For centuries, Hispaniola — the Caribbean island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti — has been repeatedly reshaped by devastating seismic events that have leveled communities, destroyed critical infrastructure, and claimed thousands of lives. Recently, a public panel discussion titled “The Island That Moves: Historical Earthquakes in Hispaniola”, hosted by the Taíno Cultural Center Casa del Cordón in Santo Domingo, brought together leading specialists to unpack the island’s long-running seismic risk and renew calls for strengthened disaster preparedness across the region.
Geographically, Hispaniola sits directly along the volatile boundary between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates, a geologic position that has left the island crisscrossed by 14 documented active seismic faults. Two of these fault lines, the Septentrional Fault running along the island’s northern corridor and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden Fault cutting through the southern region, have been linked to nearly all of the most destructive earthquakes recorded across Hispaniola’s modern history.
During the panel, experts walked attendees through the most significant seismic events documented on the island since the colonial era. One event that stood out as a key point of analysis was the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck off the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic on August 4, 1946. To date, this tremor remains the strongest earthquake ever recorded by scientific instruments across Hispaniola. It caused widespread structural collapse across northeastern communities and triggered a destructive tsunami that swept across low-lying coastal areas, cementing its place as one of the worst natural disasters in the Dominican Republic’s recorded history.
Beyond the 1946 event, specialists also deep dived into major seismic events in 1751, 1770, and 1842, as well as the catastrophic 7.0-magnitude 2010 earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, killing an estimated 220,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless. Reviewing these events reinforced a core geological truth: seismic activity is not an isolated anomaly for Hispaniola, but a constant, recurring feature of the island’s geologic identity.
The panel featured leading voices across geology and history, including Osiris de León, a geological engineer specializing in seismicity and disaster risk reduction, and Joan Ferrer, a prominent historian, lawyer and genealogist. The discussion was moderated by José Enrique Delmonte, cultural adviser for the Taíno Cultural Center Casa del Cordón.
De León and other specialists explained that the constant movement of the two tectonic plates surrounding Hispaniola creates gradual, ongoing deformation of the Earth’s crust along active faults. Over time, stress and tectonic energy build up along these fault lines until the pressure is suddenly released in the form of an earthquake. Crucially, they noted, the deadliness and destruction of a seismic event does not depend solely on its magnitude. A range of human factors — from substandard building construction and high urban population density to proximity of residential areas to active faults and low levels of community preparedness — can dramatically amplify the harm of even a moderate tremor.
A core takeaway from the discussion centered on a dangerous common misconception: many residents and policymakers assume that a long gap between major earthquakes means the seismic threat has passed. Experts pushed back strongly on this idea, emphasizing that tectonic stress is constantly building along Hispaniola’s active faults, regardless of how much time has passed since the last major event. While scientists cannot yet predict the exact timing, location, or intensity of future earthquakes, detailed knowledge of historical seismic events and mapped active faults gives planners critical data to model potential risk scenarios and update targeted prevention policies.
Historical earthquake records also offer invaluable insights into which regions face the highest vulnerability, what types of structural damage are most common in local geographies, and which pieces of critical infrastructure are most at risk of failure during a major tremor. The panel closed with a clear call to action: authorities and communities across the island must prioritize expanding public awareness of seismic risk, updating emergency preparedness plans at the family and community level, and integrating seismic safety standards into all national and local land-use planning.
Key prevention measures highlighted include mandating and enforcing seismic-resistant building codes for all new construction, developing coordinated multi-community emergency response plans, and ensuring all residents understand basic safety protocols for during and immediately after an earthquake. The discussion’s overarching message remained consistent: earthquakes are an unavoidable part of living on Hispaniola, but the scale of their future impact depends almost entirely on how prepared communities and governments choose to be today.