2010 Haiti earthquake
Encyclopedia
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic
magnitude 7.0 Mw
earthquake
, with an epicentre
near the town of Léogâne
, approximately 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) west of Port-au-Prince
, Haiti's
capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.
By 24 January, at least 52 aftershock
s measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. International agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development
, have suggested that the death toll is much lower at somewhere between 46,000 and 92,000, and 220,000, with around 1.5 million to 1.8 million homeless. The government of Haiti also estimated that 250,000 residences
and 30,000 commercial building
s had collapsed or were severely damaged.
The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel
and other settlements in the region. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace
, the National Assembly
building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince
Joseph Serge Miot
, and opposition leader Micha Gaillard
. The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi
.
Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid
, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritisation of flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince's morgues were quickly overwhelmed with many tens of thousands of bodies having to be buried in mass grave
s. As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed. On 22 January the United Nations
noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors.
, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic
, is seismically
active and has a history of destructive earthquakes. During Haiti's time as a French colony, earthquakes were recorded by French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry
(1750–1819). He described damage done by an earthquake in 1751, writing that "only one masonry
building had not collapsed" in Port-au-Prince; he also wrote that the "whole city collapsed" in the 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake
. Cap-Haïtien
, other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the Sans-Souci Palace
were destroyed during an earthquake on 7 May 1842. A magnitude 8.0 earthquake
struck the Dominican Republic and shook Haiti on 4 August 1946, producing a tsunami
that killed 1,790 people and injured many others.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
, and is ranked 149th of 182 countries on the Human Development Index
. The Australian government's travel advisory site had previously expressed concerns that Haitian emergency services would be unable to cope in the event of a major disaster, and the country is considered "economically vulnerable" by the Food and Agriculture Organization
. It is no stranger to natural disasters; in addition to earthquakes, it has been struck frequently by tropical cyclone
s, which have caused flooding and widespread damage. The most recent cyclones to hit the island before the earthquake were Tropical Storm Fay
and Hurricanes Gustav
, Hanna
and Ike
, all in the summer of 2008, causing nearly 800 deaths.
7.0 Mw earthquake occurred inland, on 12 January 2010 at 16:53 (UTC-05:00), approximately 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) WSW from Port-au-Prince at a depth of 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) on blind thrust faults associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system
. There is no evidence of surface rupture and based on seismological, geological and ground deformation data it is thought that the earthquake did not involve significant lateral slip on the main Enriquillo fault. Strong shaking associated with intensity IX on the Modified Mercalli scale
(MM) was recorded in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs. It was also felt in several surrounding countries and regions, including Cuba (MM III in Guantánamo), Jamaica (MM II in Kingston
), Venezuela (MM II in Caracas
), Puerto Rico (MM II–III in San Juan
), and the bordering Dominican Republic (MM III in Santo Domingo). According to estimates from the USGS, approximately 3.5 million people lived in the area that experienced shaking intensity of MM VII to X, a range that can cause moderate to very heavy damage even to earthquake-resistant structures.
The damage from the quake was more severe than for other quakes of similar magnitude due to the shallow depth of the quake.
The quake occurred in the vicinity of the northern boundary where the Caribbean
tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 millimetre (0.78740157480315 in) per year in relation to the North American plate
. The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault
in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in the south; both its location and focal mechanism
suggested that the January 2010 quake was caused by a rupture of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which had been locked for 250 years, gathering stress. However, a study published in May 2010 suggested that the rupture process may have involved slip on multiple blind thrust faults with only minor, deep, lateral slip along or near the main Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone, suggesting that the event only partially relieved centuries of accumulated left-lateral strain on a small part of the plate-boundary system. The rupture was roughly 65 kilometres (40.4 mi) long with mean slip of 1.8 metres (5.9 ft). Preliminary analysis of the slip distribution found amplitudes of up to about 4 metres (13.1 ft) using ground motion records from all over the world.
A 2007 earthquake hazard study by C. DeMets and M. Wiggins-Grandison noted that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could be at the end of its seismic cycle and concluded that a worst-case forecast would involve a 7.2 Mw earthquake, similar in size to the 1692 Jamaica earthquake
. Paul Mann and a group including the 2006 study team presented a hazard assessment of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system to the 18th Caribbean Geologic Conference in March 2008, noting the large strain; the team recommended "high priority" historical geologic rupture studies, as the fault was fully locked and had recorded few earthquakes in the preceding 40 years. An article published in Haiti's Le Matin
newspaper in September 2008 cited comments by geologist Patrick Charles to the effect that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince.
(USGS) recorded eight aftershock
s in the two hours after the main earthquake, with magnitudes between 4.3 and 5.9. Within the first nine hours 32 aftershocks of magnitude 4.2 or greater were recorded, 12 of which measured magnitude 5.0 or greater, and on January 24 USGS reported that there had been 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater since the January 12 quake.
On 20 January at 06:03 local time (11:03 UTC) the strongest aftershock since the earthquake, measuring magnitude 5.9 Mw, struck Haiti. USGS reported its epicentre was about 56 kilometres (34.8 mi) WSW of Port-au-Prince, which would place it almost exactly under the coastal town of Petit-Goâve. A UN representative reported that the aftershock collapsed seven buildings in the town. According to staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross
, who had reached Petit-Goâve for the first time the day before the aftershock, the town was estimated to have lost 15% of its buildings, and was suffering the same shortages of supplies and medical care as the capital. Workers from the charity Save the Children
reported hearing "already weakened structures collapsing" in Port-au-Prince, but most sources reported no further significant damage to infrastructure in the city. Further casualties are thought to have been minimal since people had been sleeping in the open. There are concerns that the 12 January earthquake could be the beginning of a new long-term sequence: "the whole region is fearful"; historical accounts, although not precise, suggest that there has been a sequence of quakes progressing westwards along the fault, starting with an earthquake in the Dominican Republic in 1751.
issued a tsunami
warning immediately after the initial quake, but quickly cancelled it. Nearly two weeks later it was reported that the beach of the small fishing town of Petit Paradis was hit by a localised tsunami wave shortly after the earthquake, probably as a result of an underwater slide, and this was later confirmed by researchers. At least three people were swept out to sea by the wave and were reported dead. Witnesses told reporters that the sea first retreated and a "very big wave" followed rapidly, crashing ashore and sweeping boats and debris into the ocean.
necessary to respond to the disaster was severely damaged or destroyed. This included all hospitals in the capital; air, sea, and land transport facilities; and communication systems.
The quake affected the three Médecins Sans Frontières
(Doctors Without Borders) medical facilities around Port-au-Prince, causing one to collapse completely. A hospital in Pétionville
, a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince, also collapsed, as did the St. Michel District Hospital in the southern town of Jacmel
, which was the largest referral hospital in south-east Haiti.
The quake seriously damaged the control tower
at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport and the Port-au-Prince seaport
, which rendered the harbor unusable for immediate rescue operations. The Gonaïves
seaport, in the northern part of Haiti, remained operational.
Roads were blocked with road debris
or the surfaces broken. The main road linking Port-au-Prince with Jacmel
remained blocked ten days after the earthquake, hampering delivery of aid to Jacmel. When asked why the road had not been opened, Hazem el-Zein, head of the south-east division of the UN World Food Programme
said that "We ask the same questions to the people in charge...They promise rapid response. To be honest, I don't know why it hasn't been done. I can only think that their priority must be somewhere else."
There was considerable damage to communications infrastructure. The public telephone system
was not available, and two of Haiti's largest cellular telephone providers, Digicel
and Comcel Haiti
, both reported that their services had been affected by the earthquake. Fibre-optic connectivity
was also disrupted. According to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF),
Radio Lumière, which broadcasts out of Port-au-Prince and reaches 90% of Haiti, was initially knocked off the air, but it was able to resume broadcasting across most of its network within a week. According to RSF, some 20 of about 50 stations that were active in the capital region prior to the earthquake were back on air a week after the quake.
estimated that 250,000 residences
and 30,000 commercial building
s were severely damaged and needed to be demolished. The deputy mayor of Léogâne reported that 90% of the town's buildings had been destroyed. Many government and public buildings were damaged or destroyed including the Palace of Justice, the National Assembly
, the Supreme Court
and Port-au-Prince Cathedral. The National Palace
was severely damaged, though President
René Préval
and his wife Elisabeth Delatour Préval
escaped injury. The Prison Civile de Port-au-Prince was also destroyed, allowing around 4,000 inmates to escape.
Most of Port-au-Prince's municipal buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the City Hall, which was described by the Washington Post as, "a skeletal hulk of concrete
and stucco
, sagging grotesquely to the left." Port-au-Prince had no municipal petrol reserves and few city officials had working mobile phones before the earthquake, complicating communications and transportation.
Minister of Education Joel Jean-Pierre stated that the education system had "totally collapsed". About half the nation's schools and the three main universities in Port-au-Prince were affected. More than 1,300 schools and 50 health care facilities were destroyed.
The earthquake also destroyed a nursing school in the capital and severely damaged the country’s primary midwifery
school. The Haitian art world
suffered great losses; artworks were destroyed, and museums and art galleries were extensively damaged, among them Port-au-Prince's main art museum, Centre d'Art, College Saint Pierre and Holy Trinity Cathedral
.
The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
(MINUSTAH) at Christopher Hotel
and offices of the World Bank
were destroyed. The building housing the offices of Citibank
in Port-au-Prince collapsed, killing five employees. The clothing industry, which accounts for two-thirds of Haiti's exports, reported structural damage at manufacturing facilities.
The quake created a landslide dam
on the Rivière de Grand Goâve
. the water level was low, but engineer Yves Gattereau believed the dam could collapse during the rainy season, which would flood Grand-Goâve 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) downstream.
s either because their houses had been destroyed, or they feared standing structures would not withstand aftershocks. Construction standards are low in Haiti; the country has no building codes. Engineers have stated that it is unlikely many buildings would have stood through any kind of disaster. Structures are often raised wherever they can fit; some buildings were built on slopes with insufficient foundations or steel works. A representative of Catholic Relief Services
has estimated that about two million Haitians lived as squatters on land they did not own. The country also suffered from shortages of fuel and potable water even before the disaster.
President Préval and government ministers used police headquarters near the Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport as their new base of operations, although their effectiveness was extremely limited; several parliamentarians were still trapped in the Presidential Palace, and offices and records had been destroyed. Some high-ranking government workers lost family members, or had to tend to wounded relatives. Although the president and his remaining cabinet met with UN planners each day, there remained confusion as to who was in charge and no single group had organized relief efforts as of 16 January. The government handed over control of the airport to the United States to hasten and ease flight operations, which had been hampered by the damage to the air traffic control tower.
Almost immediately Port-au-Prince's morgue
facilities were overwhelmed. By 14 January, a thousand bodies had been placed on the streets and pavements. Government crews manned trucks to collect thousands more, burying them in mass graves. In the heat and humidity, corpses buried in rubble began to decompose and smell. Mati Goldstein, head of the Israeli ZAKA
International Rescue Unit delegation to Haiti, described the situation as "Shabbat
from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust – thousands of bodies everywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension."
Mayor Jean-Yves Jason said that officials argued for hours about what to do with the volume of corpses. The government buried many in mass graves, some above-ground tombs were forced open so bodies could be stacked inside, and others were burned. Mass graves were dug in a large field outside the settlement of Titanyen
, north of the capital; tens of thousands of bodies were reported as having been brought to the site by dump truck
and buried in trenches dug by earth mover
s. Max Beauvoir
, a Vodou priest, protested the lack of dignity in mass burials, stating, "... it is not in our culture to bury people in such a fashion, it is desecration".
Towns in the eastern Dominican Republic began preparing for tens of thousands of refugees, and by 16 January hospitals close to the border had been filled to capacity with Haitians. Some began reporting having expended stocks of critical medical supplies such as antibiotics by 17 January. The border was reinforced by Dominican soldiers, and the government of the Dominican Republic asserted that all Haitians who crossed the border for medical assistance would be allowed to stay only temporarily. A local governor stated, "We have a great desire and we will do everything humanly possible to help Haitian families. But we have our limitations with respect to food and medicine. We need the helping hand of other countries in the area."
Slow distribution of resources in the days after the earthquake resulted in sporadic violence, with looting
reported. There were also accounts of looters wounded or killed by vigilantes and neighbourhoods that had constructed their own roadblock barricades. Dr Evan Lyon of Partners in Health
, working at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, claimed that misinformation and overblown reports of violence had hampered the delivery of aid and medical services.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton
acknowledged the problems and said Americans should "not be deterred from supporting the relief effort" by upsetting scenes such as those of looting. Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command, however, announced that despite the stories of looting and violence, there was less violent crime in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake than before.
In many neighbourhoods, singing could be heard through the night and groups of men coordinated to act as security as groups of women attempted to take care of food and hygiene necessities. During the days following the earthquake, hundreds were seen marching through the streets in peaceful processions, singing and clapping.
The earthquake caused an urgent need for outside rescuers to communicate with Haitians whose main or only language is Haitian Creole. As a result, a machine translation
program to translate between English and Haitian Creole had to be written quickly.
