Brick by brick

摘要

Driven by population growth, urbanization and poverty, earthquake casualties worldwide continue to rise. The latest event struck on 14 April in western China, killing more than 2,200 people - a grisly coda to Januarys catastrophe in Haiti, which left about 230,000 dead.rnThese disasters are no surprise, and they teach us little that is new. After each one, offers of help come from many quarters. Scientists want to do their part, which often means promising new information that will help to make things better in the future. For example, the Global Earthquake Model (GEM), a public-private partnership initiated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and funded in significant part by insurance companies, says it will focus on "underserved areas such as Haiti… [to] make sure that organizations, (local) governments and individuals have access to its state-of-the-art risk assessment software and tools as a necessary first step towards taking mitigation action".