Haiti's year of devastation

As Haiti marks one-year since its catastrophic earthquake on January 12 last year, the country is still reeling from a series of devastating events in 2010. Cholera took thousands of more lives, there were allegations of rape in the camps set up to house those made homeless by the earthquake, hurricane weather hit the nation and the year ended with disputed elections. The events have crippled an already impoverished nation that ranked among the 23 least developed countries on the UN's Human Development Index. It remains the poorest country in the Americas. The Inter-American Development Bank has estimated that rebuilding the capital Port-au-Prince and its surrounding areas will take a minimum of 10 years. The country's year of disasters began with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that not only hit Port-au-Prince, but rippled across the entire country. The earthquake killed an estimated 220,000 people according to the UN, with the density of the population near its epicenter accounting for the high numbers of deaths. The effect of Haiti's most powerful earthquake in 200 years was magnified by a series of aftershocks, which toppled poorly constructed buildings and added to the rising death toll. Conditions worsened in October when a cholera epidemic fueled by poor sanitation in many of the camps set up for those hit by the earthquake hit the nation.