Haitian authorities initially estimated that 300,000 had been injured and as many as one million Haitians were left homeless. However experts have questioned the validity of these numbers; Anthony Penna, professor emeritus in environmental history
at Northeastern University, warned that casualty estimates could only be a "guesstimate
", and Belgian disaster response expert Claude de Ville de Goyet noted that "round number
s are a sure sign that nobody knows." Edmond Mulet
, UN Assistant Secretary-General
for Peacekeeping Operations, said, "I do not think we will ever know what the death toll is from this earthquake", while the director of the Haitian Red Cross, Guiteau Jean-Pierre, noted that his organization had not had the time to count bodies, as their focus had been on the treatment of survivors. The United States Agency for International Development
concluded that the death toll was somewhere between 46,000 and 85,000.
While the vast majority of casualties were Haitian civilians, the dead included aid workers, embassy staff, foreign tourists—and a number of public figures, includeding Archbishop of Port-au-Prince
Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot
, aid worker Zilda Arns
and officials in the Haitian government, including opposition leader Michel "Micha" Gaillard
. Also killed were a number of well-known Haitian musicians
and sports figures, including thirty members of the Fédération Haïtienne de Football
. At least 85 United Nations personnel working with MINUSTAH were killed, among them the Mission Chief, Hédi Annabi
, his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa
., and police commissioner Douglas Coates. Around 200 guests were killed in the collapse of the Hôtel Montana
in Port-au-Prince.
were issued by many aid organizations, the United Nations and president René Préval. Raymond Joseph
, Haiti's ambassador
to the United States, and his nephew, singer Wyclef Jean
, who was called upon by Préval to become a "roving ambassador" for Haiti, also pleaded for aid and donations.
Many countries responded to the appeals and launched fund-raising efforts, as well as sending search and rescue teams. The neighbouring Dominican Republic
was the first country to give aid to Haiti, sending water, food and heavy-lifting machinery. The hospitals in the Dominican Republic were made available; a combined effort of the Airports Department (DA), together with the Dominican Naval Auxiliaries, the UN and other parties formed the Dominican-Haitian Aerial Support Bridge, making the main Dominican airports available for support operations to Haiti. The Dominican website FlyDominicanRepublic.com made available to the internet, daily updates on airport information and news from the operations center on the Dominican side. The Dominican emergency team assisted more than 2,000 injured people, while the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel) helped with the restoration of some telephone services. The Dominican Red Cross coordinated early medical relief in conjunction with the International Red Cross. The government sent eight mobile medical units along with 36 doctors including orthopaedic specialists, traumatologists, anaesthetists, and surgeons. In addition, 39 trucks carrying canned food were dispatched, along with 10 mobile kitchens and 110 cooks capable of producing 100,000 meals per day.
Other nations from farther afield also sent personnel, medicines, materiel
, and other aid to Haiti. The first team to arrive in Port-au-Prince was ICE-SAR
from Iceland
, landing within 24 hours of the earthquake. A 50-member Chinese
team arrived early Thursday morning. From the Middle East, the government of Qatar
sent a strategic transport aircraft (C-17), loaded with 50 tonnes of urgent relief materials and 26 members from the Qatari armed forces, the internal security force (Lekhwiya), police force and the Hamad Medical Corporation, to set up a field hospital and provide assistance in Port-au-Prince and other affected areas in Haiti. A rescue team sent by the Israel Defense Forces
' Home Front Command established a field hospital near the United Nations building in Port-au-Prince with specialised facilities to treat children, the elderly, and women in labor. It was set up in eight hours and began operations on the evening of 16 January. A Korean International Disaster Relief Team with 40 rescuers, medical doctors, nurses and 2 k-9s was deployed to epicenters to assist mitigation efforts of Haitian Government. The team was required to stay 2 weeks at the sites.
The American Red Cross
announced on 13 January that it had run out of supplies in Haiti and appealed for public donations. Giving Children Hope
worked to get much-needed medicines and supplies on the ground. Partners in Health
(PIH), the largest health care provider in rural Haiti was able to provide some emergency care from its ten hospitals and clinics all of which were outside the capital and undamaged. MINUSTAH had over 9,000 uniformed peacekeepers deployed to the area. Most of these workers were initially involved in the search for survivors at the organization's collapsed headquarters.
The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters
was activated, allowing satellite imagery of affected regions to be shared with rescue and aid organizations. Members of social networking sites such as Twitter
and Facebook
spread messages and pleas to send help. Facebook was overwhelmed by—and blocked—some users who were sending messages about updates. The American Red Cross set a record for mobile donations, raising US$7 million in 24 hours when they allowed people to send US$10 donations by text messages. The OpenStreetMap
community responded to the disaster by greatly improving the level of mapping available for the area using post-earthquake satellite photography provided by GeoEye
, and tracking website Ushahidi
coordinated messages from multiple sites to assist Haitians still trapped and to keep families of survivors informed. Some online poker
sites hosted poker tournaments with tournament fees, prizes or both going to disaster relief charities.
Google Earth
updated its coverage of Port-au-Prince on 17 January, showing the earthquake-ravaged city.
Easing refugee immigration into Canada was discussed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
, and in the U.S. Haitians were granted Temporary Protected Status
, a measure that permits about 100,000 illegal alien Haitians in the United States to stay legally for 18 months, and halts the deportations of 30,000 more, though it does not apply to Haitians outside the U.S. Local and state agencies in South Florida, together with the U.S. government, began implementing a plan ("Operation Vigilant Sentry") for a mass migration from the Caribbean that had been laid out in 2003.
Several orphanages were destroyed in the earthquake. After the process for the adoption of 400 children by families in the U.S. and the Netherlands was expedited, Unicef and SOS Children urged an immediate halt to adoptions from Haiti. Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children
said: "The vast majority of the children currently on their own still have family members alive who will be desperate to be reunited with them and will be able to care for them with the right support. Taking children out of the country would permanently separate thousands of children from their families—a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery." However, several organizations were planning an airlift of thousands of orphaned children to South Florida on humanitarian visas, modelled on a similar effort with Cuban refugees in the 1960s named "Pedro Pan
". The Canadian government worked to expedite around 100 adoption cases that were already underway when the earthquake struck, issuing temporary permits and waving regular processing fees; the federal government also announced that it would cover adopted children's healthcare costs upon their arrival in Canada until they could be covered under provincially-administered public healthcare plans.
, which had been serving MINUSTAH, was the only one available until 13 January. Rescue work intensified only slightly with the arrival of doctors, police officers, military personnel and firefighters from various countries two days after the earthquake.
From 12 January, the International Committee of the Red Cross
, which has been working in Haiti since 1994, has been focusing on bringing emergency assistance to victims of the catastrophe, in close cooperation with its partners within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, particularly the Haitian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Médecins Sans Frontières
(Doctors Without Borders; MSF) reported that the hospitals that had not been destroyed were overwhelmed by large numbers of seriously injured people, and that they had to carry out many amputations. Running short of medical supplies, some teams had to work with any available resources, constructing splints out of cardboard and reusing latex gloves. Other rescue units had to withdraw as night fell amid security fears. Over 3,000 people had been treated by Médecins Sans Frontières as of 18 January. Ophelia Dahl, director of Partners in Health
, reported, "there are hundreds of thousands of injured people. I have heard the estimate that as many as 20,000 people will die each day that would have been saved by surgery."
An MSF aircraft carrying a field hospital was repeatedly turned away by U.S. air traffic controllers who had assumed control at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport. Four other MSF aircraft were also turned away. In a 19 January press release MSF said, "It is like working in a war situation. We don’t have any more morphine to manage pain for our patients. We cannot accept that planes carrying lifesaving medical supplies and equipment continue to be turned away while our patients die. Priority must be given to medical supplies entering the country." First responders voiced frustration with the number of relief trucks sitting unused at the airport. Aid workers blamed U.S.-controlled airport operations for prioritising the transportation of security troops over rescuers and supplies; evacuation policies favouring citizens of certain nations were also criticised.
The U.S. military acknowledged the non-governmental organizations' complaints concerning flight-operations bias and promised improvement while noting that up to 17 January 600 emergency flights had landed and 50 were diverted; by the first weekend of disaster operations diversions had been reduced to three on Saturday and two on Sunday. The airport was able to support 100 landings a day, up from the 35 a day that the airport gets during normal operation. A spokesman for the joint task force running the airport confirmed that though more flights were requesting landing slots, none were being turned away.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim
and French Minister of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet
criticised the perceived preferential treatment for U.S. aid arriving at the airport, though a spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that there had been no official protest from the French government with regard to the management of the airport.
U.S. officials acknowledged that coordination of the relief effort is central to Haitian recovery, and President Préval asked for calm coordination between assisting nations without mutual accusations.
While the Port-au-Prince airport ramp has spaces for over a dozen airliners, in the days following the quake it sometimes served nearly 40 at once, creating serious delays. The supply backup at the airport was expected to ease as the apron management improved, and when the perceived need for heavy security diminished. Airport congestion was reduced further on 18 January when the United Nations and U.S. forces formally agreed to prioritise humanitarian flights over security reinforcement.
By 14 January, over 20 countries had sent military personnel to the country, with Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republic providing the largest contingents. The supercarrier
arrived at maximum possible speed
on 15 January with 600,000 emergency food rations, 100,000 ten-litre water containers, and an enhanced wing of 19 helicopters; 130,000 litres of drinking water
were transferred to shore on the first day.
The helicopter carrier sailed with three large dock landing ship
s and two survey/salvage vessels, to create a "sea base" for the rescue effort. They were joined by the French Navy
vessel Francis Garnier
on 16 January, the same day the hospital ship and guided-missile cruiser left for Haiti. Another large French vessel was later ordered to Haiti, the amphibious transport dock
Siroco
.
International rescue efforts were restricted by traffic congestion and blocked roads. Although U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had previously ruled out dropping food and water by air as too dangerous, by 16 January, U.S. helicopters were distributing aid to areas impossible to reach by land.
In Jacmel, a city of 50,000, the mayor claimed that 70% of the homes had been damaged and that the quake had killed 300 to 500 people and left some 4,000 injured. The small airstrip suffered damage that rendered it unusable for supply flights until 20 January. The Canadian navy vessel HMCS Halifax
was deployed to the area on 18 January; the Canadians joined Colombian rescue workers, Chilean doctors, a French mobile clinic, and Sri Lankan relief workers who had already responded to calls for aid.
About 64,000 people living in the three adjacent agricultural communities of Durissy
, Morne a Chandelle
, and Les Palmes
were relatively unharmed because most of the people were working in the fields; but all churches, chapels and at least 8,000 homes were destroyed.
British search and rescue teams were the first to arrive in Léogane, the town at the epicentre of the quake, on 17 January. The Canadian ship HMCS Athabaskan
reached the area on 19 January, and by 20 January there were 250-300 Canadian personnel assisting relief efforts in the town. By 19 January, staff of the International Red Cross had also managed to reach the town, which they described as "severely damaged ... the people there urgently need assistance", and by 20 January they had reached Petit-Goâve as well, where they set up two first-aid posts and distributed first-aid kits.
Over the first weekend 130,000 food packets and 70,000 water containers were distributed to Haitians, as safe landing areas and distribution centres such as golf courses were secured. There were nearly 2,000 rescuers present from 43 different groups, with 161 search dogs
; the airport had handled 250 tons of relief supplies by the end of the weekend. Reports from Sunday showed a record-breaking number of successful rescues, with at least 12 survivors pulled from Port-au-Prince's rubble, bringing the total number of rescues to 110.
The buoy tender USCG Oak
and were on scene by 18 January to assess damage to the port and work to reopen it, and by 21 January one pier at the Port-au-Prince seaport was functional, offloading humanitarian aid, and a road had been repaired to make transport into the city easier. In an interview on 21 January, Leo Merores, Haiti’s ambassador to the UN, said that he expected the port to be fully functional again within two weeks.
The U.S. Navy listed its resources
in the area as "17 ships, 48 helicopters and 12 fixed-wing aircraft" in addition to 10,000 sailors and Marines. The Navy had conducted 336 air deliveries, delivered 32400 gallons (122,647.3 l) of water, 532,440 bottles of water, 111,082 meals and 9000 lb (4,082.3 kg) of medical supplies by 20 January. Hospital ship Comfort began operations on 20 January, completing the arrival of the first group of sea-base vessels; this came as a new flotilla of USN ships were assigned to Haiti, including survey vessels, ferries, elements of the maritime prepositioning
and underway replenishment
fleets, and a further three amphibious operations ships, including another helicopter carrier, .
On 22 January the UN and United States formalised the coordination of relief efforts by signing an agreement giving the U.S. responsibility for the ports, airports and roads, and making the UN and Haitian authorities responsible for law and order. The UN stated that it had resisted formalising the organization of the relief effort to allow as much leeway as possible for those wishing to assist in the relief effort, but with the new agreement "we’re leaving that emergency phase behind". The UN also urged organizations to coordinate aid efforts through its mission in Haiti to allow for better scheduling of the arrival of supplies. On 23 January the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors, and most search and rescue teams began to prepare to leave the country. However, as late as 8 February 2010, survivors were still being discovered, as in the case of Evan Muncie, 28, found in the rubble of a grocery store.
