Member-only story
Americans Have Never Cared About Puerto Rico
The indifference toward the recent earthquake swarm devastating the island is the latest in a long list of indignities
Puerto Rico is convulsing, and I’m witnessing from thousands of miles away how Americans are once again turning a blind eye.
Nearly 1,300 earthquakes have hit the island’s southern region in a swarm that began on December 28, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. More than two dozen of the quakes have been magnitude 4.5 or greater. Just Wednesday, there was a 5.2 magnitude tremor followed by dozens of aftershocks. The situation for Puerto Ricans, who have been facing a financial crisis and are still recovering from Hurricane Maria, is dire. At least one person has died and several have been hurt since the earthquake swarm began. Hundreds have called the island’s suicide prevention hotline, and there are concerns that some recent suicides have been connected to the tremors. (Natural disasters have an outsized impact on mental health difficulties; we saw these struggles after Maria in 2017.) Thousands have been sleeping outside their homes or in makeshift camps out of fear their houses will collapse. That anxiety is not misplaced: An estimated 2,200 people lost their homes in the aftermath of the 6.4 quake — the largest one so far — that hit the…
