photos - help to people - part 4

Love a Child is a large mission in Fond Parisien. Their response to the earthquake relief effort was to set up a mobile hospital staffed by volunteer medical personnel. Patients with serious injuries were sent to hospitals in the Dominican Republic by ambulance or helicopter and then returned to Haiti for post-op care. The Dominican Republic has helped many haitians in this way with free medical care.

There are many tents set up in the large yard.

All that space is needed to treat the many wounded from Port-au-Prince.

One of the refuge families in our yard has a 15-year-old son who may have lymphatic cancer or possibly tuberculosis. He was coughing a lot and we brought him out to Love a Child on Thursday and again on Friday to be evaluated. They kept him there. We don't know at this time if he has been transferred out to the Dominican Republic for medical treatment. Please keep Woody in prayer that we can find out what is wrong with him and if there is treatment for his problems.

This young girl had a serious wrist injury during the earthquake. She was one of the patients treated at the mobile clinic held by Dr. Karen McCarthy's medical team in Petionville. Her mother is staying at Love a Child with her while she recovers from her injuries. Pray that she will have full use of her wrist and hand.

photos - help to people - part 5

There are lots of injuries due to the earthquake and people recover from their injuries in these tents.

The people are well looked after with meals provided and access to water as well as supervised medical care from the international and national medical staff. Pray for the work that Love A Child does out in Fond Parisien.

While driving back to Port-au-Prince we drove behind Canadian military vehicles.

The convoy was being escorted by Canadian military police. It is good to see the Canadian military as a presence here in Haiti.

The US military together with the UN and Haitian Police blocked off this section of Delmas 31 to secure the food distribution point at International Child Care. Women with coupons had access to the food that was distributed by World Vision.

photos - help to people - part 6

The mayor of Delmas with funding from USAID has hired lots of men to clean up rubble from the streets.

These men were heading to the next work site on Delmas 31. There is lots of rubble everywhere.

A medical team from Korea was working at the state Hopital La Paix on Delmas 33. It is great to see so much assistance coming to Haiti.

At the St. Louis Gonzague school on Delmas 31 is a large refuge camp. The Haitian Red Cross is using these water bladders to provide drinking water to the people.

People wait to get the precious water.

ARTICLE - CHILDREN SUFFERING IN CAMPS

Washington Post, February 3, 2010

CHILDREN SUFFERING HEALTH PROBLEMS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE CAMPS

By Peter Slevin

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Children are increasingly suffering health problems in Port-au-Prince's crowded encampments, say international medical workers, who predict the situation will worsen as Haiti continues to reel from the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Food remains scarce, water is often impure and thousands upon thousands of families are living side by side in makeshift shelters that rarely consist of more than a synthetic tarpaulin and walls of thin cloth.

Worried about the potential for disease, medical teams launched a major campaign Tuesday to vaccinate children in the capital.

In a project expected to last about two weeks, the goal is to protect as many as several hundred thousand children against measles, tetanus and diphtheria, UNICEF spokeswoman Roshan Khadivi said.

"Every day it is worse," said Pino Gonzalez, a Médecins du Monde nurse working with children at a sweltering encampment on Toussaint L'Ouverture Boulevard, about a mile from the Port-au-Prince airport."If you go more and more days without food, water or shelter, it can only get worse."

U.S. officials said Tuesday that three weeks after the earthquake destroyed Haiti's capital, international food aid had reached at least1 million people -- but another million were estimated to need such assistance. At least 70,000 families who lost their homes had receivedplastic sheeting, tents or shelter materials, but at least 170,000 more required help, they said.

"We are in an emergency relief situation, and we will continue to be in an emergency relief situation for many weeks to come," Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, toldreporters in Washington.

He said, however, that water distribution had been a "success story."People who had no access to international food aid appeared to begetting by through scavenging, buying goods in markets and other means.

International food trucks have not stopped in the Toussaint L'Ouverture Boulevard camp, where a citizens' committee estimates that 12,000 suddenly homeless people have taken refuge. Nor has there been other help.

"We have asked," Médecins du Monde physician Philippe Rodier said, "but the problem is so enormous for the resources available."