On 5 February, ten Baptist
missionaries from Idaho
led by Laura Silsby were charged with criminal association
and kidnapping
for trying to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti. The missionaries claimed they were rescuing orphaned children but investigations revealed that more than 20 of the children had been taken from their parents after they were told the children would have a better life in America. In an interview, the United States Ambassador to Haiti
Kenneth Merten, stated that the U.S. justice system would not interfere and that "the Haitian justice system will do what it has to do." By 9 March 2010, all but Silsby were deported and she remained incarcerated.
Social networking is being (was) used to help the structure for coordination on the ground.
On 10 April, due to the potential threat of mudslides and flooding from the upcoming rainy season
, the Haitian government began operations to move thousands of refugees to a more secure location north of the capital.
announced that former presidents Bill Clinton
, who also acts as the UN special envoy to Haiti, and George W. Bush
would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Haiti on 16 January to survey the damage and stated that US$48 million had been raised already in the U.S. to help Haiti recover. Following the meeting with Secretary Clinton, President Préval stated that the highest priorities in Haiti's recovery were establishing a working government, clearing roads, and ensuring the streets were cleared of bodies to improve sanitary conditions.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
stated on 16 January that President Obama "does not view this as a humanitarian mission with a life cycle of a month. This will still be on our radar screen long after it's off the crawler at CNN. This is going to be a long slog."
Trade and Industry Minister Josseline Colimon Fethiere estimated that the earthquake's toll on the Haitian economy would be massive, with one in five jobs lost. In response to the earthquake, foreign governments offered badly needed financial aid. The European Union promised €330 million for emergency and long-term aid. Brazil announced R$375 million for long-term recovery aid, R$25 million of which in immediate funds. The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander
called the result of the earthquake an "almost unprecedented level of devastation", and committed the UK to ₤20 million in aid, while France promised €10 million. Italy announced it would waive repayment of the €40 million it had loaned to Haiti, and the World Bank waived the country's debt repayments for five years. On 14 January, the U.S. government announced it would give US$100 million to the aid effort and pledged that the people of Haiti "will not be forgotten".
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the government of Canada
announced that it would match the donations of Canadians up to a total of C$50 million. After a United Nations call for help for the people affected by the earthquake, Canada pledged an additional C$60 million in aid on 19 January 2010, bringing Canada's total contribution to C$135 million. By 8 February 2010, the federal International Co-operation Department, through the Canadian International Development Agency
(CIDA), had already provided about C$85 million in humanitarian aid through UN agencies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
and to organizations such as CARE, Médecins du Monde, Save the Children
, Oxfam Quebec, the Centre for International Studies and Co-operation, and World Vision
. On 23 January 2010, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
announced that the federal government had lifted the limit on the amount of money allocated for matching individual donations to relief efforts, and that the federal government would continue to match individual donations until 12 February 2010; by the deadline, Canadians had privately raised C$220 million. On top of matching donations, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda
pledged an additional C$290 million in long-term relief to be spent between 2010 and 2012, including C$8 million in debt relief to Haiti, part of a broader cancellation of the country's overall World Bank debt. The government's commitment to provide C$550 million in aid and debt relief and Canadians' individual donations amount to a total of CAD$770 million.
In addition to Canada's federal government, the governments of several of the provinces and territories of Canada
also announced that they would provide immediate emergency aid to Haiti. On 18 January 2010, the province of Quebec
, whose largest city - Montreal
- houses the world's largest Haitian diaspora, pledged C$3 million in emergency aid. Both the provincial government of Quebec and the Canadian federal government reaffirmed their commitment to rebuilding Haiti at the 2010 Francophonie Summit; Prime Minister Harper used his opening speech to "tell the head of the Haitian delegation to keep up their spirits" and to urge other nations to continue to support recovery efforts.
President Abdoulaye Wade
of Senegal
offered interested Haitians free land in Senegal; depending on how many respond to the offer, this could include up to an entire region.
Prime Minister Bellerive announced that from 20 January, people would be helped to relocate outside the zone of devastation, to areas where they may be able to rely on relatives or better fend for themselves; people who have been made homeless would be relocated to the makeshift camps created by residents within the city, where a more focused delivery of aid and sanitation could be achieved. Port-au-Prince, according to an international studies professor at the University of Miami
, was ill-equipped before the disaster to sustain the number of people who had migrated there from the countryside over the past ten years to find work. After the earthquake, thousands of Port-au-Prince residents began returning to the rural towns they came from.
On 25 January a one-day conference was held in Montreal
to assess the relief effort and discuss further plans. Prime Minister Bellerive told delegates from 20 countries that Haiti would need "massive support" for its recovery from the international community. A donors' conference was expected to be held at the UN headquarters in New York
in March, however, took more than three months to hold the UN conference. The 26-member international Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, headed by Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, convened in June 2010. That committee is overseeing the $5.3 billion pledged internationally for the first two years of Haiti's reconstruction.
The Netherlands sponsored a project, called Radio555. The Dutch radio channels 3FM
, Radio 538
and Radio Veronica
all broadcast under the name of Radio555, funded by a contribution of €80 million.
Several organizations of the U.S. building industry and government, such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the International Code Council
, among others, are compiling a "Haiti Toolkit" coordinated by the National Institute of Building Sciences
. The toolkit would comprise building technology resources and best practices for consideration by the Haitian government with the goal of creating a more resilient infrastructure to prevent future losses of life.
Immediately following the earthquake, Real Medicine Foundation
began providing medical staffing, in-kind medical supplies and strategic coordination to help meet the surging needs of the health crisis on the ground. Working in close partnership with other relief organizations, Real Medicine organized deployments of volunteer medical specialists to meet the needs of partner hospitals and clinics at the Haiti–Dominican Republic border and in Port-au-Prince, provided direct funding, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to local health facilities and partner hospitals, provided advisory services and coordination to local health facilities, including physical therapy support, and coordinated mobile health outreaches, field clinics and food supplies to outlying villages overlooked in the relief effort.
On 15 January 2011, the Catholic Relief Services
announced a US$200 million (€195 million), five-year relief and reconstruction program that covers shelter, health, livelihoods, and child protection among its program areas.
report, $3.1 billion had been pledged for humanitarian aid and was used to pay for field hospitals, plastic tarps, bandages, and food, plus salaries, transportation and upkeep of relief workers. By May 2010, enough aid had been raised internationally to give each displaced family a cheque for $37,000.
In July 2010, CNN
returned to Port-au-Prince and reported, "It looks like the quake just happened yesterday", and Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the United Nations office of humanitarian affairs in Haiti, said that six months from that time it may still look the same. The Haitian government said it was unable to tackle debris clean-up or the resettlement of the homeless because it must prepare for the hurricane season. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated, "The real priority of the government is to protect the population from the next hurricane season, and most of our effort right now is going right now in that direction."
Speaking of the difficulties of living in one of the many camps, one refugee told a reporter, "They told us when we were coming here, that we would live well. But what we saw when we got here and the way we lived here, it's the contrary. The place where we are here when it's hot, the sun makes the tents hot, very hot. And also the wind comes and blows the tents and wrecks them". When asked what needs to happen now, he replied, "...In the situation we're living here in the tents, we can't continue like that anymore. We would ask them as soon as possible to give us the real houses that they said they were going to give us so that our situation could improve. Because the tents are torn, when it rains, rain comes in. We have very exemplary or a very indicative block, Block 6. It's a zone which is completely unpassable when it rains".
Land ownership is a particular problem for rebuilding because so many pre-quake homes were not officially registered. "Even before the national registry fell under the rubble, land tenure was always a complex and contentious issue in Haiti. Many areas of Port-au-Prince were settled either by tonton makout
– Duvalier's death squads - given land for their service or by squatters. In many cases land ownership was never officially registered. Even if this logistical logjam were to be cleared, the vast majority of Port-au-Prince residents, up to 85%, did not own their homes before the earthquake."
In September 2010 there were over one million refugees still living in tents, and the humanitarian situation was characterized as still being in the emergency phase, according to the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Archbishop
Bernard Auza. He went on to say that the number was rising instead of diminishing, and reported that the state had decided to first rebuild downtown Port-au-Prince and a new government center, but reconstruction had not yet begun.
In October 2010, Refugees International
criticised the aid agencies for being "dysfunctional" and "inexperienced". "The people of Haiti are still living in a state of emergency, with a humanitarian response that appears paralysed. Gang leaders or land owners are intimidating the displaced. Sexual, domestic, and gang violence in and around the camps is rising. Action is urgently needed to protect the basic human rights of people displaced by the earthquake." They claimed that rape of Haitian women and girls who have been living in camps since the January earthquake is increasing, in part, because the United Nations
isn’t doing enough to protect them. In October, a cholera epidemic broke out, probably introduced by foreign aid workers. Cholera most often affects poor countries with limited access to clean water and proper sanitation. By the end of 2010, more than 3,333 had died at a rate of about 50 deaths a day.
A few days before the first anniversary of the quake, Oxfam
published a report on the status of the recovery. According to the report, relief and recovery are at a standstill due to government inaction and indecision on the part of the donor countries. The report states, "One year on, only five percent of the rubble has been cleared and only 15 percent of the required basic and temporary houses have been built. House building on a large scale cannot be started before the enormous amount of rubble is cleared. The government and donors must prioritize this most basic step toward helping people return home". Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada, said "The dysfunction has been aided unabated by the way the international community has organized itself, where pledges have been made and they haven't followed through [and] where they come to the table with their own agendas and own priorities. Most donors provided funds for transitional housing but very little money for clearing rubble or repairing houses". Fox states that in many instances rubble removal "means it was [moved] off someone's property onto the road in front of the property".
According to a UNICEF report, "Still today more than one million people remain displaced, living in crowded camps where livelihoods, shelter and services are still hardly sufficient for
children to stay healthy". The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was set up in April 2010 and led by former US President Bill Clinton
and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive
to facilitate the flow of funds toward reconstruction projects and to help Haitian ministries with implementation. As of January 2011 no major reconstruction had started. Amnesty International
reported that armed men prey with impunity on girls and women in displacement camps, worsening the trauma of having lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.
On the first anniversary of the earthquake, Haitian-born Michaëlle Jean
, who served as the Governor General of Canada
at the time of the disaster and who became United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Special Envoy for Haiti on 8 November 2010, voiced her anger at the slow rate of aid delivery, placing much of the blame on the international community for abandoning its commitments. In a public letter co-authored with UNESCO head Irina Bokova
, Jean said, "As time passes, what began as a natural disaster is becoming a disgraceful reflection on the international community."
Richard Garfield, a professor of public health at Columbia University
, and researchers from the Center for Disaster Medicine at Karolinska Institutet
in Sweden also dispute the Haitian government's figures. Said Garfield in accusing global aid groups of inflating death tolls to boost donor interest, "Bigger numbers mean some greater potential fundraising ability. The mentality is if everybody else is inflating their numbers, we can't be left out."
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
magnitude 7.0 Mw
Moment magnitude scale
The moment magnitude scale is used by seismologists to measure the size of earthquakes in terms of the energy released. The magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the rigidity of the Earth multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of...
earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
, with an epicentre
Epicenter
The epicenter or epicentre is the point on the Earth's surface that is directly above the hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or underground explosion originates...
near the town of Léogâne
Léogane
Léogâne is a seaside town in Ouest Department, Haïti. It is located in the eponymous arrondissement, the Léogâne Arrondissement. The port town is located about West of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The town was at the epicenter of the 12 January 2010 earthquake, and was catastrophically...
, approximately 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) west of Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince
Port-au-Prince is the capital and largest city of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The city's population was 704,776 as of the 2003 census, and was officially estimated to have reached 897,859 in 2009....
, Haiti's
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.
By 24 January, at least 52 aftershock
Aftershock
An aftershock is a smaller earthquake that occurs after a previous large earthquake, in the same area of the main shock. If an aftershock is larger than the main shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock and the original main shock is redesignated as a foreshock...
s measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. An estimated three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian government reported that an estimated 316,000 people had died, 300,000 had been injured and 1,000,000 made homeless. International agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development
United States Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas...
, have suggested that the death toll is much lower at somewhere between 46,000 and 92,000, and 220,000, with around 1.5 million to 1.8 million homeless. The government of Haiti also estimated that 250,000 residences
Residential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
and 30,000 commercial building
Commercial building
A commercial building is a building that is used for commercial use. Types can include office buildings, warehouses, or retail . In urban locations, a commercial building often combines functions, such as an office on levels 2-10, with retail on floor 1...
s had collapsed or were severely damaged.
The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel
Jacmel
Jacmel, also known by its indigenous Taíno name of Yaquimel, is a town in southern Haiti founded in 1698. It is the capital of the department of Sud-Est and has an estimated population of 40,000, while the municipality of Jacmel had a population of 137,966 at the 2003 Census.The buildings are...
and other settlements in the region. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace
National Palace (Haiti)
The National Palace is located in Port-au-Prince—facing Place L'Ouverture near the Champs de Mars—and is the official residence of the Haitian president. It was almost completely destroyed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake...
, the National Assembly
National Assembly of Haïti
The Parliament of Haiti is the legislature of the Republic of Haiti. It sits at the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The Parliament is bicameral, the upper house being the Senate of Haiti and the lower house being the Chamber of Deputies of Haiti....
building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were Archbishop of Port-au-Prince
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince is a metropolitan diocese, responsible for the suffragan Dioceses of Jacmel, Jérémie, Anse-à-Veau and Miragoâne and Les Cayes....
