When Disaster Strikes - Part 6: Earthquakes and Governance

The Governance Test

On February 27, 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck Chile—one of the largest ever recorded. Despite its enormous power, the earthquake killed approximately 500 people.

One year later, on March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan. The earthquake itself killed relatively few people. But the tsunami it generated killed nearly 20,000.

Compare these to the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti: magnitude 7.0, far weaker than either Chile or Japan—and death toll estimates range from 100,000 to over 300,000.

What explains these differences? Not the earthquakes themselves—Haiti’s was the weakest of the three. The explanation lies in governance.

Chile has among the strictest building codes in the world, developed over a century of learning from earthquakes. Buildings are engineered to withstand shaking. Infrastructure is designed for resilience. Emergency response systems are prepared.

Japan has even more sophisticated earthquake engineering—and the world’s most advanced tsunami warning system. The death toll was almost entirely from the tsunami, which overwhelmed even excellent preparation.

Haiti had almost none of this. Building codes existed on paper but weren’t enforced. Construction was substandard. Emergency response was minimal. A moderate earthquake became a catastrophe.

Earthquakes are natural; earthquake disasters are political.

The Political Economy of Building Codes

Building codes represent society’s answer to a fundamental question: how much safety, at what cost, for whom?

The Cost-Benefit Calculation

Earthquake-resistant construction costs more. Exactly how much more depends on the level of protection, but estimates range from 1% to 10% additional for basic earthquake resistance, more for advanced protection.

This cost is borne by builders and ultimately by buyers or renters. The benefit—reduced probability of death in earthquakes—is diffuse, long-term, and probabilistic.

This creates a political economy problem. The costs are concentrated and immediate; the benefits are dispersed and uncertain. Those who would bear the costs lobby against strict codes; those who would benefit are a diffuse public that doesn’t organize around earthquake preparation.

Developer Influence

Construction and real estate interests are typically well-organized and politically active. They donate to campaigns, lobby legislators, and pressure regulatory agencies.

Their interests generally favor weaker codes (less cost), less enforcement (less delay), and more flexibility (more discretion). They frame these positions as promoting economic growth, housing affordability, and reduced government interference.

These arguments have surface appeal. Stricter codes do cost money. But the cost of inadequate codes—paid in lives when earthquakes strike—is rarely visible until disaster.

Enforcement Gaps

Even where strong codes exist, enforcement may be weak. Building inspectors may be understaffed, undertrained, or corrupt. Construction may proceed without proper permits or inspection.

In Turkey, building codes were strengthened after the devastating 1999 Marmara earthquake. But enforcement remained lax. When the 2023 earthquakes struck, buildings collapsed that should have been safe—buildings constructed after the new codes were in place.

The gap between law and practice reflects the same political economy: enforcement is costly, developers resist it, and the benefits are invisible until disaster strikes.

The Corruption Factor

In many countries, building regulation is deeply corrupted. Builders pay bribes to avoid inspection. Inspectors approve substandard work. Permits are issued for politically connected projects regardless of safety.

This corruption is not random—it follows power. Those with connections can build how they want; those without must follow rules. The wealthy live in well-constructed buildings (often built to international standards) while the poor live in structures that will collapse.

When the earthquake comes, this geography of corruption becomes a geography of death.

Earthquakes That Changed History

Earthquakes have catalyzed some of history’s most significant political changes.

Lisbon 1755: The Earthquake That Shook the Enlightenment

On November 1, 1755, a massive earthquake struck Lisbon, followed by tsunami and fire. The city was largely destroyed, and an estimated 30,000-60,000 people died.

The disaster had profound intellectual consequences. The earthquake struck on All Saints’ Day, when churches were full. If God was just and all-powerful, why would he destroy the faithful at worship?

Voltaire’s Candide, written in response to Lisbon, demolished the philosophical optimism of Leibniz and Pope. The disaster contributed to a broader questioning of religious authority and traditional explanations.

The practical response was equally transformative. The Marquis of Pombal, the Portuguese chief minister, organized rational disaster response: corpses were disposed of quickly to prevent disease; prices were controlled to prevent profiteering; reconstruction was planned scientifically.

Pombal’s rebuilding of Lisbon was the first modern urban reconstruction: earthquake-resistant construction, wide streets to prevent fire spread, rational grid planning. It represented Enlightenment principles applied to urban design.

