The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, just 25 km from the capital Port-au-Prince, is among the deadliest in recorded history. Official estimates of the dead range from around 100,000 to over 300,000.
The devastation was driven less by magnitude than by extreme vulnerability: dense, poorly built housing, a shallow epicentre next to a capital city, and almost no seismic building standards. Hospitals, government buildings and the presidential palace collapsed.
Haiti became the textbook case of how poverty and construction quality turn a moderate-to-strong quake into a mega-disaster. The reconstruction lasted more than a decade and reshaped international discussions about disaster preparedness in developing countries.