PORT-AU-PRINCE — A major earthquake struck the capital of impoverished Haiti on Tuesday, toppling many buildings and burying hundreds, possibly thousands, of people under the rubble, witnesses said.
The magnitude 7.0 quake, whose epicenter was inland and only 16 km from Port-au-Prince, sent panic-stricken people screaming into the streets as a cloud of dust and smoke from falling buildings rose into the sky.
As offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed, people were screaming “Jesus, Jesus” and running in all directions. The gleaming white presidential palace lay in ruins, its domes fallen on top of flattened walls.
Bloodied and dazed survivors gathered in the open and corpses were pinned by debris.
The United Nations said a large number of its personnel in Haiti were unaccounted for after a five-story building at the headquarters of the U.N. mission collapsed.
“The whole city is in darkness. You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go,” said Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with the Food for the Poor charity. “There are people running, crying, screaming.”
[More]
Related:
‘Cries everywhere’ as Haitian-Canadians call home
Haiti promised thousands of dollars in aid after earthquake strikes
Updates:
8:11 am EST, January 13th, 2010 — Injured Haitians plead for help after quake
8:18 am EST, January 13th, 2010 — Red Cross: Up to 3 million affected by Haiti quake
8:25 am EST, January 13th, 2010 — In pictures: Haitian earthquake
8:29 am EST, January 13th, 2010 — DART team en route to Haiti, C-17, choppers ready
11:29 am EST, January 13th, 2010 — Death toll mounts as Haitians come to grips with quake aftermath
1:12 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — T.O. team of emergency relief workers head to Haiti
1:23 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — Haiti earthquake: death toll may top 100,000
1:31 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — Donate
1:54 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — Canadians unable to text donations to Haiti
2:41 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — Doctors Without Borders Report Dire Need for Care in Haiti
6:07 pm EST, January 13th, 2010 — Elmira nurse confirmed killed in Haiti earthquake
Notes:
I’m following this situation very closely right now because I have a niece there who is working with a church group she is part of. Last mail message indicated that everyone is OK and they have set up a first aid centre to help the injured (she is not in Port Au Prince).
My thought is that we have to get MASH units on the ground (a lot of them) and the local airport is a priority to get aid in. That calls for a Combat Engineer Unit to repair the airport and get it functioning. That would be “thing one” and it’s likely already happening.
The US has also diverted a carrier group to the region. They will arrive in the morning and I would suspect hospital ships in the area are also enroute. We’ll see how it all goes but here’s my final thought.
Knowing what a mess the UN can make of any situation it encounters my view is that the world should keep that organization as far away from Haiti as they can. We need to get Haiti back on it’s feet and the very last thing the country needs is “Obi Wan Kenobi” interfering.
Canada able to ship relief supplies including our DART team using a Canadian Air Force modern and immensly capable C-17 instead of having to rent a Russian transport? Thankyou PMSH. Say what? PMSH has already made a decision to send assistance? It’s already on it’s way? Had the Liberals remained in power all we’d be able to send would be a universal daycare advisory team because that’s where the money used to purchased these aircraft would have gone instead. But they wouldn’t have even made that decision yet because they would first have to dispatch a reconnaissance team to check the situation out delaying our aid for weeks as PM Martin did back then….
Canada Finally Decides to Send Rapid Team to Asia
The Canadian government decided on Monday to dispatch its military rapid response team to Sri Lanka, but it will not arrive until about two weeks after the tsunami. … [Canadian Forces] have chartered two Antonov transport planes which will leave on Thursday night and arrive in Colombo on Saturday.
By the way, according to the Reuters story, the cost of the Antonovs, C$15 million to C$20 million, will come out of the C$80 million in tsunami aid that Martin had announced on Sunday.
Ability to make an informed decision and immediately act on it rates an A+. Again, thankyou PMSH.
As America pulls out all the stops to to rush to help those who cannot help themselves, it is evident that the more things change the more they stay the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_okAgAUGE
Time for Canada to do something useful and round up all the Haitian born doctors,nurses and healthcare workers in Montreal and Quebec City and ship them all back to Haiti and get them to contribute something to their compatriots in their time of need.
Actually Mr. g I am expecting somewhat of a different outcome. I expect to see a flood of refugees from haiti since we have a “special” relationship with that country. With a 100,000 strong community in Montreal I expect to soon see the liberals, the bloc and perhaps the ndp on the hunt for votes with a push to push open the doors further.
How does that go, give a man a fish and you feed him for a day etc. etc.
Did this migration anxiety exist when Italy was hit by an earthquake? Why or why not?
#5 – Cy — I don’t think anyone was worried about Italians as refugees. The difference between the two countries is that Haiti, even before the earthquake, was a garbage can of a country. You can hardly blame the inhabitants of such a place taking advantage of Canadian immigration and refugee laws. Italians, on the other hand, may enjoy a higher standard of living than we do, and generally the weather is better also!!!
Like Mr. g, I also expect that we will be hit by a wave of refugees. The government, eagerly courting the votes of the Haitian community in Montreal, will greet them with open arms.
A little OT but there it does not appear that the Hatians use rebar ( or very little) in their construction. builders shortcuting, or just not used there?
Political instability will come quick, authorities in Haiti will not be able to steal the usual percentage of aid flowing into the country since it’s going to come in fast, other groups that wish to exploit the poverty there will see that and start trouble.
7.ward Says:
A little OT but there it does not appear that the Hatians use rebar ( or very little) in their construction. builders shortcuting, or just not used there?
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I was going to comment on that earlier.
I didn’t see a stick of rebar in all ruble in the vids I saw.
We always give to NGO’s that send their own people in to provide relief. In this case it is through World Vision, they already have an established program in Haiti.
mid island mike
Rebar is expensive. Constructing buildings without it reminds me of that old Fram oil filter commerical. ‘You can pay me now (if you buy a cheaper product to save money) or you can pay me later. Haiti is apparently paying now, in spades.
More than likely we’d find that the Sally Ann was the first to have help set up, feeding people and getting cooking gear out to the people. If you want to make a donation, you can earmark it for Haiti. That’s what I did for Thailand. There’s a ton of charaties but only one Salvation Army!