03-04-2010, 05:00 PM
A lot of people just look at the Richter magnitude (8.8 for Chile, 7.0 for Haiti) and assume that the Chilean earthquake was worse. That is not the case. The Richter magnitude is really only of interest to geogeeks like me. The Mercalli Intensity is the measure that assesses the degree of actual ground shaking in population centers and was much higher for much of Haiti than it was for Chile. This was compounded by the lack of building codes and a functioning government, but make no mistake, the destructive force of the Haitian earthquake was much greater than the one in Chile.