Families too have suffered. Unstable relationships can be pushed across the line into outright dysfunction. In some cases the Barrington team observed, one spouse became hypersexual and the other hyposexual, with obviously destabilizing consequences. Adults frequently misdirect their anger toward spouses and children. The woman had lost two other children in a quake in her native Guatemala.
Experts give several reasons.
It's layer upon layer. And what this does is magnify people's reactions. Women appear to take it harder than men. One hypothesis is that the female nesting instinct is especially offended by a quake's threat to home and hearth. More manifestly, women are more demonstrative and vocal about their anxieties.