Safety is a luxury good

The Washington Post features an article that, among other things, compares the impact of the earthquake in Haiti to the one which has recently hit Chile:

While the death toll rose steadily to more than 700 (...) it remained a small fraction of the tally from a far less powerful earthquake last month in Haiti that claimed at least 220,000 lives (...) the deaths there were mostly because widespread building collapses, which Chilean cities did not experience (...) the fact that so many Chileans survived was a testament to the nation's enactment and enforcement of stringent building codes.

No. It is a testament to a very cruel fact of nature: that natural disasters hurt the poor much more than they hurt the rich. Compared to Haiti, Chile is an incredibly rich country; Chile's GDP per capita is more than fourteen times that of Haiti. Safety is a luxury good. The reason Haiti does not enforce Chilean-level building codes is not because Haitian politicians are less responsible, but because Haitian economy cannot afford to do so. A sturdy, earthquake-proof building is much more expensive to construct than a makeshift one. If Haitian government enforced building codes similar to those we see in Chile, there would be no construction going on in Haiti: safe homes would be far too expensive for anyone to rent or buy, and thus no one would want to build them, either.

Another quote from the article talks about the importance of disaster-preparedness on part of the people:

"Unlike in Haiti, people think about earthquakes all the time in Chile. It's in their mind," said Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "This is a country that can mobilize its resources and meet these national challenges."

This is another example of ignoring the fact that safety is a luxury good. If the struggle to make ends meet is as hard as it is in Haiti, you cannot afford to "think about earthquakes all the time." How can you be expected to stock on emergency supplies if you can't even afford to buy enough food to provide for your family's day to day needs?

Buildings in Haiti will not be safer until either Haitian economy starts to prosper, or some charity simply has them built there free of charge.