Cox suspects that Haiti, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, does not have or does not enforce seismic building codes to mitigate the effects of large earthquakes. The recent earthquake – which measured 7.0 magnitude and whose epicenter was only 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the nation’s densely populated capital – caused massive destruction and killed thousands of Haitians. An estimated 150,000 people have died as a result of the earthquake.