Darwin and Plate Tectonics -- The Great 1960 Chile Megaquake -- The 1967 Caracas Earthquake -- The 1970 Peru Earthquake -- The 1985 Mexico Earthquake -- The 2010 Haiti Earthquake -- The 2010 Chile Earthquake -- A List of Significant Earthquakes in Latin America -- Conclusions and Recommendations
Summary
This book is an attempt to demonstrate the analytical power of the holistic approach for understanding disasters. Six major earthquakes in Latin America are used as an example: the general idea is to place disasters in a broad social and regional context. Understanding disasters is a way of understanding the social system. The idea is to show that every major disaster is unique and different. Statistical methods may be useful for purposes of risk estimation but modern disasters are "systemic" and complex. In the chapter on the 2010 Chile earthquake we discuss the tsunami and why the system of
