Letter of the Day | Please glance at the Caribbean elephant in the room

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I am writing with reference to The Gleaner editorial of Saturday, January 17, titled, ‘Prioritise earthquake readiness’, which deserves hearty commendation. In lucid terms, it exposes Jamaica’s alarming seismic complacency amid recurring tremors and the haunting precedents of Haiti (2010) and Turkey–Syria (2023).

The editorial rightly decries the sluggish pace of building retrofits, the paucity of public drills, and the government’s tepid embrace of resilience measures. Urging a national earthquake-readiness programme—bolstered by legislation, fiscal incentives, and civil-society partnerships—is not merely prudent; it is imperative. This clarion call aligns seamlessly with the Disaster Risk Management Authority’s mandate and echoes global best practice from Japan, Mexico, and California. Kudos for catalysing urgency before complacency invites catastrophe.

Yet one cannot ignore the elephant in the room: the Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault system, a 250-kilometre tectonic behemoth extending through eastern Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. This major strike-slip fault, dormant since 1751 yet steadily accumulating strain, poses an existential threat far graver than sporadic tremors suggest.

Seismic models, including those from Cornell University and the United States Geological Survey, indicate the potential for a magnitude-7.5 or greater rupture — one capable of devastating Kingston, Port-au-Prince, and Santo Domingo within the same seismic event. Haiti’s 2010 catastrophe arose from the fault’s western segment; Jamaica’s eastern flank, cutting through the Blue Mountains and skirting the capital, remains disturbingly under-prepared. Liquefaction risks in Kingston Harbour, heightened landslide vulnerability along the Wagwater corridor, and the prospect of transboundary tsunamis together underscore the regional scale of the peril.

Why, then, does national discourse continue to sidestep this tectonic colossus? Our strategies favour generic preparedness while neglecting fault-specific land-use zoning, early-warning integration with Dominican and Haitian counterparts, and coordinated regional drills under CARICOM auspices. The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden system demands cross-border vigilance — shared seismic monitoring, geospatial intelligence, and harmonised building standards. A major rupture would trigger cascading failures: port disruption crippling trade, population displacement straining borders, and economic shockwaves rippling across the wider Caribbean.

The editorial is a vital spark. Let us now fan it into a blaze that confronts this fault head-on — through rigorous geophysical mapping, enforceable retrofit mandates for fault-proximate structures, and sustained public education on the Enriquillo threat. Jamaica’s leaders must act decisively, lest history indict our inertia.

DENNIS MINOTT, PhD

Physicist

Port Antonio