How do you comprehend the earthquake catastrophe in Haiti? The answer is simple. You can’t. Not in this favoured part of the world at least. And we should be grateful for that.

In North America, we tend to think of the 1906 San Francisco quake as a horrific disaster and it was – 3,000 people killed, three quarters of the city destroyed and $400 million in damages. Yet in Haiti, they are already talking about 100,000 killed and billions in damages.

But even this pales in comparison to some of the world’s worst earthquake disasters, which measured by death toll, have mostly occurred in China. On January 23, 1556 a huge quake killed approximately 800,000 in Shaanxi Province. On July 28, 1976, some 242,000 were killed in Tangshan, but it is thought the authorities deliberately underestimated the death toll for political reasons.

But the fact remains China has always had a very efficient bureaucracy and death toll counts are generally believed to be reliable. Outside of China, a quake in Aleppo, Syria in August 1138 is believed to have killed 230,000. The list goes on . . .

Now it’s Haiti’s turn and there probably isn’t a country in the world, or at least the Western Hemisphere, less prepared to handle a calamity of this scale. Which raises the obvious question why?

Maybe it’s Haiti’s tragic history, which no one in the West can be proud of, considering the brutal treatment meted out to the indigenous Haitians by the Spanish and French colonialists who terrorized and enslaved the early inhabitants of the country, turning their formerly bucolic land into a virtual slave state producing sugar, coffee and timber for their colonial masters.

In 1804, a slave revolt by more than 500,000 resulted in Haitians winning their freedom from the hated French and establishing what historians have called the first black republic in the history of the world. That, unfortunately was a high point in Haiti’s history and it’s been pretty well down hill for the embattled country ever since.

In 1915, the U.S. invaded, claiming it feared the Germans were going to establish a military base in the country. Many Haitians saw the invasion as an act of U.S. imperialism. Whatever the case, the Americans stayed for almost two decades and when they finally left, American companies controlled many of Haiti’s key industries.

In 1957 “Papa Doc” Duvalier was elected president and ruled like a dictator with his own private militia. Duvalier’s government was completely corrupt, and in addition of his private army he used the notorious Tonton Macoutes to instil fear in the population by voo doo. Papa Doc was succeeded by his 19-year-old son “Baby Doc” who was forced to flee the country in 1986.

Since then, Haiti has had a succession of leaders who have came and gone including a Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was also overthrown in one of the strife-torn nation’s endless coups. In the past decade, the United Nations has moved into Haiti in a big way and there have been some improvements, but the embattled nation is still riddled with crime, corruption and violence that’s a disgrace to the continent and the entire world.

Indeed it’s got to the point that any kind of political solution in Haiti seems impossible and NGO’s (Non Government Organizations) like the Cranbrook group led by Dr. Bob Cutler, businessman Rick Klassen and others are the only ones that seem able to do any good on the ground.

In the wake of this tragic quake, if there was ever a time for some “good on the ground,” now is that time. The world’s major aid organizations are already pouring into the country as well as military relief teams from the U.S. and Canada including our state-of-the-art DART (Disaster Assistance Relief Team).

But we can also help as individuals. Agencies like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and World Vision are in Haiti too and they can always use a cash donation.

And praying wouldn’t hurt either.