By midweek, officials estimated, daily food deliveries will be underway in 16 places in Port-au-Prince, including gang-wracked Cité Soleil. The effort is scheduled to reach 2 million people in 15 days. Army Col. Gregory Kane called it the U.N. World Food Program's "surge."

"Things are getting better, but the needs are immense," said DavidMeltzer, the American Red Cross's senior vice president for international services. "It will be years. Three weeks into it, it's still very early to see what the recovery will look like."

The Haitian government estimates that 200,000 children younger than 7 are in temporary camps.

An American doctor working in a triage tent in the courtyard of the State University Hospital of Haiti said Tuesday that child illnesses"connected to crowding" there are growing. He cited meningitis and intestinal disorders exacerbated by the heat and a shortage of food and clean water.

"They're outside. There's inadequate shelter," said Rashid Kysia, a Chicago emergency room doctor. "When you crowd like this, you get diarrhea and dehydration. They can't catch up.

"For the children in the teeming settlements, there are no organized activities and precious few toys. There are no schools. A half-dozen boys at the camp on Toussaint L'Ouverture Boulevard flew kites they had fashioned from pieces of plastic shopping bags.

The camp, which sprawls over a dusty hill across from a closed cardealership, continues to grow, said Boussico Pierre-Louis, an engineer and leader of a citizens' committee that keeps order.

"In every tent, there's a group of about 10 people, and of those 10, about four are kids. There are a lot of kids who are sleeping at night without tents," he said as he maneuvered along narrow paths. "They lost everything."

Food deliveries, still sporadic, have missed this encampment, although relief trucks and international soldiers rumble along the main street next to the camp from dawn until dusk.

"Sometimes I spend several days without eating," said Myrlande Casimir,who is breast-feeding her 3-month-old son, Daniel. She shares a dirt floor in a cloth enclosure with 11 others.

Several tents away, two of Kivier Bazelais's five children have rashes and sores on their dust-covered skin.

His house crumbled in the earthquake. Anything less severe, he said,and "I would take the risk and stay under it. It would be much better than staying here."

A further concern for children is psychological damage. Many have lost relatives and friends. Older children have seen their schools and homes destroyed.

"They have lost security, love and protection," said Marlene Goodfriend, a pediatric psychiatrist at the University of Florida at Jacksonville who has worked in Haiti. "The psychological effects can be profound, and many of these children will manifest symptoms of stress and possibly post-traumatic stress syndrome."

Jacklin Blaise's concerns are more immediate. Holding his 1-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, named after the late pop singer, he said she coughs through the night and sleeps little: "She got sick when we came here.The wind, the dust. The kids are under the sun."

"If by any chance it rains," Blaise said, "we will all be victims again."

Staff writers Mary Beth Sheridan and Annie Gowen in Washington contributed to this report.

ARTICLE - MOVE CAPITAL, QUAKE SPECIALISTS SAY

MOVE CAPITAL, QUAKE SPECIALISTS SAY
Spiegel Online 2/02/2010) Preparing for the Next Earthquake Haiti Debates Moving Its Capital

By Clemens Höges

Haiti's official seismologist, who predicted the recent earthquake, has warned that an even stronger one is likely to hit Port-au-Prince within the next 20 years. Now the Haitian government is debating how and if the capital should be rebuilt -- or if it should be moved elsewhere.

Claude Prépetit had seen it coming in his figures. He had done the calculations, in millimeters and in centuries, he had calculated the pressure that was building up beneath his feet, and he had estimated the energy that would eventually be discharged. And when the earth finally did shake, and falling concrete ceilings, stone walls and wooden beams killed at least 170,000 people within the space of 40 seconds, that was when Prépetit thought to himself: "This is it -- this has to be a seven."

He had predicted an earthquake with a magnitude of about 7.2 points on the Richter scale, and the actual quake measured 7.0. For years, he had taken precise measurements and performed careful calculations, and he had done his job exceedingly well.

When the earthquake struck, he was sitting at home in front of his computer. He jumped up and took shelter in the doorframe, because good doorframes are more capable of standing up to an earthquake than walls, something that Prépetit knows well. In fact, as the Haitian government's official seismologist, he knows everything about earthquakes.

In those 40 seconds, his brother-in-law and some of his friends died. Shortly afterwards, his father-in-law also died. Prépetit survived. After having spent years warning about the possibility of an earthquake striking Haiti, he can hardly be blamed for what happened there.

