Never underestimate the nation-state

ON JAN 12, 2010, Haiti suffered an earthquake measuring seven on the Richter scale. Estimates of the fatalities ranged from 100,000 to 316,000.

Barely a month and half later, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit Chile, leaving 500 dead, 150 of them from the subsequent tsunami. Whereas large swaths of Haiti’s main cities were reduced to rubble, including the National Palace – the president’s official residence – in Port-au-Prince, in Chile very few multi-storey buildings collapsed, killing their inhabitants.

Unlike in Haiti, Chileans benefited from stringent building codes (adopted after another massive earthquake in 1960) and a culture, nurtured over generations, of building inspectors who allowed no construction shortcuts and, crucially, took no bribes. When the state works, it can save hundreds of thousands of lives in a single event. And when it fails, as Haiti is reminding the world yet again these days, the consequences are dire.