A technical assessment team from the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering will travel to Haiti from February 28th to March 6th, 2010, to study the impact of the recent magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the region’s infrastructure. The team will examine the performance of systems such as drinking water and sewage, roads and power supplies, ports and telecommunications, and schools and hospitals; as well as gather information that could aid in sustainable and resilient development efforts.

As part of its disaster response procedure, ASCE forms technical teams to study infrastructure damage caused by natural or man-made disasters. Such studies are conducted so that engineers may learn from the disaster, and perhaps more importantly, so that those lessons learned may be documented to inform future actions.

ASCE has participated in more than a dozen assessments in the last decade, including studies of the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001; earthquake assessments in Italy, China, Peru, Japan, Sumatra-Andaman, Algeria, Alaska and California; and assessments following hurricanes Katrina and Ike.

For more information, please visit the ASCE Haiti Team page.