Haiti Earthquake Kills 230,000: The Western Hemisphere's Deadliest Quake

Twelve seconds. That's how long the ground shook. But those twelve seconds would obliterate an entire nation's fragile infrastructure. Port-au-Prince crumbled like wet paper: government buildings pancaked, cathedrals turned to dust, entire neighborhoods vanishing into rubble. And the presidential palace — once a symbol of Haiti's resilience — collapsed so completely it looked like a child's sandcastle after high tide. More than 100,000 bodies would be pulled from the wreckage, a staggering toll that exposed decades of systemic poverty and international neglect. A natural disaster, yes. But also a brutal unveiling of a country's unaddressed wounds.