Dear Editor,

Like Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Commissioner of Jamaica Fire Brigade Stewart Beckford, I am annoyed at the people who sent around that video purporting to show destruction at Caribbean Cement Company.

I am of the opinion that other pieces of fake news were circulated as well. People don’t know the effect of tying up a nation’s resources because of a prank. And it’s not funny!

We weren’t around on January 14, 1907, so we don’t have first-hand experience of how devastating an earthquake can be. The closest shaves that I have had with earthquakes were the Managua earthquake of December 23, 1972, when 4,000-11,000 people died, 20,000 injured, and over 300,000 left homeless and the January 13, 1993 earthquake in Kingston and adjoining areas. Of course, since then we have had the 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Haiti, where approximately 300,000 people died in 2010.

As regards our experience of 1907, every or almost every building was damaged by this 6.2-magnitude earthquake. About 1,000 souls lost their lives. Were an earthquake of this magnitude to hit Kingston today, far more lives would be lost and the damage would be in the billions.

If a silo had come down at Caribbean Cement, other silos would have been damaged, several buildings would have come down or been severely damaged. Think of Norman Manley International Airport, hospitals, schools, government buildings, office buildings, apartment buildings, the road network, water supply, etc.

Look, man, the Lord spared us again! Let’s not joke about it!

Norman W M Thompson

norms74160@gmail.com