Earthquake in Haiti
Tuesday afternoon, January 12th, the worst earthquake in 200 years – 7.0 in magnitude – struck less than ten miles from the Caribbean city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The initial quake was later followed by twelve aftershocks greater than magnitude 5.0. Structures of all kinds were damaged or collapsed, from shantytown homes to national landmarks. It is still very early in the recovery effort, but millions are likely displaced, and thousands are feared dead as rescue teams from all over the world are now descending on Haiti to help where they are able. As this is a developing subject.
Haiti 48 hours later
Two days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck beneath Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some of the massive damage is becoming more apparent. Rescue teams are arriving, aid groups are trying their best to battle huge logistical challenges, bodies are being identified, and some medical care is being given. Rescue teams from all over the world have joined the recovery effort, as the United States pledged $100 million in relief efforts. The Red Cross ventured an estimate of up to 50,000 deaths, as bodies at the local morgues overflowed into the streets.
Haiti six days later
Haiti remains a place of profound need, anguish, desperation and danger, with a few glimmers of hope and slowly growing capabilities to receive and distribute the international aid now flowing in. Sporadic looting, sometimes violent, was met with force by security oficials and ordinary citizens, resulting in a number of further deaths and injuries. The tenuous security situation has led to at least one temporary evacuation of a medical facility, to protect the care-givers. Despite the long time since the earthquake, at least five people were pulled from the rubble alive this weekend, including a young girl trapped inside a supermarket who was fortunately surrounded by food, and survived on fruit snacks.
Faces of Haiti
Ten days after the massive earthquake in Haiti, some 80,000 of the estimated 200,000 dead have been buried, two million residents now find themselves homeless, and hundreds of thousands of them are now trying to flee the capital city. Rescue crews are beginning to abandon hope of finding any further survivors in the rubble – the last person to be pulled out alive was on was rescued on Wednesday, the 20th. Aid agencies are still ramping up their efforts – the Red Cross alone has deployed what it calls its greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history. Collected here are some closer looks into recent events in Haiti, seen through the faces of the survivors and the recently-arrived security, rescue and care workers.
Haiti three weeks later
Tomorrow will mark three weeks since the massive January 12th earthquake in Haiti, and tent cities remain full, even as some businesses and factories are beginning to reopen in Port-au-Prince. Now that massive amounts of aid have arrived, distribution problems have cropped up and are being addressed. The World Food Program has begun a new system of delivering rice to 10,000 Haitians per day at each of 16 women-only distribution points around the city – restricted to women, since young men often muscle their way to the front of distribution lines, and the women are viewed as more likely to fairly divide up the food. Aid chiefs and donor nations are warning that Haiti will need at least a decade of painstaking reconstruction.
From：www.boston.com