Joseph Serge Miot
Joseph Serge Miot
Joseph Serge Miot was a Haitian archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the ninth Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, serving from 2008 until his death as a result of the January 12, 2010 earthquake.-Biography:...
, and opposition leader Micha Gaillard
Micha Gaillard
Michel "Micha" Gaillard was a Haitian politician and university professor. He was a major voice of opposition against the 2004 rebellion which ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 2005, he helped found the Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats political party...
. The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission In Haiti , also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of the French translation, is a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti that has been in operation since 2004. The mission's military component is led by the Brazilian Army and the force commander is...
(MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi
Hédi Annabi
Hédi Annabi was a Tunisian diplomat and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti...
.
Many countries responded to appeals for humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. Communication systems, air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks had been damaged by the earthquake, which hampered rescue and aid efforts; confusion over who was in charge, air traffic congestion, and problems with prioritisation of flights further complicated early relief work. Port-au-Prince's morgues were quickly overwhelmed with many tens of thousands of bodies having to be buried in mass grave
Mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...
s. As rescues tailed off, supplies, medical care and sanitation became priorities. Delays in aid distribution led to angry appeals from aid workers and survivors, and looting and sporadic violence were observed. On 22 January the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
noted that the emergency phase of the relief operation was drawing to a close, and on the following day the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors.
Background
The island of HispaniolaHispaniola
Hispaniola is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt...
, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, is seismically
Seismology
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. The field also includes studies of earthquake effects, such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, oceanic,...
active and has a history of destructive earthquakes. During Haiti's time as a French colony, earthquakes were recorded by French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry
Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery
Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry was a French historian and lawyer. He was born at Fort de France and came to Paris when he was 19. He became an attorney at the parliament of Paris.- Bibliography :...
(1750–1819). He described damage done by an earthquake in 1751, writing that "only one masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
building had not collapsed" in Port-au-Prince; he also wrote that the "whole city collapsed" in the 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake
1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake
The 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake took place at 7:15 pm on June 3, 1770, on the Enriquillo fault near Port-au-Prince, Saint-Domingue, the French colony that is now the country of Haiti....
. Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien
Cap-Haïtien is a city of about 190,000 people on the north coast of Haiti and capital of the Department of Nord...
, other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and the Sans-Souci Palace
Sans-Souci Palace
The Sans-Souci Palace was the royal residence of King Henri I of Haiti, Queen Marie-Louise and their two daughters. It was the most important of nine palaces built by the king, as well as fifteen châteaux, numerous forts, and sprawling summer homes on his twenty plantations. Construction of the...
were destroyed during an earthquake on 7 May 1842. A magnitude 8.0 earthquake
1946 Dominican Republic earthquake
The 1946 Dominican Republic earthquake refers to the earthquake of magnitude 8.0 that hit Samaná, Dominican Republic on August 4, 1946 at 17:51 UTC. An aftershock occurred four days later on August 8 at 13.28 UTC with a magnitude of 7.6....
struck the Dominican Republic and shook Haiti on 4 August 1946, producing a tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
that killed 1,790 people and injured many others.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
, and is ranked 149th of 182 countries on the Human Development Index
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...
. The Australian government's travel advisory site had previously expressed concerns that Haitian emergency services would be unable to cope in the event of a major disaster, and the country is considered "economically vulnerable" by the Food and Agriculture Organization
Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is a specialised agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and...
. It is no stranger to natural disasters; in addition to earthquakes, it has been struck frequently by tropical cyclone
Tropical cyclone
A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones strengthen when water evaporated from the ocean is released as the saturated air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor...
s, which have caused flooding and widespread damage. The most recent cyclones to hit the island before the earthquake were Tropical Storm Fay
Tropical Storm Fay (2008)
Tropical Storm Fay was a tropical storm and the sixth named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. Fay formed from a vigorous tropical wave on August 15 over the Dominican Republic...
and Hurricanes Gustav
Hurricane Gustav
The name Gustav has been used for five tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean:* 1984's Tropical Storm Gustav - Spent most of its existence as a tropical depression hovering over Bermuda, no major damage was reported....
, Hanna
Hurricane Hanna (2008)
Hurricane Hanna was the deadliest storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm was the eighth tropical cyclone and fourth hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands on August 28...
and Ike
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike was the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, the costliest hurricane ever to impact Cuba and the second most active hurricane to reach the Canadian mainland in the Great Lakes Region after Hurricane Hazel in 1954...
, all in the summer of 2008, causing nearly 800 deaths.
Geology
The magnitudeMoment magnitude scale
The moment magnitude scale is used by seismologists to measure the size of earthquakes in terms of the energy released. The magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the rigidity of the Earth multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of...
7.0 Mw earthquake occurred inland, on 12 January 2010 at 16:53 (UTC-05:00), approximately 25 kilometres (15.5 mi) WSW from Port-au-Prince at a depth of 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) on blind thrust faults associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system
Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone
The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone is a system of coaxial left lateral-moving strike slip faults which runs along the southern side of the island of Hispaniola, where the Dominican Republic and Haiti are located...
. There is no evidence of surface rupture and based on seismological, geological and ground deformation data it is thought that the earthquake did not involve significant lateral slip on the main Enriquillo fault. Strong shaking associated with intensity IX on the Modified Mercalli scale
Mercalli intensity scale
The Mercalli intensity scale is a seismic scale used for measuring the intensity of an earthquake. It measures the effects of an earthquake, and is distinct from the moment magnitude M_w usually reported for an earthquake , which is a measure of the energy released...
(MM) was recorded in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs. It was also felt in several surrounding countries and regions, including Cuba (MM III in Guantánamo), Jamaica (MM II in Kingston
Kingston, Jamaica
Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...
), Venezuela (MM II in Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
), Puerto Rico (MM II–III in San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
San Juan , officially Municipio de la Ciudad Capital San Juan Bautista , is the capital and most populous municipality in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 395,326 making it the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of...
), and the bordering Dominican Republic (MM III in Santo Domingo). According to estimates from the USGS, approximately 3.5 million people lived in the area that experienced shaking intensity of MM VII to X, a range that can cause moderate to very heavy damage even to earthquake-resistant structures.
The damage from the quake was more severe than for other quakes of similar magnitude due to the shallow depth of the quake.
The quake occurred in the vicinity of the northern boundary where the Caribbean
Caribbean Plate
The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America....
tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 millimetre (0.78740157480315 in) per year in relation to the North American plate
North American Plate
The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...
. The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault
Septentrional-Oriente fault zone
The Septentrional-Orient fault zone is a system of coaxial left lateral-moving strike slip faults which runs along the northern side of the island of Hispaniola where the Dominican Republic and Haiti are located...
in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in the south; both its location and focal mechanism
Focal mechanism
The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the inelastic deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is also known as a fault-plane solution...
suggested that the January 2010 quake was caused by a rupture of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which had been locked for 250 years, gathering stress. However, a study published in May 2010 suggested that the rupture process may have involved slip on multiple blind thrust faults with only minor, deep, lateral slip along or near the main Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone, suggesting that the event only partially relieved centuries of accumulated left-lateral strain on a small part of the plate-boundary system. The rupture was roughly 65 kilometres (40.4 mi) long with mean slip of 1.8 metres (5.9 ft). Preliminary analysis of the slip distribution found amplitudes of up to about 4 metres (13.1 ft) using ground motion records from all over the world.
A 2007 earthquake hazard study by C. DeMets and M. Wiggins-Grandison noted that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could be at the end of its seismic cycle and concluded that a worst-case forecast would involve a 7.2 Mw earthquake, similar in size to the 1692 Jamaica earthquake
1692 Jamaica earthquake
The 1692 Jamaica earthquake struck Port Royal, Jamaica on June 7, at exactly 11:43 a.m., according to a stopped pocket watch found in the harbour in the 1950s. Port Royal was then the unofficial capital of Jamaica, and one of the busiest and wealthiest ports in the West Indies...
. Paul Mann and a group including the 2006 study team presented a hazard assessment of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system to the 18th Caribbean Geologic Conference in March 2008, noting the large strain; the team recommended "high priority" historical geologic rupture studies, as the fault was fully locked and had recorded few earthquakes in the preceding 40 years. An article published in Haiti's Le Matin
Le Matin (Haiti)
Le Matin is a daily newspaper published in Haiti. It was founded on April 1, 1907 by Clément Magloire.After a 2-year absence, the newspaper returned in circulation at the beginning of April 2004 under its current ownership. -External links:*...
newspaper in September 2008 cited comments by geologist Patrick Charles to the effect that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince.
Aftershocks
The United States Geological SurveyUnited States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...
(USGS) recorded eight aftershock
Aftershock
An aftershock is a smaller earthquake that occurs after a previous large earthquake, in the same area of the main shock. If an aftershock is larger than the main shock, the aftershock is redesignated as the main shock and the original main shock is redesignated as a foreshock...
s in the two hours after the main earthquake, with magnitudes between 4.3 and 5.9. Within the first nine hours 32 aftershocks of magnitude 4.2 or greater were recorded, 12 of which measured magnitude 5.0 or greater, and on January 24 USGS reported that there had been 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater since the January 12 quake.
On 20 January at 06:03 local time (11:03 UTC) the strongest aftershock since the earthquake, measuring magnitude 5.9 Mw, struck Haiti. USGS reported its epicentre was about 56 kilometres (34.8 mi) WSW of Port-au-Prince, which would place it almost exactly under the coastal town of Petit-Goâve. A UN representative reported that the aftershock collapsed seven buildings in the town. According to staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
, who had reached Petit-Goâve for the first time the day before the aftershock, the town was estimated to have lost 15% of its buildings, and was suffering the same shortages of supplies and medical care as the capital. Workers from the charity Save the Children
Save the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
reported hearing "already weakened structures collapsing" in Port-au-Prince, but most sources reported no further significant damage to infrastructure in the city. Further casualties are thought to have been minimal since people had been sleeping in the open. There are concerns that the 12 January earthquake could be the beginning of a new long-term sequence: "the whole region is fearful"; historical accounts, although not precise, suggest that there has been a sequence of quakes progressing westwards along the fault, starting with an earthquake in the Dominican Republic in 1751.
Tsunami
The Pacific Tsunami Warning CenterPacific Tsunami Warning Center
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is one of two tsunami warning centers that are operated by NOAA in the United States. Headquartered in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, the PTWC is part of an international tsunami warning system program and serves as the operational center for TWS of the Pacific issuing...
issued a tsunami
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
warning immediately after the initial quake, but quickly cancelled it. Nearly two weeks later it was reported that the beach of the small fishing town of Petit Paradis was hit by a localised tsunami wave shortly after the earthquake, probably as a result of an underwater slide, and this was later confirmed by researchers. At least three people were swept out to sea by the wave and were reported dead. Witnesses told reporters that the sea first retreated and a "very big wave" followed rapidly, crashing ashore and sweeping boats and debris into the ocean.
Damage to infrastructure
Essential services
Amongst the widespread devastation and damage throughout Port-au-Prince and elsewhere, vital infrastructureInfrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
necessary to respond to the disaster was severely damaged or destroyed. This included all hospitals in the capital; air, sea, and land transport facilities; and communication systems.
The quake affected the three Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
(Doctors Without Borders) medical facilities around Port-au-Prince, causing one to collapse completely. A hospital in Pétionville
Pétionville
Pétion-Ville is a commune and a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the hills east and separate of the city itself on the northern hills of the Massif de la Selle. It was named after Alexandre Sabès Pétion , the Haitian general and president later recognized as one of the country's four founding...
, a wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince, also collapsed, as did the St. Michel District Hospital in the southern town of Jacmel
Jacmel
Jacmel, also known by its indigenous Taíno name of Yaquimel, is a town in southern Haiti founded in 1698. It is the capital of the department of Sud-Est and has an estimated population of 40,000, while the municipality of Jacmel had a population of 137,966 at the 2003 Census.The buildings are...
, which was the largest referral hospital in south-east Haiti.
The quake seriously damaged the control tower
Control tower
A control tower, or more specifically an Air Traffic Control Tower , is the name of the airport building from which the air traffic control unit controls the movement of aircraft on and around the airport. Control towers are also used to control the traffic for other forms of transportation such...
at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport and the Port-au-Prince seaport
Port international de Port-au-Prince
The is the seaport in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. It suffered catastrophic damage in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.Some of docks and warehouses are operated by the government's Autorité Portuaire Nationale , and some are run by private companies.- History :On 13 June 1872, a German fleet...
, which rendered the harbor unusable for immediate rescue operations. The Gonaïves
Gonaïves
Gonaïves is a city in northern Haiti, the capital of the Artibonite Department. It has a population of about 104,825 people . The city's name derives from the original Amerindian name of Gonaibo. It is also known as Haïti's "independence city"...
seaport, in the northern part of Haiti, remained operational.