Prépetit, a tall man with a wrinkled face who is wearing sneakers, now says, quite calmly, that the earth beneath Port-au-Prince will shake again, but first it will happen farther to the north. The next quake, according to Prépetit's calculations, will be even stronger, probably measuring about 7.6 on the Richter scale. He predicts that it could happen in 20 years' time, give or take a few years.

Prépetit has divided Haiti into risk zones, based on information his staff has compiled and applied to a map of the country. Seismologists looking at the map can immediately recognize that the most dangerous place in the country is the capital. "We have to make this clear to people, and they have to understand it," says the scientist. "A lot of people have to get out of here."

The Haitian capital may be tomorrow's deathtrap, but it is currently today's nightmare. The bodies still lying in the wreckage are decomposing in the heat, while the survivors simply step over them. Looters are clearing out the ruined buildings, hunted by police officers on motorcycles wielding pump guns. The hungry survivors fight over every bag of rice tossed down from the trucks of international aid organizations.

The United Nations estimates that 75 percent of the city will have to be rebuilt, and that well over 500,000 people are now living in the streets. The more fortunate of the newly homeless have plastic tarps, mattresses or wooden boards to build tents for themselves. The drone of American Blackhawk helicopters can be heard overhead.

The Haitians have been promised $2 billion (€1.43 billion), both for the immediate disaster relief effort and to pay for the reconstruction of the country and its capital. Now the question is how to go about it. There are two possible approaches, one dangerous and the other audacious.

The Haitians could rebuild the capital to look more or less the way it did before the quake, except with more stable official buildings, naturally. That would be enough -- until the next major earthquake. Or they could use Prépetit's map, embark on a bold exodus from Port-au-Prince and build a new capital elsewhere. The latter approach would resemble what the Brazilians did in 1960, when the government moved to the newly built city of Brasilia, deep in the country's interior.

In 2001, Prépetit's prediction that the fate of Port-au-Prince is to be destroyed again and again was confirmed when a group of French seismologists came to the island, bringing along state-of-the-art instruments. Prépetit helped them distribute 30 measuring stations around the country. Then the scientists waited, monitoring their instruments, and eventually the equipment began spitting out data. Using the data, the seismologists could calculate how much energy will be released when there is a sudden shift in the two tectonic plates that come together near the capital, the kind of shift that is likely to happen repeatedly. The only problem is that no one can predict when these shifts will take place.

Should Prépetit have spoken up more loudly? And even if he had, could he have convinced the government to do anything? "Resettling hundreds of thousands of people is very expensive and very difficult. Haiti is a poor country. And besides, I didn't know when it was going to happen. What if it hadn't happened for another 30 years?" But now Prépetit wants to talk, and he wants people to listen to what he has to say.

An earthquake already destroyed the city once before, in 1751, and the survivors rebuilt Port-au-Prince. The next major quake came in 1770.

"We cannot invest a cent in Port-au-Prince; it would be a waste of money," says Bernard Etheart. "We can't afford to lose everything once again. We must take advantage of the opportunity we have today." Sitting in a radio studio, Etheart takes off his headphones and runs his hand through his tousled white hair. He laughs a lot and, at 72, moves like a much younger man.

Etheart studied in Munich, where he met a young female journalist, also from Haiti. The two returned home to Haiti, but before long then-Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, known as Baby Doc, expelled them from the country, as part of an effort to do away with his critics. After 18 years in exile, they finally returned home.

Etheart was a professor for many years, and he now runs the government's institute for land reform. Agriculture is about the only industry that functions in Haiti, which produces sugarcane and coffee and not much else.

Haitians have little choice but to listen to Etheart, whose wife owns one of the most influential radio stations on the island, which, of course, gives Etheart a forum for his views. About 50 percent of Haitians are illiterate, and many are too poor to afford a television set. But the one thing they can do is vote, which is why radio is such a powerful medium in the country. The Ethearts also publish a newspaper.