The Lisbon earthquake didn’t cause the Enlightenment—but it accelerated the shift from traditional to rational authority, from divine explanation to scientific inquiry.

Tokyo 1923: Disaster and Reaction

The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923, killed over 100,000 people, mostly in Tokyo and Yokohama. It was one of the deadliest earthquakes in history.

The disaster revealed deep tensions in Japanese society. In the chaos following the earthquake, rumors spread that Korean residents were poisoning wells or starting fires. Mobs, sometimes with police participation, massacred an estimated 6,000 Koreans along with Chinese residents and Japanese leftists.

The government response combined modernization with repression. Reconstruction created a more modern Tokyo with earthquake-resistant buildings and improved infrastructure. But the security response emphasized order and control, foreshadowing the militarism that would dominate the following decades.

The earthquake exposed the fragility of Japanese modernity—and the violence that lurked beneath the surface of Taisho democracy.

Guatemala 1976: “The Classquake”

When a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck Guatemala on February 4, 1976, it killed approximately 23,000 people—almost all of them poor.

The earthquake became known as “the classquake” because the death toll was so heavily concentrated among the poor. Adobe houses in indigenous communities collapsed while reinforced concrete buildings in wealthy areas survived.

The disaster revealed Guatemala’s profound inequality with unusual clarity. International attention focused on conditions that were normally invisible: the poverty, the marginalization of indigenous communities, the concentration of land and wealth.

Some hoped the earthquake would catalyze reform. It didn’t—or not directly. But the disaster contributed to political consciousness that fed the guerrilla movements of the following years. The earthquake alone didn’t cause Guatemala’s civil war, but it revealed the inequalities that did.

Haiti 2010: The Governance Failure

The Haiti earthquake exposed the catastrophic failure of governance—both Haitian and international—that had left the country so vulnerable.

Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere before the earthquake. Its government had minimal capacity. Building codes existed but weren’t enforced. Much of Port-au-Prince was constructed informally, without engineering input.

The disaster also exposed the failures of the international system. Billions in reconstruction aid was pledged but often not delivered or delivered through international organizations that bypassed Haitian institutions. A cholera outbreak introduced by UN peacekeepers killed thousands more.

A decade after the earthquake, Haiti remained largely unrecovered. The disaster revealed not just immediate vulnerability but the deeper political economy that had produced that vulnerability—and that continued to impede recovery.

The Science-Policy Gap

Earthquake science has advanced remarkably. We understand seismic risk, can identify vulnerable areas, and know how to build earthquake-resistant structures.

But this knowledge often doesn’t translate into policy.

Seismic Hazard Maps

Scientists can map seismic hazard with considerable precision. We know which areas face the highest risk, which fault lines are overdue for rupture, which cities sit on soil that will amplify shaking.

This information exists. What doesn’t always exist is the political will to act on it.

In the United States, the New Madrid Seismic Zone threatens cities from Memphis to St. Louis. Major earthquakes struck this region in 1811-1812. Scientists have warned for decades that significant seismic risk exists.

But the region has weak building codes, limited earthquake preparation, and minimal public awareness. The probability of a major earthquake is lower than in California, but not negligible—and the vulnerability is much higher.

Why the gap? The last major New Madrid earthquake was over 200 years ago. There’s no living memory of disaster. Political attention focuses on immediate problems, not probabilistic future events.

Engineering Knowledge

We know how to build earthquake-resistant structures. The engineering is well-understood. Buildings can be designed to survive even major earthquakes with minimal damage.

But this engineering costs money, and cost decisions are political. In wealthy countries with recent earthquake experience, strict codes are politically feasible. In poor countries, or countries without recent experience, the calculus favors cheaper construction.

The result is a knowledge-implementation gap. We know how to prevent earthquake deaths, but we don’t implement what we know—because implementation requires resources and political will that often don’t exist.

Early Warning Systems

Japan’s earthquake early warning system provides seconds to tens of seconds of warning before shaking arrives. This brief warning is enough to stop trains, open fire station doors, alert factories—and save lives.

The technology exists to implement such systems elsewhere. Mexico City has an early warning system. The United States has developed ShakeAlert for the West Coast.

But these systems require investment, coordination, and maintenance. Many earthquake-prone areas lack the resources or governance capacity to implement them.

Reconstruction Politics

What happens after the earthquake is as political as what happened before.

Who Rebuilds Where

Decisions about reconstruction determine the future geography of the city. Which areas are rebuilt? Which are abandoned? Where are survivors relocated?

