The 230,000 death toll rivals the loss of life in the tragic 2004 Indonesian tsunami, an earthquake- generated event that is described later in the chapter. Both of these natural disasters produced death tolls equivalent to the population of cities the size of Madison, Wisconsin, or Orlando, Florida. The loss of life associated with the 2010 Haitian event is even more extraordinary when it is compared with the 1989 Loma prieta earthquake in southern California, which had a similar magnitude but claimed just 67 lives. In addition to the staggering death toll, there were more than 300,000 injuries and the destruction of 250,000 residences. Nearly a million people were left homeless.