Roads were blocked with road debris
Road debris
Road debris, a form of road hazard, is debris on or off a road. Road debris includes substances, materials, and objects that are foreign to the normal roadway environment...
or the surfaces broken. The main road linking Port-au-Prince with Jacmel
Jacmel
Jacmel, also known by its indigenous Taíno name of Yaquimel, is a town in southern Haiti founded in 1698. It is the capital of the department of Sud-Est and has an estimated population of 40,000, while the municipality of Jacmel had a population of 137,966 at the 2003 Census.The buildings are...
remained blocked ten days after the earthquake, hampering delivery of aid to Jacmel. When asked why the road had not been opened, Hazem el-Zein, head of the south-east division of the UN World Food Programme
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme is the food aid branch of the United Nations, and the world's largest humanitarian organization addressing hunger worldwide. WFP provides food, on average, to 90 million people per year, 58 million of whom are children...
said that "We ask the same questions to the people in charge...They promise rapid response. To be honest, I don't know why it hasn't been done. I can only think that their priority must be somewhere else."
There was considerable damage to communications infrastructure. The public telephone system
Public switched telephone network
The public switched telephone network is the network of the world's public circuit-switched telephone networks. It consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, microwave transmission links, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all inter-connected by...
was not available, and two of Haiti's largest cellular telephone providers, Digicel
Digicel
Digicel is a mobile phone network provider covering parts of Oceania, Central America, and the Caribbean regions. The company is owned by Irishman Denis O'Brien, is incorporated in Bermuda, and based in Jamaica. It provides mobile services in 26 countries and territories throughout the Caribbean...
and Comcel Haiti
Comcel Haiti
Communication Cellulaire d'Haiti, S.A. or ', now known as Voilà, is a telephone company in Haiti which primarily deals in mobile phone service. It is a subsidiary of US-based Trilogy International Partners.-History:...
, both reported that their services had been affected by the earthquake. Fibre-optic connectivity
BDSNi
BDSNi is a fiber optic submarine communications cable system that links the islands of the Bahamas, and also provides connectivity to Haiti via a spur connection.- Connection to Haiti :...
was also disrupted. According to Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF),
Radio Lumière, which broadcasts out of Port-au-Prince and reaches 90% of Haiti, was initially knocked off the air, but it was able to resume broadcasting across most of its network within a week. According to RSF, some 20 of about 50 stations that were active in the capital region prior to the earthquake were back on air a week after the quake.
General infrastructure
In February 2010 Prime Minister Jean-Max BelleriveJean-Max Bellerive
Jean-Max Bellerive is a Haitian politician and outgoing Prime Minister of Haiti. He resigned on 14 May 2011.-Personal life:Bellerive was born in Port-au-Prince in 1958. As the son of a prominent doctor, he left Haiti at a very young age to study in Switzerland, France, and Belgium...
estimated that 250,000 residences
Residential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
and 30,000 commercial building
Commercial building
A commercial building is a building that is used for commercial use. Types can include office buildings, warehouses, or retail . In urban locations, a commercial building often combines functions, such as an office on levels 2-10, with retail on floor 1...
s were severely damaged and needed to be demolished. The deputy mayor of Léogâne reported that 90% of the town's buildings had been destroyed. Many government and public buildings were damaged or destroyed including the Palace of Justice, the National Assembly
National Assembly of Haïti
The Parliament of Haiti is the legislature of the Republic of Haiti. It sits at the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. The Parliament is bicameral, the upper house being the Senate of Haiti and the lower house being the Chamber of Deputies of Haiti....
, the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Haiti
The Supreme Court of Haiti is the highest court in the Haitian legal system. The Supreme Court building is located in Port-au-Prince.-Composition:...
and Port-au-Prince Cathedral. The National Palace
National Palace (Haiti)
The National Palace is located in Port-au-Prince—facing Place L'Ouverture near the Champs de Mars—and is the official residence of the Haitian president. It was almost completely destroyed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake...
was severely damaged, though President
President of Haiti
The President of the Republic of Haiti is the head of state of Haiti. Executive power in Haiti is divided between the president and the government headed by the Prime Minister of Haiti...
René Préval
René Préval
René Garcia Préval is a Haitian politician and agronomist who was the President of the Republic of Haiti from 14 May 2006 to 14 May 2011. He previously served as President from February 7, 1996, to February 7, 2001, and as Prime Minister from February 1991 to October 11, 1991.-Early life and...
and his wife Elisabeth Delatour Préval
Elisabeth Delatour Préval
Elisabeth Débrosse Delatour Préval is a Haitian businesswoman, presidential economic advisor and economist. She has been the First Lady of Haiti since December 6, 2009, when she married President René Préval.-Professional and personal life:...
escaped injury. The Prison Civile de Port-au-Prince was also destroyed, allowing around 4,000 inmates to escape.
Most of Port-au-Prince's municipal buildings were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the City Hall, which was described by the Washington Post as, "a skeletal hulk of concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
and stucco
Stucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
, sagging grotesquely to the left." Port-au-Prince had no municipal petrol reserves and few city officials had working mobile phones before the earthquake, complicating communications and transportation.
Minister of Education Joel Jean-Pierre stated that the education system had "totally collapsed". About half the nation's schools and the three main universities in Port-au-Prince were affected. More than 1,300 schools and 50 health care facilities were destroyed.
The earthquake also destroyed a nursing school in the capital and severely damaged the country’s primary midwifery
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
school. The Haitian art world
Haitian art
Haitian art is a complex tradition, reflecting African, French, Catholic, and tribal and Vodou roots. It as an important representation of Haitian culture and history....
suffered great losses; artworks were destroyed, and museums and art galleries were extensively damaged, among them Port-au-Prince's main art museum, Centre d'Art, College Saint Pierre and Holy Trinity Cathedral
Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port-au-Prince
The Holy Trinity Cathedral, Port-au-Prince is the main cathedral within the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti. The present Holy Trinity Cathedral is located in downtown Port-au-Prince at the corner of Ave. Mgr. Guilloux & Rue Pavée...
.
The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission In Haiti , also known as MINUSTAH, an acronym of the French translation, is a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti that has been in operation since 2004. The mission's military component is led by the Brazilian Army and the force commander is...
(MINUSTAH) at Christopher Hotel
Christopher Hotel
The Christopher Hotel was a hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, destroyed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake on 12 January 2010....
and offices of the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
were destroyed. The building housing the offices of Citibank
Citibank
Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...
in Port-au-Prince collapsed, killing five employees. The clothing industry, which accounts for two-thirds of Haiti's exports, reported structural damage at manufacturing facilities.
The quake created a landslide dam
Landslide dam
A landslide dam, debris dam, or barrier lake is a natural damming of a river by some kind of mass wasting: landslide, debris flow, rock avalanche or volcano. If it is caused by earthquake, it may also be called a quake lake. Some landslide dams are as high as the largest existing artificial dam...
on the Rivière de Grand Goâve
Rivière de Grand Goâve
The Rivière de Grand Goâve is a river of Haiti.The 12 January 2010 7.0 tremor created a landslide which formed a landslide dam blocking the river, that can potentially contain a large basin of water. Though it is now dry, the wet season is approaching, and a dam collapse would directly outflow the...
. the water level was low, but engineer Yves Gattereau believed the dam could collapse during the rainy season, which would flood Grand-Goâve 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) downstream.
Conditions in the aftermath
In the nights following the earthquake, many people in Haiti slept in the streets, on pavements, in their cars, or in makeshift shanty townShanty town
A shanty town is a slum settlement of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic...
s either because their houses had been destroyed, or they feared standing structures would not withstand aftershocks. Construction standards are low in Haiti; the country has no building codes. Engineers have stated that it is unlikely many buildings would have stood through any kind of disaster. Structures are often raised wherever they can fit; some buildings were built on slopes with insufficient foundations or steel works. A representative of Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the U.S. bishops, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 90 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and...
has estimated that about two million Haitians lived as squatters on land they did not own. The country also suffered from shortages of fuel and potable water even before the disaster.
President Préval and government ministers used police headquarters near the Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport as their new base of operations, although their effectiveness was extremely limited; several parliamentarians were still trapped in the Presidential Palace, and offices and records had been destroyed. Some high-ranking government workers lost family members, or had to tend to wounded relatives. Although the president and his remaining cabinet met with UN planners each day, there remained confusion as to who was in charge and no single group had organized relief efforts as of 16 January. The government handed over control of the airport to the United States to hasten and ease flight operations, which had been hampered by the damage to the air traffic control tower.
Almost immediately Port-au-Prince's morgue
Morgue
A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...
facilities were overwhelmed. By 14 January, a thousand bodies had been placed on the streets and pavements. Government crews manned trucks to collect thousands more, burying them in mass graves. In the heat and humidity, corpses buried in rubble began to decompose and smell. Mati Goldstein, head of the Israeli ZAKA
ZAKA
ZAKA , is a series of voluntary community emergency response teams in Israel, each operating in a police district . These organizations are officially recognized by the government...
International Rescue Unit delegation to Haiti, described the situation as "Shabbat
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
from hell. Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust – thousands of bodies everywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension."
Mayor Jean-Yves Jason said that officials argued for hours about what to do with the volume of corpses. The government buried many in mass graves, some above-ground tombs were forced open so bodies could be stacked inside, and others were burned. Mass graves were dug in a large field outside the settlement of Titanyen
Titanyen
Titanyen is a settlement in Haiti, north of the capital, Port-au-Prince and some eight kilometres from Cabaret. It has been described as sparsely populated. Fields outside the settlement were chosen as the site of mass graves dug for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.-Reference:*...
, north of the capital; tens of thousands of bodies were reported as having been brought to the site by dump truck
Dump truck
A dump truck is a truck used for transporting loose material for construction. A typical dump truck is equipped with a hydraulically operated open-box bed hinged at the rear, the front of which can be lifted up to allow the contents to be deposited on the ground behind the truck at the site of...
and buried in trenches dug by earth mover
Earth Mover
Earth Mover is the third studio album by Hard trance duo Cosmic Gate. It was released on September 18th, 2006 in Germany.-Track listing:#A Mile In My Shoes – 7:18#I Feel Wonderful – 4:38...
s. Max Beauvoir
Max Beauvoir
Max Gesner Beauvoir is a Haitian biochemist and houngan.-Career:Beauvoir graduated in 1958 from City College of New York with a degree in chemistry. He continued his studies at the Sorbonne from 1959 to 1962, when he graduated with a degree in biochemistry. In 1965, at Cornell Medical Center, he...
, a Vodou priest, protested the lack of dignity in mass burials, stating, "... it is not in our culture to bury people in such a fashion, it is desecration".
Towns in the eastern Dominican Republic began preparing for tens of thousands of refugees, and by 16 January hospitals close to the border had been filled to capacity with Haitians. Some began reporting having expended stocks of critical medical supplies such as antibiotics by 17 January. The border was reinforced by Dominican soldiers, and the government of the Dominican Republic asserted that all Haitians who crossed the border for medical assistance would be allowed to stay only temporarily. A local governor stated, "We have a great desire and we will do everything humanly possible to help Haitian families. But we have our limitations with respect to food and medicine. We need the helping hand of other countries in the area."
Slow distribution of resources in the days after the earthquake resulted in sporadic violence, with looting
Looting
Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...
reported. There were also accounts of looters wounded or killed by vigilantes and neighbourhoods that had constructed their own roadblock barricades. Dr Evan Lyon of Partners in Health
Partners In Health
Partners In Health is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr...
, working at the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, claimed that misinformation and overblown reports of violence had hampered the delivery of aid and medical services.
Former U.S. president Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
acknowledged the problems and said Americans should "not be deterred from supporting the relief effort" by upsetting scenes such as those of looting. Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, deputy commander of U.S. Southern Command, however, announced that despite the stories of looting and violence, there was less violent crime in Port-au-Prince after the earthquake than before.
In many neighbourhoods, singing could be heard through the night and groups of men coordinated to act as security as groups of women attempted to take care of food and hygiene necessities. During the days following the earthquake, hundreds were seen marching through the streets in peaceful processions, singing and clapping.
The earthquake caused an urgent need for outside rescuers to communicate with Haitians whose main or only language is Haitian Creole. As a result, a machine translation
Machine translation
Machine translation, sometimes referred to by the abbreviation MT is a sub-field of computational linguistics that investigates the use of computer software to translate text or speech from one natural language to another.On a basic...
program to translate between English and Haitian Creole had to be written quickly.
Casualties
The earthquake struck in the most populated area of the country. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies estimated that as many as 3 million people had been affected by the quake. On 10 February 2010, the Haitian government reported the death toll to have reached 230,000. On the first anniversary of the earthquake, 12 January 2011, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said the death toll from the quake was more than 316,000, raising the figures from previous estimates.Haitian authorities initially estimated that 300,000 had been injured and as many as one million Haitians were left homeless. However experts have questioned the validity of these numbers; Anthony Penna, professor emeritus in environmental history
Environmental history
Environmental history, a branch of historiography, is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time. In contrast to other historical disciplines, it emphasizes the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs. Environmental historians study how humans both shape their...
at Northeastern University, warned that casualty estimates could only be a "guesstimate
Guesstimate
Guesstimate is an informal English contraction of guess and estimate, first used by American statisticians in 1934 or 1935. It is defined as an estimate made without using adequate or complete information, or, more strongly, as an estimate arrived at by guesswork or conjecture...
