Haiti earthquake 2021: Findings from the repair and damage assessment of 179,800 buildings

In the aftermath of the 2021 M7.2 Haiti earthquake, MTPTC (Minist & egrave;re des Travaux Publics, Transports et Communications), UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) and Miyamoto International implemented a damage and repair assessment program. Between October 2021 and February 2022, 380 trained engineers evaluated 179,800 buildings in the Sud, Grand'Anse and Nippes departments, reaching over 600,000 beneficiaries. The assessments were executed in compliance with ATC-20 and the Haitian standards, through an innovative digitalized approach. More than 11,000 buildings were collapsed or not repairable; over 89,000 buildings were damaged and repairable. Approximately 88,000 buildings were in confined masonry and over 26,000 of them could be repaired as per MTPTC guidelines; around 80,000 buildings were in the timber and stones vernacular technique. The examined dataset is one of the largest studied in recent humanitarian history and it is critical to learn from past seismic events. We herein analyze the observed structural weaknesses and make a comparison with the 2010 earthquake.