Haiti Under the Rubble: Deadly earthquake tears the country apart – 2010 all over again?
News Analysis by Maria Wehbe, Staff Writer
August 26th, 2021
On August 14th, 2021, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, killing at least 1419 people, and injuring more than 6900. With hundreds still missing and the exact number still unknown, the toll is expected to rise in the days to come. According to CNN, the earthquake has affected 1.2 million people overall, including 540000 children. The earthquake was centered about 125 km west of the capital of Port-au-Prince and the areas in and around the city of Les Cayes were most affected, putting a very big strain on local hospitals which were also severely damaged. Indeed, the country is still recovering from another strong earthquake that took place 11 years ago and the recent assassination of its president, Jovenel Moise. In fact, on January 12th, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and was soon followed by two aftershocks of magnitudes 5.9 and 5.5. An estimated 220 000 people died and around 300 000 were injured. Unfortunately, Haiti’s unique geology makes it seismically active, thus more prone to devastating earthquakes as such. Additionally, the rescue efforts were hampered by Tropical Storm Grace, which brought heavy rains and very harsh weather conditions.
On Monday, August 16th, rescue workers were digging through the rubble in a very rushed manner, in an attempt to beat the storm and find as many survivors as possible. The heavy rains turned the earth into cloying mud, making it that much more difficult to locate people that were buried under the rubble. The National Hurricane Centre (NHC) predicted early on that the Tropical Storm could dump up to 25 cm of rainfall on the worst affected areas, which could trigger landslides. Thousands of people were left without shelter after their houses were completely destroyed, giving them nowhere to go as the storm was approaching. As a fact, people were rushing their families and loved ones to the airport to get them as far away from the region as possible, to Port-au-Prince, the capital, which is about 128 km to the east. Prime Minister Ariel Henry declared a one-month state of emergency on August 14th and called on Haitians to show solidarity towards one another in the quake’s aftermath. Furthermore, the United States President Joe Biden authorized an immediate response and US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Samantha Power confirmed that a 65-person search and rescue team and 38 disaster experts would be sent to the disaster site, as requested by Haiti’s government. In addition, a team of experts from the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) office in Port-au-Prince was deployed to help assess the damage and coordinate the response while UNICEF was distributing medical supplies to hospitals in the south and helping with sanitation and water.
On another note, it is worth mentioning that the country has a limited number of doctors— add to that a deadly earthquake that left thousands of people injured, it is bound to be a recipe for disaster. Hospitals and their staffs are struggling to help the wounded, given that they took a massive hit as well. With just a few dozen doctors available in the region of one million people, the repercussions were catastrophic. Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of the relief agency Partners in Health that oversees several hospitals in Haiti, pointed out that the country was able to deal with such an earthquake in a better way than that of 2010, though this does not overshadow the fact that the chance of the country managing the disaster in the best way possible is benign, given the bad roads, poor transportation and so on. According to the Civil Protection Agency, tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, leaving roads blocked and wrecking infrastructure, making it that much more difficult to provide the most heavily affected areas with vital supplies. Local hospitals are flooded with victims and are in desperate need of medical supplies that they are running out of. However, thousands of pounds of specialized equipment and medical supplies along with food and hygiene relief supplies have already been deployed – it is just a matter of when they will arrive.
The situation is so dire that the US Coast Guard has been airlifting patients to Port-au-Prince as hospitals are completely overwhelmed in the area and can no longer welcome patients, whereby they have been treating them on stairwells, patios and hallways. Dozens of cars and mopeds are lining up, waiting for the bulldozers to clear the path on the roads so that the unfortunate citizens can escape the area that leaves them traumatized time and time again. Unfortunately, the United Nations has reported security concerns for humanitarian personnel – this has put a strain on the relief and rescue efforts on rescue areas that are unsafe to access and visit. This makes it difficult to provide these areas with the supplies that they need, and as a result, there is no choice but to have them flown in. The gist of it all is this: the nation could not withstand its current harsh circumstances without international interference, yet the country’s security and safety put a strain on that, depleting citizens from their basic rights and needs at the same time.
All in all, the country truly needs all the help it can get. Keeping in mind that it is prone to such natural disasters, dealing with them will not get any easier over time as the other problems that overrule the country take a toll on the effectiveness of rescue and relief efforts. The Haitian citizens are still recovering from the earthquake that left them all devastated 11 years ago, and so how is it expected from them to overcome this one too? When will the next earthquake strike? How can the citizens be reassured that they will be safe the next time this happens and that their lives won’t be taken this time as well? “I don’t think there’s any hope. We have been calling her name since yesterday and knocking on the concrete, but there is nothing”, said 31-year-old Melchirode Walter, whose 26-year-old sister Solange Walter was trapped under the rubble. This is the harsh reality of the Haitian citizens today, and to properly deal and cope with such tragic events, the country is in dire need of reform and reevaluation, internally and externally.