Haiti In Ruins After Devastating Quake
Tens of thousands are feared dead after a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on Tuesday afternoon.
Horrific scenes have emerged in the quake’s aftermath as rescuers and survivors desperately search collapsed buildings as authorities scramble to coordinate a vast humanitarian relief effort.
The temblor left the president’s National Palace in ruins, and flattened hospitals, schools, the nation’s main prison and entire neighborhoods.
Although no firm casualty counts have been released, death was everywhere in the capital city of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.
The quake struck at 4:53 p.m. on Tuesday, with an epicenter 10 miles west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It was the area’s strongest quake since 1770, according to USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano.Â
The quake occurred at a depth of roughly 5 miles, just below the surface on a notorious fault where two plates of the Earth’s crust grind together, experts said.
"It was a very shallow earthquake,” seismologist Yann Kinger of the Institute of the Physics of the Globe told the AFP news agency.
"Because the shock was so big and occurred at such a shallow depth, just below the city (of Port-au-Prince), the damage is bound to be very extensive," he said.
Power outages and sporadic communications made it nearly impossible for officials to accurately assess the devastation.
"Initial reports suggest a high number of casualties and, of course, widespread damage but I don’t have any figure that I can give you with any reliability of what the number of casualties will be," said the U.N.’s humanitarian chief John Holmes.
Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press on Tuesday that as many as half a million people could be dead.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official in Port-au-Prince.
"The sky is just gray with dust."
Video images of Port-au-Prince as the quake occurred showed a vast dust cloud rising overhead as buildings collapsed.
The AP reported bodies of small children piled next to schools, and corpses of people lying on the streets.
"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," President Rene Preval told the Miami Herald.
"There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."
U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said there were reports of escaped inmates following the collapse of Haiti’s main prison.
The Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince was killed when his office and the main cathedral fell.
"The cathedral, the archbishop’s office, all the big churches, the seminaries have been reduced to rubble," Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic envoy to Haiti, told the Vatican news agency FIDES.
The body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot was found in the ruins of his office by fellow missionaries, said Rev. Pierre Le Beller of the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France, in an interview with the Associated Press.
Some 150 U.N. employees, including the head of the organization’s peacekeeping mission in Haiti, remained trapped Wednesday in the rubble of their multistory headquarters and other U.N. buildings in what appears to be the U.N.’s greatest loss of life in a single incident.
The world body confirmed the deaths of 16 officials, including 13 Brazilian and Jordanian peacekeepers, and said it expects most of those still missing would not survive.
"It’s clear a high number of them might be dead," said Alain Le Roy, the top U.N.’s top peacekeeping official.
The city’s injured gathered at the parking lot of the Hotel Villa Creole, which was set up as a triage center, hoping that doctors and aid would arrive.
The aid group Doctors Without Borders treated wounded survivors at two hospitals that had withstood the quake, and established tent clinics elsewhere in the city.
The International Red Cross estimated that one-third of Haiti’s 9 million people may require emergency aid.
Balancing suitcases and other belongings on their heads, survivors trekked into the Haitian countryside, which appeared to have suffered only minimal damage. Along the way, they passed ambulances and U.N. trucks speeding toward Port-au-Prince.
Although 3,000 police officers and thousands of international peacekeepers were on hand to maintain security, law enforcement will be stretched thin to deal with such a crisis.
Looting immediately followed the quake, with people seen carrying food from collapsed buildings.  Many carried as much as they could salvage and stacked it around them as they slept outside on streets and in parks.
The U.S. Coast Guard evacuated four critically injured U.S. Embassy staff by helicopter early Wednesday, transporting them to a hospital at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Calling scenes of the quake’s devastation "heart wrenching," President Barack Obama extended "the deep condolences and unwavering support" of the American people, and pledged a maximum rescue and humanitarian effort.
"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," Obama said on Wednesday at the White House following a meeting with his National Security Council.
"Our thoughts and prayers are also with the many Haitian Americans around our country who do not yet know the fate of their families and loved ones back home."
"For a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible.”
Haiti, with a population of 9 million, is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.
The first cargo planes with food, water, medical supplies, shelter and rescue dogs are making their way to the Caribbean nation, and the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is expected to arrive on Thursday. Additional Navy ships are also on the way, according to a statement from the U.S. Southern Command.
A small number of U.S. ground troops may soon arrive as well.
The AP quoted General Douglas Fraser, who heads the U.S. Southern Command, as saying some 2,000 Marines might be deployed aboard a large-deck amphibious ship that could provide medical assistance.
Meanwhile, other nations pledged to deploy teams of workers to rescue and aid the victims.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a number of rescue teams are on their way to Haiti.
"A Chinese rescue team and two rescue teams from the U.S. should have arrived this evening," he said, adding that the U.N. would coordinate the efforts of teams from various nations that will be arriving in the days ahead.
Aftershocks continued to rock Port-au-Price on Wednesday as shocked citizens wandered the streets holding hands and gathered in the thousands at public squares to sing hymns.
Bodies of people pulled from collapsed buildings were left covered with sheets by the side of the road as passers-by checked to see if loved ones were underneath.
President Preval told the Herald that Haiti’s Senate president was among those trapped alive inside the Parliament building.
The international Red Cross and other aid organizations announced plans for major relief operations, with many having to assist their own staff in addition to Haitians.  Taiwan said its embassy was destroyed and the ambassador hospitalized, while both Spain and France said their embassies had been damaged.
An estimated 40,000-45,000 Americans reside in Haiti, but the U.S. Embassy had no confirmed reports of deaths among U.S. citizens. Officials with the U.S. State Department said all but one American employed by the embassy are accounted for.
Experts say earthquakes do not typically lead to new outbreaks of infectious diseases, although they can worsen existing health problems.
"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," said Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles told the AP.
Some of the most immediate health threats include respiratory disease from inhaling dust from collapsed buildings and diarrhea from drinking contaminated water.  And quake refugees whose homes were destroyed will likely face an increased risk of dengue fever, malaria and measles.
With hospitals and clinics severely damaged, secondary infections are also concern, and those seeking medical attention for broken bones and even minor injuries may not be able to receive adequate care and could develop complications.
Many of the U.N.’s 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti spent Tuesday night searching for survivors in what remained of their headquarters.
The peacekeepers were also on patrol throughout the streets of Port-au-Prince, and worked to secure the airport, port and other major facilities. They reported that Port-au-Prince’s main airport was "fully operational" and open to relief flights.
Experts say a major earthquake near the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, was long overdue, CNN reported. In fact, a group of scientists from the US and Jamaica warned in 2008 that a fault zone on the south side of the island – the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault zone – presented a danger.
Tuesday’s earthquake occurred along a fault line known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.
"This is seismically a very active area of the world," CNN quoted geologists Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts as saying.
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"Geologists should not be surprised by this earthquake."
Lin co-authored the study with geologist Uri ten Brink of the U.S. Geological Survey.
"Because the earthquake was so close to the capital city, because the city is so populated and because the country is so poor — the houses are not well-built — it could cause significant casualties," he said.
Most Haitians suffer with severe poverty following years of political instability. The nation is also without meaningful construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated that roughly six-in-ten of Haiti’s buildings were unsafe, even in normal conditions.
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Image Caption: Haitian civilians receive assistance in a camp set up by the Brazilian Army in Port-au-Prince, in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Courtesy Roosewelt Pinheiro/Abr – Wikipedia
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