Earthquakes and homelessness: A review of historical data

The chapter presents the results of a literature review of the historical data of people being homeless as a consequence of earthquakes of magnitude > 5. The literature review was informed by the use of electronic databases such as =USGS', =Scopus', and =Google'. The results show that there has been about 20 million people left homeless as a result of 105 earthquakes. The results also indicate that the most devastating earthquakes in terms of those displaced have been those that occurred in Guatemala (1976), Indonesia (2004, 2006), China (2008), and Haiti (2010). These countries have accounted for 11.26 million people left homeless (56.46% of the total). The Asia region has been the most affected in terms of people being displaced by earthquakes (71%), followed by countries in North America (18%). Oceania has been the least affected by earthquakes with only 0.07% of those who experienced homelessness due to the impact of earthquakes. This literature review also addresses some of the problems being encountered during post-earthquake disaster reconstruction process. Finally, this chapter presents some lessons learned from the literature review conducted.