Etheart believes that the earthquake must now force Haiti to finally stand on its own feet. Of the country's population of 9 million, about 2 million live in the crowded Port-au-Prince valley, at a population density of 5,000 people per square kilometer. The capital is a population magnet, and yet it is incapable of feeding so many people. The conditions contribute to the growth of slums, like the ones that have crept up the hills surrounding Port-au-Prince. When the earthquake struck, the poorly constructed houses on these hillsides quickly slid downhill, burying the inhabitants in the process.

Etheart has a plan that could solve the country's problems. He opens a file and pulls out a piece of paper, a graph taken from a study conducted by a colleague. It illustrates Haiti's vicious circle: The government invests its money in the capital, but this only aggravates the country's poverty. As the capital becomes more attractive for migrants from the countryside, the state is forced to spend more money, becoming even poorer in the process."

It is now time to break through this vicious circle," says Etheart. "We must invest in the country's small cities." But it would be unacceptable to forcibly displace people, he adds. "We have to offer them incentives" -- jobs, schools, hospitals, anything with a future.

Of course, the earthquake could also help Etheart press forward with his dream of major land reforms. The government is already sending thousands of people to rural areas. Initially buses and trucks left the chaos of the capital on a daily basis, transporting passengers to the countryside at no cost. The only catch was that no one was given return tickets. But now very few city residents are taking the government up on its not-too-subtle resettlement offer.

This is not surprising, since the refugees have little to look forward to in the countryside: no jobs, no place to live and not much to eat. "What am I supposed to do in the countryside?" asks Cynthia Saint Fort. The 22-year-old nurse wants to go to medical school, and the country's only university is in Port-au-Prince. Of course, she adds, she is also afraid to stay there, in a place where she has seen so many people die. She says that she is only alive today because someone else died. When the houses began breaking apart, she started running and tripped, and a man fell on top of her. As he was lying there, a piece of concrete fell on the man and killed him.

For Saint Fort, Port-au-Prince is still the only place where she feels useful. The hillside house she and her brothers lived in before the quake was destroyed, but the family has now built a makeshift shelter in the ruins with mattresses, furniture and tarps.

They plan to rebuild the house, and they hope to receive government assistance to do so, but like everyone else, they have no idea what the future will hold. She spends her days tending to her patients in a makeshift hospital set up in the courtyard of a house. Death was yesterday. Now her life is in Port-au-Prince.

Etheart is familiar with all of the reasons why Haitians are unwilling to leave the capital. But he also believes that if all the money that is now being pledged to Haiti is invested in smaller cities, life outside Port-au-Prince could also become more appealing.

A small research facility, the only building left of the country's Ministry of Public Works, lies on the outskirts of downtown Port-au-Prince. Jacques Gabriel, Haiti's minister of public works, transportation and communication, walks with a stoop as he enters his new office. It is empty, with the exception of a desk, five moving boxes, and a framed map of Haiti leaning against the wall. His ministry literally disappeared beneath his feet.

When the earthquake struck three weeks ago, Gabriel tried to make it to the door, but it was jammed. A hole opened up in the wall, and when the ground shook he was thrown to the floor. Another tremor flung him outside, bruised but alive. He doesn't see very well now, after losing his glasses in the quake. He hasn't been able to find his optometrist.

Gabriel moved to the research facility, where he was given an office, and he is thankful that his old Nokia mobile phone still works. The building now serves as the ministry's control center.

Other ministries are in similar shape. The president and his cabinet are working in makeshift offices in a police barracks near the airport. They have little more than mobile phones, which explains why there is so little evidence of any government presence in Haiti, and why United Nations peacekeepers and US soldiers are running the city.

Gabriel says that the cabinet doesn't know -- and cannot possibly know -- what the future has in store for Haiti. "We need brainstorming, and we need advice." But one thing, he says, is clear: "We cannot rebuild Port-au-Prince the way it was built before. We will have to resettle a lot of people, and we have to start thinking about other cities." He wants to develop a new seismographic institute, but that will require prompt assistance from foreign experts. Prépetit cannot possibly accomplish this task alone.

At some point, the government and the parliament will have to decide whether to stay in Port-au-Prince. "We must consider the pros and cons," says the minister. If the capital was in the interior of the country, he argues, "we would lose our direct contact with the port."

Is it even possible to simply abandon a capital? Wouldn't it be preferable to rebuild, using lighter materials and safer construction methods?

