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I learned about the Haiti earthquake by Skype.

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My wife sent me a message,

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"Whoa, earthquake,"

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and then disappeared for 25 minutes.

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It was 25 minutes of absolute terror

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that thousands of people across the U.S. felt.

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I was afraid of a tsunami;

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what I didn't realize

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was there was a greater terror in Haiti,

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and that was building collapse.

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We've all seen the photos

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of the collapsed buildings in Haiti.

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These are shots my wife took

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a couple days after the quake,

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while I was making my way through the D.R. into the country.

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This is the national palace --

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the equivalent of the White House.

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This is the largest supermarket in the Caribbean

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at peak shopping time.

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This is a nurses' college --

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there are 300 nurses studying.

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The general hospital right next door

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emerged largely unscathed.

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This is the Ministry of Economics and Finance.

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We have all heard

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about the tremendous human loss

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in the earthquake in Haiti,

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but we haven't heard enough

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about why all those lives were lost.

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We haven't heard about

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why the buildings failed.

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After all, it was the buildings,

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not the earthquake,

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that killed 220,000 people,

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that injured 330,000,

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that displaced 1.3 million people,

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that cut off food

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and water and supplies

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for an entire nation.

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This is the largest metropolitan-area disaster

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in decades,

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and it was not a natural disaster --

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it was a disaster of engineering.

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AIDG has worked in Haiti

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since 2007,

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providing engineering and business support

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to small businesses.

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And after the quake, we started bringing in earthquake engineers

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to figure out why the buildings collapsed,

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to examine what was safe and what wasn't.

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Working with MINUSTAH,

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which is the U.N. mission in Haiti,

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with the Ministry of Public Works,

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with different NGOs,

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we inspected over 1,500 buildings.

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We inspected schools

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and private residencies.

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We inspected medical centers

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and food warehouses.

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We inspected government buildings.

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This is the Ministry of Justice.

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Behind that door

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is the National Judicial Archives.

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The fellow in the door, Andre Filitrault --

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who's the director

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of the Center for Interdisciplinary Earthquake Engineering Research

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at the University of Buffalo --

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was examining it to see if it was safe

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to recover the archives.

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Andre told me,

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after seeing these buildings fail

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again and again in the same way,

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that there is no new research here.

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There is nothing here that we don't know.

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The failure points were the same:

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walls and slabs not tied properly into columns --

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that's a roof slab hanging off the building --

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cantilevered structures,

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or structures that were asymmetric,

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that shook violently and came down,

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poor building materials,

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not enough concrete,

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not enough compression in the blocks,

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rebar that was smooth,

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rebar that was exposed to the weather and had rusted away.

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Now there's a solution

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to all these problems.

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And we know how to build properly.

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The proof of this came in Chile,

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almost a month later,

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when 8.8 magnitude earthquake

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hit Chile.

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That is 500 times

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the power of the 7.0

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that hit Port-au-Prince --

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500 times the power,

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yet only under a thousand casualties.

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Adjusted for population density,

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that is less than one percent

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of the impact of the Haitian quake.

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What was the difference

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between Chile and Haiti?

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Seismic standards

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and confined masonry,

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where the building acts as a whole --

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walls and columns

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and roofs and slabs

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tied together to support each other --

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instead of breaking off into separate members and failing.

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If you look at this building in Chile,

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it's ripped in half,

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but it's not a pile of rubble.

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Chileans have been building with confined masonry

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for decades.

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Right now, AIDG is working with KPFF Consulting Engineers,

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Architecture for Humanity,

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to bring more confined masonry training

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into Haiti.

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This is Xantus Daniel;

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he's a mason,

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just a general construction worker, not a foreman,

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who took one of our trainings.

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On his last job he was working with his boss,

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and they started pouring the columns wrong.

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He took his boss aside,

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and he showed him the materials on confined masonry.

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He showed him, "You know, we don't have to do this wrong.

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It won't cost us any more

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to do it the right way."

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And they redid that building.

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They tied the rebar right,

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they poured the columns right,

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and that building will be safe.

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And every building

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that they build going forward

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will be safe.

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To make sure these buildings are safe,

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it's not going to take policy --

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it's going to take reaching out

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to the masons on the ground

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and helping them learn the proper techniques.

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Now there are many groups doing this.

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And the fellow in the vest there,

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Craig Toten,

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he has pushed forward

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to get documentation out to all the groups that are doing this.

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Through Haiti Rewired,

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through Build Change, Architecture for Humanity,

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AIDG,

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there is the possibility

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to reach out

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to 30,000 -- 40,000 masons

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across the country

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and create a movement of proper building.

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If you reach out to the people on the ground

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in this collaborative way

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it's extremely affordable.

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For the billions spent on reconstruction,

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you can train masons

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for dollars on every house

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that they end up building over their lifetime.

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Ultimately, there are two ways

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that you can rebuild Haiti;

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the way at the top

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is the way that Haiti's been building for decades.

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The way at the top

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is a poorly constructed building

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that will fail.

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The way at the bottom is a confined masonry building,

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where the walls are tied together,

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the building is symmetric,

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and it will stand up to an earthquake.

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For all the disaster,

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there is an opportunity here

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to build better houses

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for the next generation,

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so that when the next earthquake hits,

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it is a disaster --

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but not a tragedy.

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(Applause)