", and Belgian disaster response expert Claude de Ville de Goyet noted that "round number
Round number
A round number is mathematically defined as the product of a considerable number of comparatively small factors as compared to its neighbouring numbers, such as 24 = 2*2*2*3 .However, a round number is informally considered to be an integer that ends with one or more zeroes , such...
s are a sure sign that nobody knows." Edmond Mulet
Edmond Mulet
Edmond Mulet is a Guatemalan diplomat. He is currently the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of mission of MINUSTAH, having assumed the functions of acting head of mission in the immediate aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, in which the previous head of mission, Hédi...
, UN Assistant Secretary-General
Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations
An Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Secretary-General for a renewable term of four years....
for Peacekeeping Operations, said, "I do not think we will ever know what the death toll is from this earthquake", while the director of the Haitian Red Cross, Guiteau Jean-Pierre, noted that his organization had not had the time to count bodies, as their focus had been on the treatment of survivors. The United States Agency for International Development
United States Agency for International Development
The United States Agency for International Development is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas...
concluded that the death toll was somewhere between 46,000 and 85,000.
While the vast majority of casualties were Haitian civilians, the dead included aid workers, embassy staff, foreign tourists—and a number of public figures, includeding Archbishop of Port-au-Prince
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince is a metropolitan diocese, responsible for the suffragan Dioceses of Jacmel, Jérémie, Anse-à-Veau and Miragoâne and Les Cayes....
Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot
Joseph Serge Miot
Joseph Serge Miot was a Haitian archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He was the ninth Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, serving from 2008 until his death as a result of the January 12, 2010 earthquake.-Biography:...
, aid worker Zilda Arns
Zilda Arns
Zilda Arns Neumann was a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Brazilian pediatrician and aid worker.A sister of Cardinal Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, the former Archbishop of São Paulo known for his efforts against the Brazilian military dictatorship, Zilda Arns became internationally known by founding a...
and officials in the Haitian government, including opposition leader Michel "Micha" Gaillard
Micha Gaillard
Michel "Micha" Gaillard was a Haitian politician and university professor. He was a major voice of opposition against the 2004 rebellion which ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 2005, he helped found the Fusion of Haitian Social Democrats political party...
. Also killed were a number of well-known Haitian musicians
Music of Haiti
The music of Haiti is influenced mostly by Europe, colonial ties, and African migration through slavery. European musical influence derived primarily from the French and by the Spanish-infused influence of Cuba and the bordering Dominican Republic. Styles unique to Haiti include music derived from...
and sports figures, including thirty members of the Fédération Haïtienne de Football
Fédération Haïtienne de Football
The Fédération Haïtienne de Football is the governing body of football in Haiti, and is in charge of the Haitian national team.FHF is a member of CONCACAF since 1961 and is in charge of football in Haiti and all lower categories...
. At least 85 United Nations personnel working with MINUSTAH were killed, among them the Mission Chief, Hédi Annabi
Hédi Annabi
Hédi Annabi was a Tunisian diplomat and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General, Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti...
, his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa
Luiz Carlos da Costa
Luiz Carlos da Costa was an international civil servant working for the United Nations. Originally from Brazil, Costa joined the United Nations in 1969 and stayed with the organization for the remainder of his life...
., and police commissioner Douglas Coates. Around 200 guests were killed in the collapse of the Hôtel Montana
Hôtel Montana
The Hôtel Montana was a hotel in the Pétionville suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Built in 1946, the hotel was a popular four star tourist resort until the main building collapsed along with most buildings in the city during the 2010 Haiti earthquake...
in Port-au-Prince.
Early response
Appeals for humanitarian aidHumanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
were issued by many aid organizations, the United Nations and president René Préval. Raymond Joseph
Raymond Joseph
Raymond Alcide Joseph is a Haitian diplomat, political activist and journalist. He was the Haitian ambassador to the United States from 2005 to 2010, when he resigned to present himself as a candidate in the 2010 Presidential Election in Haiti...
, Haiti's ambassador
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
to the United States, and his nephew, singer Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...
, who was called upon by Préval to become a "roving ambassador" for Haiti, also pleaded for aid and donations.
Many countries responded to the appeals and launched fund-raising efforts, as well as sending search and rescue teams. The neighbouring Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
was the first country to give aid to Haiti, sending water, food and heavy-lifting machinery. The hospitals in the Dominican Republic were made available; a combined effort of the Airports Department (DA), together with the Dominican Naval Auxiliaries, the UN and other parties formed the Dominican-Haitian Aerial Support Bridge, making the main Dominican airports available for support operations to Haiti. The Dominican website FlyDominicanRepublic.com made available to the internet, daily updates on airport information and news from the operations center on the Dominican side. The Dominican emergency team assisted more than 2,000 injured people, while the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications (Indotel) helped with the restoration of some telephone services. The Dominican Red Cross coordinated early medical relief in conjunction with the International Red Cross. The government sent eight mobile medical units along with 36 doctors including orthopaedic specialists, traumatologists, anaesthetists, and surgeons. In addition, 39 trucks carrying canned food were dispatched, along with 10 mobile kitchens and 110 cooks capable of producing 100,000 meals per day.
Other nations from farther afield also sent personnel, medicines, materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....
, and other aid to Haiti. The first team to arrive in Port-au-Prince was ICE-SAR
ICE-SAR
ICE-SAR is a special unit within the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue. It is one of less than 15 teams worldwide that has received IEC Classification from INSARAG under the United Nations umbrella....
from Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, landing within 24 hours of the earthquake. A 50-member Chinese
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
team arrived early Thursday morning. From the Middle East, the government of Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
sent a strategic transport aircraft (C-17), loaded with 50 tonnes of urgent relief materials and 26 members from the Qatari armed forces, the internal security force (Lekhwiya), police force and the Hamad Medical Corporation, to set up a field hospital and provide assistance in Port-au-Prince and other affected areas in Haiti. A rescue team sent by the Israel Defense Forces
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
' Home Front Command established a field hospital near the United Nations building in Port-au-Prince with specialised facilities to treat children, the elderly, and women in labor. It was set up in eight hours and began operations on the evening of 16 January. A Korean International Disaster Relief Team with 40 rescuers, medical doctors, nurses and 2 k-9s was deployed to epicenters to assist mitigation efforts of Haitian Government. The team was required to stay 2 weeks at the sites.
The American Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
announced on 13 January that it had run out of supplies in Haiti and appealed for public donations. Giving Children Hope
Giving Children Hope
Giving Children Hope , founded in 1993 by John Ditty and his wife, is a faith-based non-profit organization that works to alleviate poverty, both domestically and internationally, through disaster relief, health and community development, vocational training and advocacy...
worked to get much-needed medicines and supplies on the ground. Partners in Health
Partners In Health
Partners In Health is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr...
(PIH), the largest health care provider in rural Haiti was able to provide some emergency care from its ten hospitals and clinics all of which were outside the capital and undamaged. MINUSTAH had over 9,000 uniformed peacekeepers deployed to the area. Most of these workers were initially involved in the search for survivors at the organization's collapsed headquarters.
The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters
International Charter on Space and Major Disasters
The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters is a charter which provides for the charitable retasked acquisition of and transmission of space satellite data to relief organizations in the event of major disasters...
was activated, allowing satellite imagery of affected regions to be shared with rescue and aid organizations. Members of social networking sites such as Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
spread messages and pleas to send help. Facebook was overwhelmed by—and blocked—some users who were sending messages about updates. The American Red Cross set a record for mobile donations, raising US$7 million in 24 hours when they allowed people to send US$10 donations by text messages. The OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Two major driving forces behind the establishment and growth of OSM have been restrictions on use or availability of map information across much of the world and the advent of inexpensive portable GPS devices.The...
community responded to the disaster by greatly improving the level of mapping available for the area using post-earthquake satellite photography provided by GeoEye
GeoEye
GeoEye Inc. is a commercial satellite imagery company based in Herndon, Virginia that is the world's largest space imaging corporation....
, and tracking website Ushahidi
Ushahidi
Ushahidi, Inc. is a non-profit software company that develops free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping....
coordinated messages from multiple sites to assist Haitians still trapped and to keep families of survivors informed. Some online poker
Online poker
Online poker is the game of poker played over the Internet. It has been partly responsible for a dramatic increase in the number of poker players worldwide...
sites hosted poker tournaments with tournament fees, prizes or both going to disaster relief charities.
Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
updated its coverage of Port-au-Prince on 17 January, showing the earthquake-ravaged city.
Easing refugee immigration into Canada was discussed by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
, and in the U.S. Haitians were granted Temporary Protected Status
Temporary protected status
Temporary protected status is a temporary immigration status to the United States, granted to eligible nationals of designated countries.In 1990, as part of the Immigration Act of 1990 , P.L...
, a measure that permits about 100,000 illegal alien Haitians in the United States to stay legally for 18 months, and halts the deportations of 30,000 more, though it does not apply to Haitians outside the U.S. Local and state agencies in South Florida, together with the U.S. government, began implementing a plan ("Operation Vigilant Sentry") for a mass migration from the Caribbean that had been laid out in 2003.
Several orphanages were destroyed in the earthquake. After the process for the adoption of 400 children by families in the U.S. and the Netherlands was expedited, Unicef and SOS Children urged an immediate halt to adoptions from Haiti. Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children
Save the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
said: "The vast majority of the children currently on their own still have family members alive who will be desperate to be reunited with them and will be able to care for them with the right support. Taking children out of the country would permanently separate thousands of children from their families—a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery." However, several organizations were planning an airlift of thousands of orphaned children to South Florida on humanitarian visas, modelled on a similar effort with Cuban refugees in the 1960s named "Pedro Pan
Operation Peter Pan
Operation Peter Pan , was an operation coordinated by the United States government , the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Miami, and certain Cubans. Between 1960 and 1962, over 14,000 children were sent from Cuba to Miami by their parents...
". The Canadian government worked to expedite around 100 adoption cases that were already underway when the earthquake struck, issuing temporary permits and waving regular processing fees; the federal government also announced that it would cover adopted children's healthcare costs upon their arrival in Canada until they could be covered under provincially-administered public healthcare plans.
Rescue and relief efforts
Rescue efforts began in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, with able-bodied survivors extricating the living and the dead from the rubble of the many buildings that had collapsed. Treatment of the injured was hampered by the lack of hospital and morgue facilities: the Argentine military field hospitalArgentine Air Force Mobile Field Hospital
The Argentine Air Force Mobile Field Hospital is a field hospital operated by the Argentine Air Force. It is one of three health centers of its kind worldwide .- Description :...
, which had been serving MINUSTAH, was the only one available until 13 January. Rescue work intensified only slightly with the arrival of doctors, police officers, military personnel and firefighters from various countries two days after the earthquake.
From 12 January, the International Committee of the Red Cross
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. States parties to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005, have given the ICRC a mandate to protect the victims of international and...
, which has been working in Haiti since 1994, has been focusing on bringing emergency assistance to victims of the catastrophe, in close cooperation with its partners within the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, particularly the Haitian Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
(Doctors Without Borders; MSF) reported that the hospitals that had not been destroyed were overwhelmed by large numbers of seriously injured people, and that they had to carry out many amputations. Running short of medical supplies, some teams had to work with any available resources, constructing splints out of cardboard and reusing latex gloves. Other rescue units had to withdraw as night fell amid security fears. Over 3,000 people had been treated by Médecins Sans Frontières as of 18 January. Ophelia Dahl, director of Partners in Health
Partners In Health
Partners In Health is a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor". It was founded in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Dr...
, reported, "there are hundreds of thousands of injured people. I have heard the estimate that as many as 20,000 people will die each day that would have been saved by surgery."
An MSF aircraft carrying a field hospital was repeatedly turned away by U.S. air traffic controllers who had assumed control at Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport. Four other MSF aircraft were also turned away. In a 19 January press release MSF said, "It is like working in a war situation. We don’t have any more morphine to manage pain for our patients. We cannot accept that planes carrying lifesaving medical supplies and equipment continue to be turned away while our patients die. Priority must be given to medical supplies entering the country." First responders voiced frustration with the number of relief trucks sitting unused at the airport. Aid workers blamed U.S.-controlled airport operations for prioritising the transportation of security troops over rescuers and supplies; evacuation policies favouring citizens of certain nations were also criticised.
The U.S. military acknowledged the non-governmental organizations' complaints concerning flight-operations bias and promised improvement while noting that up to 17 January 600 emergency flights had landed and 50 were diverted; by the first weekend of disaster operations diversions had been reduced to three on Saturday and two on Sunday. The airport was able to support 100 landings a day, up from the 35 a day that the airport gets during normal operation. A spokesman for the joint task force running the airport confirmed that though more flights were requesting landing slots, none were being turned away.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim
Celso Amorim
Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim is a Brazilian diplomat who has been Minister of Defence since August 2011. Amorim was the Minister of Foreign Relations from 1993 to 1995 under President Itamar Franco and again from 2003 to 2011 under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.Before his appointment by Lula,...
and French Minister of State for Cooperation Alain Joyandet
Alain Joyandet
Alain Joyandet is a French politician who was appointed Secretary of State for Cooperation and Francophony in the government of François Fillon from March 18, 2008 to July 2010. Prior to that, he was CEO of the Société Nouvelle des Éditions Comtoises , a publisher of weekly newspapers and journals...
criticised the perceived preferential treatment for U.S. aid arriving at the airport, though a spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that there had been no official protest from the French government with regard to the management of the airport.
U.S. officials acknowledged that coordination of the relief effort is central to Haitian recovery, and President Préval asked for calm coordination between assisting nations without mutual accusations.