President René Préval is familiar with Etheart's plan. The two men are old acquaintances, but the president is still skeptical. He calls the former professor "Dessalines," a reference to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, once of Haiti's liberators. In 1803, he defeated the French colonial masters with an army of escaped slaves, who eventually founded their own country. Dessalines made his capital at Marchand, a small town in the country's interior.

Dessalines, who later proclaimed himself emperor of Haiti, using Napoleon as his role model, was murdered in 1806. Today, his statue stands in front of the ruins of the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince, which his successor turned into the capital.

His old capital, a city of about 15,000 people, is now called Dessalines. Etheart believes that a place like Dessalines could now become the country's new capital. As ludicrous as it sounds, he knows that the idea makes sense. According to Prépetit, the plain surrounding Dessalines is, seismologically speaking, one of the safest areas in the country.



Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

ARTICLE - USGS - HAITI EARTHQUAKE

USGS Issues Assessment of Aftershock Hazards in Haiti

RESTON, Va.—The aftershock sequence of the magnitude-7 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12, 2010, will continue for months, if not years. The frequency of events will diminish with time, but damaging earthquakes will remain a threat.

U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt asked a team of USGS earthquake scientists to provide an evaluation of the earthquakes facing Haiti now and in the future. Here is the statement in its entirety from the U.S. Geological Survey:

Earthquake Hazard and Safety in Haiti and the Caribbean Region
The magnitude-7 earthquake of January 12, 2010, near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, has generated a sharp increase in concerns about the potential for future earthquakes in Haiti and the surrounding region. These concerns extend to understanding the causes of the earthquake hazard and learning what can be done to ensure seismic safety in the future. The purpose of this statement is to convey our best judgment on these subjects.

Aftershocks: The aftershock sequence of a magnitude-7 earthquake will continue for months if not years in the affected area. The frequency of events will diminish with time, but damaging earthquakes will remain possible in the coming months. There is also a small chance of subsequent earthquakes larger than the initial shock. The sequence from the Port-au-Prince earthquake continues to be very strong and active. Based on this activity and the statistics of aftershock sequences, our estimate for aftershock activity during a 30-day period beginning January 21, 2010, is as follows:

The probability of one or more earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater is less that 3 percent.
The probability of one or more earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater is 25 percent.
The probability of one or more earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater is about 90 percent.
Approximately 2 to 3 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater are expected within this time period.

These estimates will be updated as new information becomes available.

Precautions: Any aftershock above magnitude 5.0 will be widely felt and has the potential to cause additional damage, particularly to vulnerable, already damaged structures. Anyone living in Haiti or involved in relief work there must maintain situational awareness with regard to their personal earthquake safety. They should always be aware of what action they are going to take if the ground starts to shake. Open spaces are generally safe but running through falling debris to get to an open space may be dangerous. Only qualified engineers can determine if a damaged building is safe for reoccupation. Until engineering assistance arrives, a general rule to follow is: If it does not look safe, it probably is not safe. Entry into or reoccupation of obviously damaged structures should be avoided.

Near-term concerns: The geologic fault that caused the Port-au-Prince earthquake is part of a seismically active zone between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. The earthquake undoubtedly relieved some stress on the fault segment that ruptured during the event, but the extent of rupture along the fault is unclear at this time. Fault slip models, preliminary radar surface deformation measurements, and examination of satellite and airborne imagery for surface rupture suggest that the segment of the Enriquillo fault to the east of the January-12 epicenter and directly adjacent to Port-au-Prince did not slip appreciably in this event. This implies that the Enriquillo fault zone near Port-au-Prince still stores sufficient strain to be released as a large, damaging earthquake during the lifetime of structures built during the reconstruction effort. In historic times, Haiti has experienced multiple large earthquakes, apparently on adjacent faults. We shall continue to study this situation using radar, LiDAR, and photographic data taken from satellites and aircraft. Field studies and ground observations of fault offsets during this earthquake and past events are essential to evaluating the potential for future earthquakes in proximity to Port-au-Prince.

