On January 12, 2010, Haiti was struck by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. The city of Port-au-Prince is still recovering from the effects of the devastating quake which hit on January 12th.
Here’s what you should be aware of:
Looking for survivors at a home in Haiti’s Les Cayes, that was destroyed by an earthquake on Saturday. Credit… Reuters/Ralph Tedy Erol
LES CAYES, HAITIAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN Following a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Saturday that broke water lines, stopped highways, destroyed grocery shops, and damaged hospitals in the country’s southern peninsula, Haitians battled with a shortage of essential commodities, including food and medical treatment.
The strong earthquake struck a country that is still suffering from a presidential murder last month and has never fully recovered from a catastrophic earthquake that struck more than 11 years ago. Aid organizations and government rescue workers set up a single operation center in Port-au-Prince to coordinate the quake response, but residents in the hard-hit town of Les Cayes were loading injured people into cars and onto private planes in an attempt to get them to the capital, Port-au-Prince, for treatment.
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Former senator Herve Foucand was flying passengers to Haiti’s capital on his tiny propeller aircraft.
He replied, “I have 30 patients in critical condition waiting for me.” “However, I only have seven seats available.”
Landslides shut off small villages around Les Cayes, and they are expected to be much worse affected.
Tropical Storm Grace was anticipated to move over Haiti on Monday, further complicating the chaotic operations, though forecasts indicated it may avoid the peninsula worst affected by the quake.
According to Jerry Chandler, director of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, the verified dead toll climbed to 724 on Sunday, with at least 2,800 people wounded.
Mr. Chandler added that the cities of Jérémie and Les Cayes, which are less heavily inhabited but also more isolated, had suffered significant damage. Thousands of houses and a multistory hotel were destroyed, and several highways and bridges were closed, making rescue and relief operations more difficult. Despite this, Mr. Chandler pledged a “more suitable reaction than the one we provided in 2010,” when millions of dollars in assistance seemed to disappear under a fog of corruption and confusion.
“These are trying times,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry remarked. Let’s put our differences aside for a moment. Let’s put everything else aside and assist the poorest and most vulnerable people.”
The recovery was taking place during a political crisis in the aftermath of President Jovenel Mose’s murder on July 7. The government of Haiti, a Caribbean nation of 11 million people, is disorganized and unprepared for a natural disaster due to an unsolved murder, a leadership vacuum, extreme poverty, and systematic gang warfare in sections of the country.
The United States and other nations, as well as the United Nations and private groups, quickly pledged humanitarian assistance. By Saturday night, the gangs that control the roadway that connects the southern peninsula to the rest of Haiti had proclaimed a humanitarian cease-fire, enabling assistance to reach those in need but also easing fears that vehicles carrying supplies would be held up and robbed.
An earthquake on Saturday destroyed the Sacred Heart church in Les Cayes. Credit… Associated Press/Delot Jean
What went wrong?
On Saturday morning, Haiti was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. It was more powerful than the 7.0-magnitude quake that wreaked havoc on the Caribbean nation in 2010. The quake occurred five miles from the hamlet of Petit Trou de Nippes in the western region of the nation, approximately 80 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey. It had a depth of seven miles, according to seismologists. It could be felt 200 miles away, in Jamaica.
Because to Saturday’s earthquake, the US Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning, which was subsequently revoked.
According to the USGS, aftershocks have reverberated across the area.
How many people have died?
During least 724 individuals have been verified killed, according to Jerry Chandler, the director of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, who spoke at a press conference on Sunday.
According to Jude Bonhomme, a local journalist who knew him, the former mayor of Les Cayes, Gabriel Fortuné, was murdered when the hotel he owned fell during the quake.
What areas of Haiti were hit by the earthquake?
Two cities on Haiti’s southern peninsula, Les Cayes and Jeremie, have reported significant damage, with people trapped beneath debris and buildings collapsing. In Petit Trou de Nippes, the epicenter of the quake, phone lines were down. There was no quick word from that city, leaving Haitian authorities fearful for their safety.
The entire scope of the damage and casualties is unknown at this time. Doctors, on the other hand, claimed that hospitals were overburdened.
According to Dr. James Pierre, a surgeon at the main hospital of Les Cayes, also known as the Hospital Immaculée Conception, a building housing medical students, hospital interns, and two physicians had fallen, trapping people who were most needed to give assistance.
The internal evaluation of the earthquake by the State Department was dismal. According to the assessment, up to 650,000 people were impacted by “very strong” earthquakes, with a further 850,000 being affected by “strong shaking,” putting thousands of structures at danger of damage and potential collapse.
What does this imply for the nation as a whole?
This earthquake could not have hit Haiti at a worse moment, since the country has yet to recover from the 2010 earthquake, which killed 300,000 people and destroyed most of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake struck the southern peninsula, which is still rebuilding from Hurricane Matthew, which slammed the nation in 2016.
The 11-million-strong nation is also recuperating from political instability. Since President Jovenel Mose was murdered on July 7, Haiti has been mired in a political crisis, and the administration is ill-equipped to deal with the aftermath.