These decisions reflect power relations. Well-organized, politically connected neighborhoods get priority. Poor, marginalized areas wait—sometimes forever.

After the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, some poor neighborhoods organized successfully to demand reconstruction in place. Their success depended on political mobilization that gave them voice in reconstruction decisions.

Where such organization doesn’t exist, reconstruction can become displacement. The poor are relocated to peripheral areas, away from jobs and services, while their former neighborhoods are rebuilt for different populations.

The Reconstruction Economy

Reconstruction spending is substantial—and contested. Who gets contracts? Who supplies materials? Who controls the reconstruction economy?

Typically, reconstruction favors large firms with capacity to handle major contracts, often from outside the affected area. Local businesses, already damaged by disaster, are sidelined.

In Haiti, the reconstruction economy was dominated by international contractors and NGOs. Haitians found themselves observers of their own reconstruction—employed, if at all, as low-wage laborers rather than decision-makers.

This pattern is common. Reconstruction wealth flows to those with capacity to capture contracts, not to those most affected by disaster.

“Building Back Better”

The slogan “build back better” expresses the hope that reconstruction can improve on what was destroyed—making communities more resilient, more equitable, more sustainable.

Sometimes this happens. The reconstruction of Lisbon after 1755 genuinely improved the city. Some post-earthquake reconstructions have incorporated lessons learned into better building codes and urban planning.

But “building back better” can also be cover for building back different—rebuilding for different populations, different uses, different priorities. When “better” is defined without input from affected communities, it often means better for someone else.

Lessons in Rubble

What can we learn from the political economy of earthquakes?

Governance Quality Determines Death Tolls

The correlation between governance quality and earthquake survival is striking. Well-governed countries—those with effective institutions, enforced building codes, prepared response systems—experience far fewer deaths from similar earthquakes.

This isn’t destiny. Countries can improve. Chile’s earthquake preparedness developed over a century of learning from disasters. Japan’s capabilities were built through sustained investment. These examples show that good governance is achievable.

But it requires political choice—the decision to invest in safety, to enforce codes, to prioritize preparation over immediate development.

Building Codes Are Political Battles

Every building code represents a political battle. The construction industry pushes for flexibility and lower costs. Safety advocates push for strictness and enforcement. The outcome depends on political power.

Disasters can shift this balance. After major earthquakes, public attention focuses on building failure. Political space opens for stricter codes. But attention fades, and the construction industry’s persistent lobbying often weakens reforms over time.

Maintaining earthquake safety requires sustained political engagement—not just after disasters but during the long periods of normalcy when attention wanders.

International Assistance Is Political

When earthquakes strike poor countries, international assistance flows. But this assistance is not neutral—it carries political interests and produces political effects.

Aid can bypass and weaken local institutions, as in Haiti. It can come with conditions that serve donor interests. It can distort local economies and create dependency.

Effective earthquake recovery requires assistance that strengthens local capacity rather than substituting for it. This is harder and slower than traditional aid—and it requires donors to accept less control over outcomes.

Memory Fades

Earthquake risk is cyclical—major earthquakes are followed by long periods of quiescence. Preparation is most intense immediately after disaster and fades as years pass without repetition.

This creates a political problem. The investment needed to survive the next earthquake must be made during normal times, when the last earthquake has faded from memory and the next seems remote.

Maintaining earthquake preparedness requires institutionalized memory—building codes that encode lessons, emergency systems that are regularly tested, public education that keeps awareness alive.

The Ground Beneath Politics

Earthquakes are often called “natural disasters.” The label is misleading. The earthquake is natural—the disaster is political.

Every decision about building codes, every enforcement choice, every reconstruction priority—these are political decisions that determine who lives and who dies when the ground shakes.

Japan and Haiti face the same physical phenomenon: fault lines rupture, seismic waves propagate, the ground shakes. But the outcomes are radically different because the governance is radically different.

Understanding this transforms our response to earthquakes. If earthquakes are natural disasters, we can only respond after the fact—rescue survivors, bury the dead, provide relief. If earthquakes are governance tests, we can act before disaster—building capacity, enforcing codes, preparing response.

The earthquake strikes without warning. But its consequences are determined by decades of political decisions. When the rubble is cleared and the dead are counted, we are counting the cost of governance failure—or celebrating the success of governance that prevented the count from being higher.

The earth shakes impartially. But who survives is a political choice.