Long-term concerns: It is essential that the rebuilding effort in Haiti take into account the potential for, indeed the inevitability of, future strong earthquakes. Haiti is cut by two major plate boundary fault zones. Over the past three centuries, earthquakes comparable to or stronger than the recent one have struck Haiti at least four times, including those in 1751 and 1770 that destroyed Port-au-Prince. Engineers and construction professionals know how to design and build structures that will not collapse in strong earthquake shaking. Seismic hazard assessments provide the basis for the development of appropriate building codes and the identification of regions at greatest risk. A thorough seismic hazard assessment of Haiti, as well as of other countries in the Caribbean, will provide the basis for establishing or improving building codes and strengthening building resilience over the long-term. Such assessments involve geologic investigations of faults and soil conditions, reoccupation of geodetic measurement sites to determine strain accumulation, and studies of recent and historic earthquakes and seismicity patterns and statistics. These assessments usually take several years but can be accelerated to provide results markedly better than what is currently available.

From these investigations, we can assess the likelihood and nature of strong shaking and ground failure over various time frames. The development of more resilient structures and infrastructure is a long-term goal, particularly in the face of economic limitations. Over the short-term, it is critical that the rebuilding effort be undertaken with an awareness of the potential for subsequent damaging events during the next months and years. It is essential that structures such as hospitals, schools, and critical facilities be reconstructed with greater resilience for the preservation of life and functionality.

Regional concerns: The experience of the Port-au-Prince, Haiti, earthquake reveals a need for better understanding of the nature and extent of earthquake and tsunami hazard in the Caribbean region. The arc of islands that forms the Lesser Antilles and Greater Antilles generally outlines the contact zone between the Caribbean and North American plates. This entire region is seismically active due to the relative motion between the plates and is prone to damaging earthquakes: a small-scale “ring of fire” like that encircling the Pacific ocean. Historical earthquakes greater than magnitude 7 have occurred in Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. Along the northern coast of Venezuela, the juncture of the Caribbean and South American plates has caused damaging earthquakes in the vicinity of Trinidad and Tobago. Earthquake safety policy, including building codes throughout the region, should be based on thorough seismic hazard assessments.