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On Sunday, scenes of devastation rocked the earthquake-devastated hamlet of Les Cayes, as the dead toll surpassed 700. People were forced to sleep on the streets and on soccer fields when hotels and homes collapsed. Landslides shut off small villages around Les Cayes, and they are expected to be much worse affected.
On the second day of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo last month, Naomi Osaka faced China’s Zheng Saisai. Credit… The New York Times/Hiroko Masuike
Naomi Osaka, a tennis star, has stated that she would donate any prize money she earns at this week’s Western & Southern Open tennis event to Haitian relief efforts after the country’s catastrophic earthquake.
Osaka, who is now ranked No. 2 in the world, is half-Haitian. Her father is a Haitian, while her mother is a Japanese woman.
“It’s heartbreaking to witness the destruction in Haiti, and I feel like we’re never going to get a break. I’m going to compete in a tournament this week, and I’ll donate the whole prize pool to Haiti relief efforts. I believe our ancestors’ blood is strong, and we’ll keep rising,” Osaka tweeted on Saturday, ending the post with a prayer-hands emoji, a heart, and the Haitian flag.
According to Perfect-Tennis.com, the winner will earn $255,220, while the runner-up will receive $188,945. The Cincinnati Masters, commonly known as the Cincinnati Open, will begin on Monday in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Hundreds of people have perished as a result of the earthquake that hit Haiti early Saturday. The 7.2 magnitude quake hit five miles from the hamlet of Petit Trou de Nippes, approximately 80 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey.
The earthquake strikes as Haiti continues to recover from President Jovenel Mose’s murder last month, which threw the country into political turmoil. Add to that the danger of Tropical Storm Grace, which is projected to pass over Haiti on Monday, but experts say it would miss the peninsula most affected by the earthquake.
The tennis star has already used her position to raise awareness about a variety of issues, including social justice and mental health. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Osaka wore a mask with the names of Black men and women who had been victims of racial violence in each of her seven matches at the US Open.
Osaka stated on Instagram in May that she will not be doing any press interviews during the French Open, citing the negative impact such interviews have on players’ mental health.
On Saturday, a wounded lady was carried to an aircraft in Les Cayes, Haiti, to be airlifted to Port-au-Prince. Credit… Associated Press/Joseph Odelyn
LES CAYES, HAITIAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN The major airport of the city of Les Cayes was swamped with Haitians attempting to transport their loved ones to the capital, Port-au-Prince, a day after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake slammed across western Haiti, killing 724 people. The wounded’s demands were much too great for the local hospitals and physicians to manage.
Herve Foucand, a former senator from the country’s south, was transporting the wounded in his tiny propeller aircraft.
Mr. Foucand said, “I have 30 individuals in severe condition waiting for me.” “However, I only have seven seats available.”
“The hospitals are shattered inside,” Mr. Foucand said, adding that he had personally evacuated 50 patients to the capital using his small aircraft since Saturday.
The earthquake was just the latest catastrophe to hit Haiti, which is still recovering from a 2010 earthquake that killed 300,000 people. The quake struck only a month after the nation’s president, Jovenel Mose, was murdered in his bedroom, throwing the country into a political crisis at a time when the country had been suffering for years with extreme poverty and widespread gang warfare.
Les Cayes officials estimate that there are only around 30 physicians in the whole southern area, which has a population of about one million people. The major hospitals have all been destroyed. Doctors in Les Cayes labored through the night to construct a corrugated tin operating room near the airport.
Edward Destine, an orthopedic physician, was on the scene caring to the wounded. He said, “I’m the only surgeon.”
He went on to explain, “I would want to operate on ten patients today, but I simply don’t have the materials.” He said he required intravenous drips and antibiotics.
Dr. Destine stated that several of the wounds were fractures, including severe head and femur fractures.
He anticipated hundreds to get potentially deadly infections since the wounds were exposed and many people were staying in destroyed houses or on the streets.
He went on to say, “We can’t even conduct lab testing.”
Dr. Destine’s father, who is also a surgeon, was severely injured in the quake when a section of a roof collapsed on him. He hoped to have him airlifted to Port-au-Prince.
Palmera Claudius, 30, was lying in the bed of a pickup vehicle that her family had rented to transport her to the airport. The left arm was in a homemade sling fashioned from a ripped blue blouse, and her left side of her face was inflamed.
On Saturday, she was at her family’s home in Camp Perrine, on the outskirts of Les Cayes, when the whole house shook. A wall fell on her as she attempted to flee outdoors for safety.
She claims she can’t feel her legs. Her town’s local clinic does not have the capability to X-ray her. She hoped to grab a free trip to the capital as soon as one became available. Her family is unable to cover the costs.
People who were displaced from their damaged homes by the earthquake spent Saturday night outside in the hospital garden in Les Cayes, Haiti. Credit… Associated Press/Joseph Odelyn
Authorities in Haiti were rushing to organize their reaction to Saturday’s 7.2 magnitude earthquake, remembering the chaos that followed a catastrophic earthquake in 2010, when delays in delivering assistance to hundreds of thousands of people exacerbated the death toll.
