I have been to Haiti. I did some work there for the US Navy in helping to supply clean water to people who had no access to clean water. For some reason the US Navy is very interested in finding ways to purify water. The system I worked on creates fresh water using a process similar to the way the earth makes rain.
Anyway, the place is a nightmare. When you hear the word "building" in the context of Haiti you have to dismiss the picture you have in your mind of a modern building like we have in American cities. "Buildings" in Haiti are either 1) shacks, or b) lean tos of hastily thrown together salvaged materials, or 3) poorly designed, poorly constructed, under engineered multi story shacks which in no way could survive an earthquake or a hurricane.
Most of the loss of life in Haiti happened because of the ridiculous buildings they have.
The countryside in Haiti is totally denuded because the people are so poor they savenge the countryside for anything that can be burned for fuel or used for making a shack. The mountains around their capital city are totally denuded. So, earthquake plus rain equals mudslides equals high loss of life.
Their poverty, lack of a functioning government, and decades of corruption and tyranny created this situation.
If we had a functioning news media in this country the reporters would be doing in depth stories on how the decades of corruption and the misappropriation of every penny of foreign aid by the elites has so devestated the people of Haiti and led to this disaster. And, perhaps something coudl be done to fix that problem. But, they won't do real reporting and will just do their usual sound bites.
I read that Obama was gloating that he had given Haiti $100 million. That is NOTHING. The people of Haiti are so desperately poor that $100 million is a rounding error on their true needs BEFORE the earthquake hit.
But, just throwing money at Haiti won't help because it will just be stolen and misused by the corrupt officials.