Haiti

[General Duke]

Fierce Earthquake Rocks Haiti

 

Haiti's strongest earthquake in more than two centuries rocked the Caribbean nation on Tuesday, causing dozens of buildings to collapse and raising fears that many people have died, officials and witnesses said.

 

Witnesses reported seeing dead bodies lying on the street and hearing cries for help in the impoverished and crowded capital of Port-au-Prince, located just 10 miles northwest of the earthquake's epicenter, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

 

Buildings in Haiti collapsed Tuesday after a devastating earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince.

"I saw dead bodies, people are screaming, they are on the street panicking, people are hurt," Raphaelle Chenet, the administrator of Mercy and Sharing, a charity that takes care of 109 orphans, said in a telephone interview from the capital. "There are a lot of wounded, broken heads, broken arms."

 

A hospital in Port-au-Prince collapsed, along with dozens of other buildings, including at one building in the presidential compound and one other government ministry building, according to Alice Blanchet, a special adviser to the Haitian government. Other landmark buildings in the capital, including the U.N. headquarters and the Hotel Montana, sustained heavy damage, witnesses said.

 

Ms. Blanchet, who had been in contact with several Haitian government officials, said the building that collapsed in the presidential compound was not the main presidential palace.

 

"I think the only good news was that it hit late and many of the people who would have been working in the buildings were on the street or at home," she said.

 

The United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations said U.N. headquarters in the capital "sustained serious damage."

 

 

Daniel Morel for The Wall Street Journal

"For the moment, a large number of personnel remain unaccounted for," the U.N. said in a statement Tuesday.

 

"At this time of tragedy, I am very concerned for the people of Haiti and also for the many United Nations staff who serve there," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.

 

In Port-au-Prince, many houses built on steep ravines collapsed, Ms. Chenet and other witnesses said. Ms. Chenet said she heard a few explosions, which she believed to be gas explosions. The orphans in the two institutions run by Mercy and Sharing weren't hurt, she said.

 

President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with the people of Haiti, and U.S. officials said they would consider immediate humanitarian aid.

 

"Clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley told reporters.

 

At least 1.8 million people live within the area where the magnitude-7 quake was most intense, John Bellini, a geophysicist at the USGS, told The Wall Street Journal. "With a strong and shallow earthquake like this in such a populated area, it could really cause substantial damage," he said.

 

Nightfall and the chaos after the quake made it too early to estimate the extent of the casualties. Disaster specialists said various mathematical models for an earthquake of such magnitude in Haiti predict that as many as 4,000 people could have been killed.

 

The Greek Ambassador to Venezuela, Efstathios Daras, who is also representing Greece in Haiti said: "We fear major loss of life, maybe in the thousands or tens of thousands." He described reports of victims trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings.

 

"Survivors are using their hands to help get trapped people out. There are fears of big aftershocks which could make the situation even worse. There is huge damage to the infrastructure. We can't get through anymore. All phone lines are down."

 

Francis Ghesquiere, lead disaster risk management specialist at the World Bank, said the toll would be exacerbated by the lack of zoning, building codes, and emergency preparedness in a country with a notoriously weak central government. Immediate recovery efforts could be hampered by the same issues until foreign assistance arrives.

[Sherban Shabeel]

Let's pray for the people of Haiti

[5]

And here I was thinking this was about your dream vacation to Haiti. I was expecting sandy beaches and crystal clear ocean in the corner of the photos, and your black blurry hands and awkward chin dominating the photos.

 

But the news you shared with us is worse than bad photos. Bal ilaahey ha u gaar gaaro dadkaas. Still, you could have at least put up a few nice photos to lure some much-needed tourists into this poverty ridden island.

[Cara.]

How To Help

 

For those interesting in helping immediately, simply text "HAITI" to "90999" and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill.

[General Duke]

Presidential palace

[General Duke]

Thousands of people are feared dead after a powerful earthquake hit Haiti, toppling buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and triggering repeated aftershocks.