While the Port-au-Prince airport ramp has spaces for over a dozen airliners, in the days following the quake it sometimes served nearly 40 at once, creating serious delays. The supply backup at the airport was expected to ease as the apron management improved, and when the perceived need for heavy security diminished. Airport congestion was reduced further on 18 January when the United Nations and U.S. forces formally agreed to prioritise humanitarian flights over security reinforcement.
By 14 January, over 20 countries had sent military personnel to the country, with Canada, the United States and the Dominican Republic providing the largest contingents. The supercarrier
Supercarrier
Supercarrier is an unofficial descriptive term for the largest type of aircraft carrier, usually displacing over 70,000 long tons.Supercarrier is an unofficial descriptive term for the largest type of aircraft carrier, usually displacing over 70,000 long tons.Supercarrier is an unofficial...
arrived at maximum possible speed
Flank speed
Flank speed is a nautical term referring to a ship's true maximum speed, beyond the speed that can be reached by traveling at full speed. Usually, flank speed is reserved for situations in which a ship finds itself in imminent danger, such as coming under attack by aircraft...
on 15 January with 600,000 emergency food rations, 100,000 ten-litre water containers, and an enhanced wing of 19 helicopters; 130,000 litres of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
were transferred to shore on the first day.
The helicopter carrier sailed with three large dock landing ship
Dock landing ship
A Dock landing ship or Landing ship is a form of amphibious warship designed to support amphibious operations. These amphibious assault ships transport and launch amphibious craft and vehicles with their crews and embarked personnel...
s and two survey/salvage vessels, to create a "sea base" for the rescue effort. They were joined by the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
vessel Francis Garnier
Francis Garnier (L9031)
The BATRAL Francis Garnier is the second of a series of five vessels. She was launched on 17 November 1973 and commissioned on 24 October 1974. She is the fifth vessel of the French Navy named in honour of the officer and explorer Francis Garnier.The BATRAL vessels are able to ferry over...
on 16 January, the same day the hospital ship and guided-missile cruiser left for Haiti. Another large French vessel was later ordered to Haiti, the amphibious transport dock
Amphibious transport dock
An amphibious transport dock, also called a landing platform/dock , is an amphibious warfare ship, a warship that embarks, transports, and lands elements of a landing force for expeditionary warfare missions. Several navies currently operate this kind of ship...
Siroco
Siroco (L 9012)
The Siroco is a Foudre class amphibious assault ship of the French Navy.Siroco was deployed to East Timor as part of the Australian-led INTERFET peacekeeping taskforce from 10 October to 25 November 1999....
.
International rescue efforts were restricted by traffic congestion and blocked roads. Although U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had previously ruled out dropping food and water by air as too dangerous, by 16 January, U.S. helicopters were distributing aid to areas impossible to reach by land.
In Jacmel, a city of 50,000, the mayor claimed that 70% of the homes had been damaged and that the quake had killed 300 to 500 people and left some 4,000 injured. The small airstrip suffered damage that rendered it unusable for supply flights until 20 January. The Canadian navy vessel HMCS Halifax
HMCS Halifax (FFH 330)
HMCS Halifax is a that has served in the Canadian Forces since 1992.Halifax is the lead ship in her class which is the name for the Canadian Patrol Frigate Project. She is the second vessel to carry the designation...
was deployed to the area on 18 January; the Canadians joined Colombian rescue workers, Chilean doctors, a French mobile clinic, and Sri Lankan relief workers who had already responded to calls for aid.
About 64,000 people living in the three adjacent agricultural communities of Durissy
Durissy, Haiti
Durissy is a village in the Ouest Department of Haiti. It is west-southwest of Port au Prince.-History:The village suffered damage during the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The school, just built in 2002, was destroyed...
, Morne a Chandelle
Morne a Chandelle, Haiti
Morne a Chandelle is a village in the Sud-Est Department of Haiti, on the southern side of the Gulf of Gonâve. It is located 7.7 miles east of Léogâne.-History:...
, and Les Palmes
Les Palmes, Haiti
Les Palmes is a rural area in the Sud-Est Department of Haiti. There are more than 30,000 people living in the area. -History:The name of the town means "palms" in English....
were relatively unharmed because most of the people were working in the fields; but all churches, chapels and at least 8,000 homes were destroyed.
British search and rescue teams were the first to arrive in Léogane, the town at the epicentre of the quake, on 17 January. The Canadian ship HMCS Athabaskan
HMCS Athabaskan (DDH 282)
HMCS Athabaskan is an that has served the Canadian Forces since 1972.Athabaskan is the third ship of her class which is sometimes referred to as the Tribal-class or simply as the 280-class. She is the third vessel to use the designation .Athabaskan was laid down on 1 June 1969 at Davie...
reached the area on 19 January, and by 20 January there were 250-300 Canadian personnel assisting relief efforts in the town. By 19 January, staff of the International Red Cross had also managed to reach the town, which they described as "severely damaged ... the people there urgently need assistance", and by 20 January they had reached Petit-Goâve as well, where they set up two first-aid posts and distributed first-aid kits.
Over the first weekend 130,000 food packets and 70,000 water containers were distributed to Haitians, as safe landing areas and distribution centres such as golf courses were secured. There were nearly 2,000 rescuers present from 43 different groups, with 161 search dogs
Search and rescue dog
The use of dogs in search and rescue is a valuable component in wilderness tracking, natural disasters, mass casualty events, and in locating missing people. Dedicated handlers and well-trained dogs are required for the use of dogs to be effective in search efforts...
; the airport had handled 250 tons of relief supplies by the end of the weekend. Reports from Sunday showed a record-breaking number of successful rescues, with at least 12 survivors pulled from Port-au-Prince's rubble, bringing the total number of rescues to 110.
The buoy tender USCG Oak
USCGC Oak (WLB-211)
The USCGC Oak is a United States Coast Guard seagoing buoy tender home-ported in Charleston, South Carolina. The ship tends buoys along the Southeastern U.S. coast and throughout the Caribbean Sea including Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Haiti and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...
and were on scene by 18 January to assess damage to the port and work to reopen it, and by 21 January one pier at the Port-au-Prince seaport was functional, offloading humanitarian aid, and a road had been repaired to make transport into the city easier. In an interview on 21 January, Leo Merores, Haiti’s ambassador to the UN, said that he expected the port to be fully functional again within two weeks.
The U.S. Navy listed its resources
Military asset
In military usage, a military asset is a weapon or means of production of weapons or other defensive or offensive devices or capabilities.-Description:...
in the area as "17 ships, 48 helicopters and 12 fixed-wing aircraft" in addition to 10,000 sailors and Marines. The Navy had conducted 336 air deliveries, delivered 32400 gallons (122,647.3 l) of water, 532,440 bottles of water, 111,082 meals and 9000 lb (4,082.3 kg) of medical supplies by 20 January. Hospital ship Comfort began operations on 20 January, completing the arrival of the first group of sea-base vessels; this came as a new flotilla of USN ships were assigned to Haiti, including survey vessels, ferries, elements of the maritime prepositioning
Maritime Prepositioning ship
The 31 Maritime Prepositioning Ships are part of the United States Military Sealift Command's Prepositioning Program. They are strategically positioned around the globe to support the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Defense Logistics Agency...
and underway replenishment
Underway replenishment
Underway replenishment or replenishment at sea is a method of transferring fuel, munitions, and stores from one ship to another while under way.-History:...
fleets, and a further three amphibious operations ships, including another helicopter carrier, .
On 22 January the UN and United States formalised the coordination of relief efforts by signing an agreement giving the U.S. responsibility for the ports, airports and roads, and making the UN and Haitian authorities responsible for law and order. The UN stated that it had resisted formalising the organization of the relief effort to allow as much leeway as possible for those wishing to assist in the relief effort, but with the new agreement "we’re leaving that emergency phase behind". The UN also urged organizations to coordinate aid efforts through its mission in Haiti to allow for better scheduling of the arrival of supplies. On 23 January the Haitian government officially called off the search for survivors, and most search and rescue teams began to prepare to leave the country. However, as late as 8 February 2010, survivors were still being discovered, as in the case of Evan Muncie, 28, found in the rubble of a grocery store.
On 5 February, ten Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
missionaries from Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
led by Laura Silsby were charged with criminal association
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
and kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
for trying to smuggle 33 children out of Haiti. The missionaries claimed they were rescuing orphaned children but investigations revealed that more than 20 of the children had been taken from their parents after they were told the children would have a better life in America. In an interview, the United States Ambassador to Haiti
United States Ambassador to Haiti
This is a list of United States Ambassadors to Haiti. The current ambassador is Kenneth H. Merten.-See also:*Haiti – United States relations*Foreign relations of Haiti*Ambassadors of the United States-References:*-External links:* * *...
Kenneth Merten, stated that the U.S. justice system would not interfere and that "the Haitian justice system will do what it has to do." By 9 March 2010, all but Silsby were deported and she remained incarcerated.
Social networking is being (was) used to help the structure for coordination on the ground.
On 10 April, due to the potential threat of mudslides and flooding from the upcoming rainy season
Wet season
The the wet season, or rainy season, is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region occurs. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the...
, the Haitian government began operations to move thousands of refugees to a more secure location north of the capital.
Recovery
U.S. President Barack ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
announced that former presidents Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
, who also acts as the UN special envoy to Haiti, and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Haiti on 16 January to survey the damage and stated that US$48 million had been raised already in the U.S. to help Haiti recover. Following the meeting with Secretary Clinton, President Préval stated that the highest priorities in Haiti's recovery were establishing a working government, clearing roads, and ensuring the streets were cleared of bodies to improve sanitary conditions.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...
stated on 16 January that President Obama "does not view this as a humanitarian mission with a life cycle of a month. This will still be on our radar screen long after it's off the crawler at CNN. This is going to be a long slog."
Trade and Industry Minister Josseline Colimon Fethiere estimated that the earthquake's toll on the Haitian economy would be massive, with one in five jobs lost. In response to the earthquake, foreign governments offered badly needed financial aid. The European Union promised €330 million for emergency and long-term aid. Brazil announced R$375 million for long-term recovery aid, R$25 million of which in immediate funds. The United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander
Douglas Alexander
Douglas Garven Alexander is a British Labour Party politician, who is currently the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the shadow cabinet of Ed Miliband. He has held cabinet posts under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, including Secretary of State for Scotland and...
called the result of the earthquake an "almost unprecedented level of devastation", and committed the UK to ₤20 million in aid, while France promised €10 million. Italy announced it would waive repayment of the €40 million it had loaned to Haiti, and the World Bank waived the country's debt repayments for five years. On 14 January, the U.S. government announced it would give US$100 million to the aid effort and pledged that the people of Haiti "will not be forgotten".
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the government of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
announced that it would match the donations of Canadians up to a total of C$50 million. After a United Nations call for help for the people affected by the earthquake, Canada pledged an additional C$60 million in aid on 19 January 2010, bringing Canada's total contribution to C$135 million. By 8 February 2010, the federal International Co-operation Department, through the Canadian International Development Agency
Canadian International Development Agency
The Canadian International Development Agency was formed in 1968 by the Canadian government. CIDA administers foreign aid programs in developing countries, and operates in partnership with other Canadian organizations in the public and private sectors as well as other international organizations...
(CIDA), had already provided about C$85 million in humanitarian aid through UN agencies, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is a humanitarian institution that is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement along with the ICRC and 186 distinct National Societies...
and to organizations such as CARE, Médecins du Monde, Save the Children
Save the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
, Oxfam Quebec, the Centre for International Studies and Co-operation, and World Vision
World Vision
World Vision, founded in the USA in 1950, is an evangelical relief and development organization whose stated goal is "to follow our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in working with the poor and oppressed to promote human transformation, seek justice and bear witness to the good news of the Kingdom of...
. On 23 January 2010, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
announced that the federal government had lifted the limit on the amount of money allocated for matching individual donations to relief efforts, and that the federal government would continue to match individual donations until 12 February 2010; by the deadline, Canadians had privately raised C$220 million. On top of matching donations, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda
Bev Oda
The Hon. Beverley Joan "Bev" Oda, PC, MP is a Canadian politician. She is a current member of the Canadian House of Commons, as well as the first Japanese-Canadian MP and cabinet minister in Canadian history. She represents the riding of Durham for the Conservative Party of Canada. She was...
pledged an additional C$290 million in long-term relief to be spent between 2010 and 2012, including C$8 million in debt relief to Haiti, part of a broader cancellation of the country's overall World Bank debt. The government's commitment to provide C$550 million in aid and debt relief and Canadians' individual donations amount to a total of CAD$770 million.
In addition to Canada's federal government, the governments of several of the provinces and territories of Canada
Provinces and territories of Canada
The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...
also announced that they would provide immediate emergency aid to Haiti. On 18 January 2010, the province of Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, whose largest city - Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
- houses the world's largest Haitian diaspora, pledged C$3 million in emergency aid. Both the provincial government of Quebec and the Canadian federal government reaffirmed their commitment to rebuilding Haiti at the 2010 Francophonie Summit; Prime Minister Harper used his opening speech to "tell the head of the Haitian delegation to keep up their spirits" and to urge other nations to continue to support recovery efforts.