haiti update - february 1, 2010

“The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.” Isaiah 41:17

Hi! The medical team has gone and the major injuries in the area are now taken care of. Some of the people still need to go for dressing changes and we bring them to the Belgian tent hospital over on Delmas 33. The health care concerns now for Port-au-Prince are diseases. There are now cases of diarrhea, measles and tetanus being seen. Vaccination campaigns are being planned.
With the large amount of need for water and food for the people of Port-au-Prince it took a couple of weeks for the large humanitarian aid machine to get moving. In the beginning we saw no aid going out and saw it sitting at the airport. Jeff was very proactive in our trips to the airport and we were able to get some tents, tarps, water, food and even a diesel generator! Jeff wanted to give food distribution a try and I warned him to be careful. It is a good thing that the guys were armed with a taser and pepper spray because they barely escaped with the clothes on their back! The last couple of boxes of food Jeff heaved so that the people would run after it and not him. The US military is on the ground now and helping to provide security for the food distribution sites. On Saturday the military was doing a reconnaissance in the neighborhood and on Sunday a large distribution site was set up for food by International Child Care/St. Louis school. The US military has blocked this area and no pedestrian or vehicle traffic is allowed in the distribution zone. The aid is only distributed to women and children who have special cards because the men have been causing troubles at the prior distributions. The last couple of days we have seen lots of people carrying food aid on their heads back to their homes.
Water distributions have been easier. A lot of water trucks are appearing at refuge sites handing out water. We have seen drinking water trucks going around too. We have been receiving some food assistance from a couple of Haitian organizations as well. One organization is called “Aimer Haiti”. The aid was placed in individual sacs and we handed these out to the families living in the yard, Pastor Octave’s group and Pastor Marcelin’s group. The large clean up effort of damaged and destroyed buildings has begun. There are groups of people with yellow t-shirts showing that they are supported by USAID working at clearing public spaces and sidewalks. Recyclers are at work removing the rebar from destroyed buildings. The rebar then gets sent to local scrap recyclers.
Unicef and Save the Children are working at helping all the homeless, abandoned and orphaned children created by the earthquake. Save the Children is working to register unaccompanied children living on the streets as well as distributing food to them. Unicef is setting up “Security Spaces” for children where shelter, food, water and medicine can be found. They are working with the children to help find lost families or new placements for orphaned children. Their objective is to set up different centers around the city and to house 200,000 children who are at risk. Pray for the efforts of those working to help all these displaced children. I am going to start calling Manu “Tom Sawyer”. Manu is getting to be very adventurous. He went with another boy this week on a quest to find and visit the US Military at the airport. The other boy is Kervens, the grandson of Mdm. Lukner who used to be our cook. They found the military alright but they also got labeled as displaced children. We got a call saying that Manu and Kervens were at an orphanage on Rte. Nationale #1. Pray that we can keep a better eye on “Tom Sawyer” and his adventurous spirit.
Our neighborhood has been quieter during the evening the last week. The first week there was quite a bit of shooting. After the earthquake the police and UN were not visible in our area at least and the neighborhood formed an armed “Brigade Civil” They patrolled the neighborhood watching out for thieves. That first week 3 thieves were killed. One of these thieves was caught, dragged behind a vehicle and left on the street. In the morning the bodies were being loaded onto a pickup truck and an AP photographer who was there noticed that one of the thieves was still alive. The person who loaded the thief told the AP guy that he would still go to the morgue, as he wouldn’t live. Street justice is now instant justice. Ever since the night of the thief being dragged through the streets the neighborhood has been much quieter! I think that word got out. There are 7,000 escaped prisoners on the streets of Port-au-Prince. Ana Julie was a teacher here at Coram Deo who was killed along with her cousin 3 years ago in their home. The killer was caught and was in the National Penitentiary the last couple of years. He is now one of the escaped prisoners out on the streets. Jn. Eddy saw him in a refuge camp that we were visiting. They both recognized each other and Jn. Eddy went one way and Ana Julie’s killer went the other. It was unnerving for Jn. Eddy to see this. He is avoiding the refuge camp where he saw the guy. The earthquake has seriously affected the police force. Before the earthquake there were 8,000 in the ranks of the Haitian police. 70 policemen were killed during the earthquake and another 500 are missing and unaccounted for. Over 400 policemen have been injured. Currently there are only about 3,400 policemen who have answered the call and are out on the streets. Pray for all those providing security for the city and that the police force can rebuild and continue to improve on its effectiveness.
The Port-au-Prince port has suffered heavy damage and needs to be repaired. The main pier at the northern end of the port was destroyed during the earthquake and the cranes fell into the water. The terminal collapsed. The south pier was further damaged by aftershocks and is now too dangerous to use. The US military are running port operations and are using landing craft of the type that was used in WW2 to deliver supplies to shore. The US military created 3 small artificial beaches in Port-au-Prince’s harbor to begin offloading containers from commercial ships in order to improve the aid flow. The military expects to expand the capacity to 500 containers a day from the prior 200 containers per day. Making the port usable is a huge priority. On Sunday afternoon we saw trucks hauling large equipment, which looked like what would be used in ports in the Croix des Bouquets area. Pray the port can be fixed quickly.
We have had at least 50 aftershocks since the main earthquake. The aftershocks sometimes cause further damage. In our neighborhood one man was killed after having a cement block land on his head. Some houses were further damaged by the aftershocks. We continue to live in our tent refuge camp in the yard. We have some cracks in the house that need fixing and our outside walls need to be replaced on both sides, the back and one of the front walls. Pray for the teams who are planning to come and help out as well as future medical teams.
The earthquake occurred on a section of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault. The last major rupture of the fault occurred in 1751. This fault was building up strain since that time. Scientists were expecting an earthquake in that region, but no one could predict exactly when and where. In this fault movement was minimal amounting to less than an inch per year but this earthquake may have caused the earth’s surface along the fault line to offset by as much as 3 feet. There are 3 main causes of why this earthquake was so devastating. The earthquake was centered just 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince. The quake was shallow (10-15km below the lands’ surface) and the lower depth made it more forceful. Many of the houses and businesses were not built to withstand such a force and collapsed or crumbled. The risk of aftershocks continues and it has also been mentioned by scientists that another earthquake of the same or higher magnitude could hit again. Scientists are studying the fault line to learn more about earthquakes and how the region could be affected in the future. Pray the aftershocks stop and another earthquake doesn’t hit. Port-au-Prince has been damaged too much as it is.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo.