: The Case for Revenue Transparency in the Oil and Gas Sector,” March 2012, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs13/Burmas_Resource_Curse%28en%29-red.pdf.

  9.The resource curse occurs as a country begins to focus all of its energies on an extractive industry, such as mining or oil. The nation becomes overly dependent on the price of that commodity, exchange rates become tied to commodity prices and other exports such as agriculture suffer. “Resource Curse,” Investopedia, n.d., http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/resource-curse.asp#ixzz3X1ITJ4bF.

  10.National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, “Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale,” May 24, 2013, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php.

  11.For estimated death toll, see International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, “Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis 2008 Facts and Figures,” May 3, 2011, http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/asia-pacific/myanmar/myanmar-cyclone-nargis-2008-facts-and-figures/#sthash.3vTxw4sW.dpuf: 8.

  12.Swiss Reinsurance Company, Natural Catastrophes and Man-Made Disasters in 2008: North America and Asia Suffer Heavy Losses (Zurich: Swiss Reinsurance Company, 2009).

  13.National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council,
“NDRRMC Update: Updates re the Effects of Typhoon ‘Yolanda’ (Haiyan),” April 17, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141006091212/http://www.ndrrmc.gov.ph/attachments/article/1177/Update%20Effects%20TY%20YOLANDA%2017%20April%202014.pdf.

  14.Michael Casey, “Cyclone Nargis Had All the Makings of a Perfect Storm,” Washington Post, May 8, 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050801931_pf.html.

  15.Larkin, Everything Is Broken.

  16.Thomas Fuller, “A Most Unlikely Liberator in Myanmar,” New York Times, March 14, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world/asia/a-most-unlikely-liberator-in-myanmar.html.

  17.“Myanmar—Defense Spending,” GlobalSecurity.org, February 1, 2015, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/myanmar/budget.htm.

  18.Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “The U.S. Spends More on Defense Than the Next Eight Countries Combined,” April 13, 2014, http://pgpf.org/Chart-Archive/0053_defense-comparison.

  19.Andrew Selth, “Even Paranoids Have Enemies: Cyclone Nargis and Myanmar’s Fears of Invasion,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 30, no. 3 (2008): 379–402.

  20.Gareth Evans, “Facing Up to Our Responsibilities,” International Crisis Group, May 12, 2008, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-east-asia/myanmar/evans-facing-up-to-our-responsibilities.aspx.

  21.Kevin Woods, “A Political Anatomy of Land Grabs,” Myanmar Times, March 3, 2014, http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/national-news/9740-a-political-anatomy-of-land-grabs.html.

  22.“Eminent Domain,” Cornell University Law School, Legal Information Institute, March 12, 2015, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain.

  Chapter 6. Struck Dumb in New Orleans

  1.“Louisiana, Worldmark Encyclopedia of the States,” Encyclopedia.com, 2007; http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2661700031.html.

  2.Daniel H. Weinberg, “U.S. Neighborhood Income Inequality in the 2005–2009 Period,” American Community Survey Reports, Census Bureau, US Department of Commerce, Washington, DC, October 2011, 12, http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-16.pdf.