 

A 7.0 magnitude quake – the biggest recorded in this part of the Caribbean and the largest to hit Haiti in more than 200 years – rocked Port-au-Prince last night, destroying a hospital and sending houses tumbling into ravines.

 

"There must be thousands of people dead," Sara Fajardo, a spokeswoman for Catholic Relief Services, told the Los Angeles Times. International aid groups are planning a major disaster relief effort. The international Red Cross said up to 3 million people could be affected.

 

The headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti has collapsed and a large number of UN personnel are missing, according to Alain Le Roy, the head of UN peacekeeping. At least 11 peacekeepers were reportedly killed – eight from China and three from Jordan.

 

Le Roy told reporters that UN troops, mostly from Brazil, were trying to rescue people from the wreckage of the five-storey building but "as we speak no one has been rescued from this main headquarters".

 

Gareth Owen, emergencies director at Save the Children, which has about 60 staff in Haiti, said: "We are very concerned about the high likelihood of a significant loss of life because Port-au-Prince is a very densely populated city and the earthquake epicentre was very close to it."

 

No official estimate of the death toll has been possible but it is clear tens of thousands of people have had their homes destroyed in Port-au-Prince, which has a population of about 1 million, and that many people have perished.

 

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said initial reports suggested "a high number of casualties and widespread damage, with an urgent need for search and rescue".

[General Duke]

 

Residents sleep in the street of Port-au-Prince

[General Duke]

[5]

Yeah when I said photos, that's not exactly what I had in mind...

[Naden]

Donate, people, to the Red Cross through the link posted by Cara or to Doctors without Borders.

 

The images are devastating.

[Valenteenah.]

^ Completely devastating.

[Miriam1]

Its so horrible. I know this is totally irrational, but after all these natural diasters - Haiti should just be evacuated and all of them should move to Manitoba - Allah only knows we have too much land !

[5]

Not to say this isn't devasting or worthy of donation, but should a nation of refugees be donating/encouraging to donate to another country when their whole country is effed up? Just my thoughts...

[Che -Guevara]

^Ten dollars won't kill you but point taken, million Somalis stranded in Afgooye camps could use any help.

 

There's large Hiatian community in Beantown, will see what they are doing.

[General Duke]

Haiti earthquake adds to woes of a benighted countryPoorest country in the western hemisphere is ill equipped to deal with natural disasters

 

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 January 2010 10.34 GMT

 

The earthquake that has hit Haiti, raising fears that thousands have been killed, is the latest in a long line of natural disasters to befall a country ill equipped to deal with such events.

 

Hurricanes and flooding are perennial concerns for the poorest country in the western hemisphere, which has time and again been dependent on foreign aid in emergencies.

 

In 1963 hurricane Flora, the sixth deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history, devastated the island. The US weather bureau estimated the death toll at 5,000 and the cost of damage to property and crops at between $125m and $180m.

 

The country was struck by two disasters in 2004. In May heavy rains caused flooding that killed more than 2,000 people. Four months later mudslides and flooding caused by hurricane Jeanne, the 12th deadliest Atlantic hurricane, killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in the town of Gonaives.

 

Tragedy struck again in 2008 when four storms – tropical storm Fay, hurricane Gustav, hurricane Hanna and hurricane Ike – dumped heavy rains on the country. Around 1,000 people died and 800,000 were left homeless. The number of people affected by the storms was put at 800,000 – almost 10% of the population – with the damage estimated at $1bn.

 

Deforestation that allows rainwater to wash down mountain slopes is believed to have exacerbated many of the natural disasters in Haiti.

 

Two-thirds of Haitians live off the land and the same proportion on less than $2 (£1.25) a day, so the impact of such tragedies has been long lasting.

 

Haitians have had to contend with political turmoil. The country elected its first democratic president in 1990 after almost three decades of bloody rule by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.

 

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the slum priest elected in 1990, was overthrown a year later but restored after the intervention of US troops. He was ejected again in 2004 in a bloody coup amid accusations that his party had rigged legislative elections, pocketed millions of dollars in foreign aid and sent gangsters to attack opponents.