Is the Caribbean ready to deal with a major earthquake

There was a 3.9 earthquake in the Gulf of Paria today. The University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre located in St Augustine, Trinidad, said the earthquake was felt in the Central part of Trinidad.

Though a minor event, the news of the tremor will do nothing to ease an already unsettled Caribbean populace, now earthquake wary after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti back in January, a 5.8-magnitude tremor in the vicinity of the Cayman Islands a few days later and the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile a few weeks ago.

Located in the Hurricane belt, the Caribbean, especially those islands that get battered every year, are pretty prepared for the Hurricane season.

The specter of more earthquakes in the future raises the important question of how ready the Caribbean is to handle large magnitude tremors including any resultant Tsunamis. Currently, there are no Tsunami warning systems in the Caribbean but according to the The Caribbean Disaster Management Agency a multinational, multiagency initiative to establish a program for reducing the risk to various coastal hazards in the Caribbean and adjacent regions (Central and South American countries along the Caribbean Basin) is underway but it may be several years before this is complete.

Following the earthquake in Chile, many were quick to point out that a major reason for a smaller scale of destruction was due to the country's stronger building codes, as compared to Haiti, where practically none existed and there was little to no planning for the construction of houses.

In Trinidad and Tobago, there has been a call for the establishment of formal building codes and warnings that the islands could face similar damage to Haiti if a major earthquake strikes.

The blow the region's fragile tourism industry could face if more major earthquakes strike is obvious. One just has to look at Haiti that was just getting its tourism legs back. Many of its major hotels have been damaged and airlines canceled flights.

The good news is that Caribbean governments have been shocked into action with organisations such as the Association of Caribbean States rallying Governments to implement early warning systems and other measures to reduce widespread destruction in the event of a major natural disaster.

We can only pray some of these measures are put into place before another large-scale disaster strikes.