President Abdoulaye Wade
Abdoulaye Wade
Abdoulaye Wade is the third and current President of Senegal, in office since 2000. He is also the Secretary-General of the Senegalese Democratic Party and has led the party since it was founded in 1974...
of Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
offered interested Haitians free land in Senegal; depending on how many respond to the offer, this could include up to an entire region.
Prime Minister Bellerive announced that from 20 January, people would be helped to relocate outside the zone of devastation, to areas where they may be able to rely on relatives or better fend for themselves; people who have been made homeless would be relocated to the makeshift camps created by residents within the city, where a more focused delivery of aid and sanitation could be achieved. Port-au-Prince, according to an international studies professor at the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
, was ill-equipped before the disaster to sustain the number of people who had migrated there from the countryside over the past ten years to find work. After the earthquake, thousands of Port-au-Prince residents began returning to the rural towns they came from.
On 25 January a one-day conference was held in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
to assess the relief effort and discuss further plans. Prime Minister Bellerive told delegates from 20 countries that Haiti would need "massive support" for its recovery from the international community. A donors' conference was expected to be held at the UN headquarters in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in March, however, took more than three months to hold the UN conference. The 26-member international Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, headed by Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, convened in June 2010. That committee is overseeing the $5.3 billion pledged internationally for the first two years of Haiti's reconstruction.
The Netherlands sponsored a project, called Radio555. The Dutch radio channels 3FM
3FM
3FM is a Dutch radio station on the NPO which broadcasts popular music. It can be compared with BBC Radio 1.-History:3FM was created as Hilversum 3 by minister Maarten Vrolijk on 11 October 1965, to counterbalance the popular offshore station Radio Veronica...
, Radio 538
Radio 538
Radio 538 is a Dutch commercial radio station aimed at young people. It has a broad format which includes Top 40, dance, R&B and recent hits...
and Radio Veronica
Radio Veronica
Radio Veronica was an offshore radio station that began broadcasting in 1960, and broadcast from offshore for over fourteen years. It was set up by independent radio, TV and household electrical retailers in the Netherlands to stimulate the sales of radio receivers by providing an alternative to...
all broadcast under the name of Radio555, funded by a contribution of €80 million.
Several organizations of the U.S. building industry and government, such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the International Code Council
International code council
The International Code Council , a membership association dedicated to building safety, fire prevention and energy efficiency, develops the codes used to construct residential and commercial buildings, including homes and schools. Most U.S. cities, counties and states that adopt codes choose the...
, among others, are compiling a "Haiti Toolkit" coordinated by the National Institute of Building Sciences
National Institute of Building Sciences
The National Institute of Building Sciences is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that successfully brings together representatives of government, the professions, industry, labor and consumer interests, and regulatory agencies to focus on the identification and resolution of problems and...
. The toolkit would comprise building technology resources and best practices for consideration by the Haitian government with the goal of creating a more resilient infrastructure to prevent future losses of life.
Immediately following the earthquake, Real Medicine Foundation
Real Medicine Foundation
The Real Medicine Foundation is a disaster relief group that attempts to provide aid long after the disaster occurred. The organization was started during the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami. The founder, Martina Fuchs, began by creating a small clinic in Sri Lanka. Afterwords, she founded the...
began providing medical staffing, in-kind medical supplies and strategic coordination to help meet the surging needs of the health crisis on the ground. Working in close partnership with other relief organizations, Real Medicine organized deployments of volunteer medical specialists to meet the needs of partner hospitals and clinics at the Haiti–Dominican Republic border and in Port-au-Prince, provided direct funding, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals to local health facilities and partner hospitals, provided advisory services and coordination to local health facilities, including physical therapy support, and coordinated mobile health outreaches, field clinics and food supplies to outlying villages overlooked in the relief effort.
On 15 January 2011, the Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services is the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. Founded in 1943 by the U.S. bishops, the agency provides assistance to 130 million people in more than 90 countries and territories in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and...
announced a US$200 million (€195 million), five-year relief and reconstruction program that covers shelter, health, livelihoods, and child protection among its program areas.
Status of the recovery
As much as 98% of the rubble from the quake remained uncleared by July 2010. An estimated 26 million cubic yards (20 million cubic meters) remained, making most of the capital impassable, and thousands of bodies remained in the rubble. The number of people in relief camps of tents and tarps since the quake was 1.6 million, and almost no transitional housing had been built. Most of the camps had no electricity, running water, or sewage disposal, and the tents were beginning to fall apart. Crime in the camps was widespread, especially against women and girls. Between 23 major charities, $1.1 billion had been collected for Haiti for relief efforts, but only two percent of the money had been released. According to a CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
report, $3.1 billion had been pledged for humanitarian aid and was used to pay for field hospitals, plastic tarps, bandages, and food, plus salaries, transportation and upkeep of relief workers. By May 2010, enough aid had been raised internationally to give each displaced family a cheque for $37,000.
In July 2010, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
returned to Port-au-Prince and reported, "It looks like the quake just happened yesterday", and Imogen Wall, spokeswoman for the United Nations office of humanitarian affairs in Haiti, said that six months from that time it may still look the same. The Haitian government said it was unable to tackle debris clean-up or the resettlement of the homeless because it must prepare for the hurricane season. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated, "The real priority of the government is to protect the population from the next hurricane season, and most of our effort right now is going right now in that direction."
Speaking of the difficulties of living in one of the many camps, one refugee told a reporter, "They told us when we were coming here, that we would live well. But what we saw when we got here and the way we lived here, it's the contrary. The place where we are here when it's hot, the sun makes the tents hot, very hot. And also the wind comes and blows the tents and wrecks them". When asked what needs to happen now, he replied, "...In the situation we're living here in the tents, we can't continue like that anymore. We would ask them as soon as possible to give us the real houses that they said they were going to give us so that our situation could improve. Because the tents are torn, when it rains, rain comes in. We have very exemplary or a very indicative block, Block 6. It's a zone which is completely unpassable when it rains".
Land ownership is a particular problem for rebuilding because so many pre-quake homes were not officially registered. "Even before the national registry fell under the rubble, land tenure was always a complex and contentious issue in Haiti. Many areas of Port-au-Prince were settled either by tonton makout
Tonton Macoute
Tonton Macoutes was a Haitian paramilitary force created in 1959 by President François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier. In 1970, the militia was officially renamed the Milice de Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale .Haitians called this force the “Tonton Macoutes,” after the Haitian Creole mythological...
– Duvalier's death squads - given land for their service or by squatters. In many cases land ownership was never officially registered. Even if this logistical logjam were to be cleared, the vast majority of Port-au-Prince residents, up to 85%, did not own their homes before the earthquake."
In September 2010 there were over one million refugees still living in tents, and the humanitarian situation was characterized as still being in the emergency phase, according to the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
Bernard Auza. He went on to say that the number was rising instead of diminishing, and reported that the state had decided to first rebuild downtown Port-au-Prince and a new government center, but reconstruction had not yet begun.
In October 2010, Refugees International
Refugees International
Refugees International is a humanitarian organization supporting refugees and stateless people. It publishes annual reports, as well as approximately twenty-five field reports throughout the year on refugee issues, as well as comments on international aid issues around the world...
criticised the aid agencies for being "dysfunctional" and "inexperienced". "The people of Haiti are still living in a state of emergency, with a humanitarian response that appears paralysed. Gang leaders or land owners are intimidating the displaced. Sexual, domestic, and gang violence in and around the camps is rising. Action is urgently needed to protect the basic human rights of people displaced by the earthquake." They claimed that rape of Haitian women and girls who have been living in camps since the January earthquake is increasing, in part, because the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
isn’t doing enough to protect them. In October, a cholera epidemic broke out, probably introduced by foreign aid workers. Cholera most often affects poor countries with limited access to clean water and proper sanitation. By the end of 2010, more than 3,333 had died at a rate of about 50 deaths a day.
A few days before the first anniversary of the quake, Oxfam
Oxfam
Oxfam is an international confederation of 15 organizations working in 98 countries worldwide to find lasting solutions to poverty and related injustice around the world. In all Oxfam’s actions, the ultimate goal is to enable people to exercise their rights and manage their own lives...
published a report on the status of the recovery. According to the report, relief and recovery are at a standstill due to government inaction and indecision on the part of the donor countries. The report states, "One year on, only five percent of the rubble has been cleared and only 15 percent of the required basic and temporary houses have been built. House building on a large scale cannot be started before the enormous amount of rubble is cleared. The government and donors must prioritize this most basic step toward helping people return home". Robert Fox, executive director of Oxfam Canada, said "The dysfunction has been aided unabated by the way the international community has organized itself, where pledges have been made and they haven't followed through [and] where they come to the table with their own agendas and own priorities. Most donors provided funds for transitional housing but very little money for clearing rubble or repairing houses". Fox states that in many instances rubble removal "means it was [moved] off someone's property onto the road in front of the property".
According to a UNICEF report, "Still today more than one million people remain displaced, living in crowded camps where livelihoods, shelter and services are still hardly sufficient for
children to stay healthy". The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was set up in April 2010 and led by former US President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive
Jean-Max Bellerive
Jean-Max Bellerive is a Haitian politician and outgoing Prime Minister of Haiti. He resigned on 14 May 2011.-Personal life:Bellerive was born in Port-au-Prince in 1958. As the son of a prominent doctor, he left Haiti at a very young age to study in Switzerland, France, and Belgium...
to facilitate the flow of funds toward reconstruction projects and to help Haitian ministries with implementation. As of January 2011 no major reconstruction had started. Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
reported that armed men prey with impunity on girls and women in displacement camps, worsening the trauma of having lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.
On the first anniversary of the earthquake, Haitian-born Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean
Michaëlle Jean is a Canadian journalist and stateswoman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 27th since Canadian Confederation, from 2005 to 2010....
, who served as the Governor General of Canada
Governor General of Canada
The Governor General of Canada is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II...
at the time of the disaster and who became United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Special Envoy for Haiti on 8 November 2010, voiced her anger at the slow rate of aid delivery, placing much of the blame on the international community for abandoning its commitments. In a public letter co-authored with UNESCO head Irina Bokova
Irina Bokova
Irina Georgieva Bokova is a Bulgarian politician, incumbent Directors-General of UNESCO. She was member of the Bulgarian Parliament from the Bulgarian Socialist Party for two terms, minister and deputy minister of foreign affairs in the socialist cabinet of Prime Minister Zhan Videnov, and was...
, Jean said, "As time passes, what began as a natural disaster is becoming a disgraceful reflection on the international community."
Disputed figures controversy
On May 31, 2011, BBC News reported that a new report challenges Haiti earthquake death toll. "Significantly fewer people died or were left homeless by last year's earthquake in Haiti than claimed by the country's leaders, a draft report commissioned by the US government has said. The unpublished report puts the death toll between 46,000 and 85,000. Haiti's government says about 316,000 died. It also suggests many of those still living in tent cities did not lose their homes in the disaster. The draft report, which has yet to be released publicly, is based on a survey commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and draws its numbers from door-to-door surveys carried out over 29 days in January 2011."Richard Garfield, a professor of public health at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and researchers from the Center for Disaster Medicine at Karolinska Institutet
Karolinska Institutet
Karolinska institutet is a medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area, Sweden, and one of Europe's largest medical universities...
in Sweden also dispute the Haitian government's figures. Said Garfield in accusing global aid groups of inflating death tolls to boost donor interest, "Bigger numbers mean some greater potential fundraising ability. The mentality is if everybody else is inflating their numbers, we can't be left out."
See also
- 1692 Jamaica earthquake1692 Jamaica earthquakeThe 1692 Jamaica earthquake struck Port Royal, Jamaica on June 7, at exactly 11:43 a.m., according to a stopped pocket watch found in the harbour in the 1950s. Port Royal was then the unofficial capital of Jamaica, and one of the busiest and wealthiest ports in the West Indies...
- 1972 Nicaragua earthquake1972 Nicaragua earthquakeThe 1972 Nicaragua earthquake was an earthquake that occurred at 12:29 a.m. local time on Saturday, December 23, 1972 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. It had a magnitude of 6.2 and occurred at a depth of about 5 kilometers beneath the centre of the city. Within an hour after the main...
- 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
- 2010 Chile earthquake2010 Chile earthquakeThe 2010 Chile earthquake occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February 2010, at 03:34 local time , having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking lasting for about three minutes. It ranks as the sixth largest earthquake ever to be recorded by a...
- Health crisisHealth crisisA health crisis or public health crisis is a difficult situation or complex health system that affects humans in one or more geographic areas, from a particular locality to encompass the entire planet...
- List of natural disasters in Haiti
- Lists of earthquakes
- J/P Haitian Relief OrganizationJ/P Haitian Relief OrganizationJ/P Haitian Relief Organization is a non-profit organization founded by the American actor Sean Penn in response to the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti...
External links
- The CCCM Cluster in Haiti, Situation, Information, Maps, Publication, Toolkits
- The ICRC in Haiti, Features, photos, videos
- Bound by Haiti film
- We Hear Your Voice
- Illustration -Major earthquakes in the Caribbean since the 1600s and Haiti earthquake NY Times
- Haiti Learning and Accountability Portal Overview of ongoing and planned evaluation and accountability efforts by aid agencies operating in Haiti
- Aid-workers, academics and journalists discuss the social context of the earthquake and international response The Frontline Club, February 2010