At a press conference on Sunday, Prime Minister Ariel Henry pledged to “give a more suitable reaction than the one we provided in 2010.” This involves establishing a single command center in Port-au-Prince to coordinate all relief operations.
The hospitals that his organization oversees have largely improved their emergency medical services and training programs, according to Paul Farmer, a physician and co-founder of the relief agency Partners in Health, though most of the improvements were in the country’s center, far from where the earthquake struck.
Mr. Farmer added, “They can accomplish more, and quicker, than they could back then, and they will be relying on all of us for the pragmatic support they deserve.”
Haiti’s government failed to organize all of the humanitarian assistance it received in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, excluding many Haitians from rescue operations.
According to the most recent figures provided by Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, more than 700 people have been confirmed killed in the country’s southwest, with an unknown number still missing, raising fears that they are trapped beneath piles of concrete slabs from buildings flattened by the earthquake.
Hundreds of houses, as well as health facilities, schools, workplaces, grocery shops, and churches, have been destroyed or damaged, according to the agency.
According to The Associated Press, Mr. Henry, who announced a one-month state of emergency, said on Saturday, “The most essential thing is to rescue as many people as possible beneath the debris.”
“There are tremendous requirements. We must not only look after the wounded and broken, but also give food, aid, temporary housing, and psychological assistance,” he said.
Several hospitals in unaffected regions immediately stepped in to help, reacting to outpourings of support on social media.
The State University of Haiti Hospital in Port-au-Prince sent physicians to the southwest, while Zanmi Lasante, which operates multiple hospitals and collaborates with Partners in Health, said on Twitter that it was working with its partners to prepare for an inflow of patients.
In a statement posted on Facebook on Saturday, the country’s ministry of public health said it was “in urgent need of blood for the victims” and urged people to give blood to avoid a scarcity since so many people are likely to need treatment.
The earthquake in Port-au-Prince in 2010 damaged the National Blood Transfusion Center, leaving the nation in desperate need of blood bags, which delayed operations and resulted in additional fatalities and amputations.
According to a 2016 research, Haiti has increased blood drives after the disaster, surpassing pre-event levels as early as 2012 and expanding regional collections to decrease reliance on Port-au-Prince.
Sending much-needed assistance to the hardest-hit areas in the southwest of the nation, approximately 125 miles distant, will be a problem in and of itself. Traveling on the highways in and around Port-au-Prince has become hazardous due to gang activities, and the earthquake triggered landslides and damage that rendered several routes inaccessible.
The gangs who control the roadway that connects the southern peninsula to the rest of Haiti announced a humanitarian cease-fire on Saturday, enabling assistance to reach the devastated regions.
According to Mr. Henry, police forces and other resources were “mobilized so that this assistance that we want to give to our brothers and sisters in need could arrive.”
From Port-au-Prince, Milo Milfort contributed to this report.
In 2010, a satellite picture of Haiti’s Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone was captured. Credit… NASA
The earthquake that hit Haiti early Saturday morning happened on the same fault system that wreaked havoc on the city, Port-au-Prince, in January 2010. And the last quake very definitely increased the chances of this one happening.
Both quakes occurred on an east-west fault line near the meeting of two tectonic plates, which are huge portions of the Earth’s crust that move slowly in respect to one another. The Caribbean plate and the North American plate move laterally, or side by side, at a pace of approximately a quarter of an inch per year along this fault line, known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.
The epicenter of the 2010 earthquake occurred approximately 30 miles west of Port-au-Prince. On Saturday, the quake occurred approximately 50 miles to the west.
Susan E. Hough, a seismologist with the US Geological Survey who examined the 2010 earthquake, said there was no question that it was connected to the one on Saturday.
“It’s well known that you get this domino effect,” she said, referring to how the energy released by one earthquake changes stress patterns down the fault line. “However, we don’t have a crystal ball that can predict which domino will fall next.”
Seismologists have been worried about a section of the fault zone to the east, closer to the location of the 2010 rupture, according to Dr. Hough. She remarked, “Now we’ve seen the section to the west rupture.”
The fault burst both vertically and laterally, she said. According to preliminary assessments, the fault ruptured to the west, directing the majority of the energy away from Port-au-Prince and into the sparsely inhabited area along the Tiburon peninsula. If that’s the case, then the majority of the aftershocks that always follow a big earthquake will very certainly hit the west as well.
“Those are encouraging indications to the degree that anything might be good news for Haiti,” Dr. Hough added.
Saturday’s quake, which had a magnitude of 7.2, produced almost twice as much energy as the one in 2010, which had a magnitude of 7.0. Around 300,000 people were murdered in the quake. During a press conference on Sunday, Jerry Chandler, the director of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency, claimed that the latest earthquake had killed at least 724 people.
Aside from magnitude, quake damage and fatalities are determined by a variety of variables. The rupture’s depth and position, as well as the time it happened and the quality of the structure, may all have a significant impact. Many of the fatalities and injuries in the 2010 earthquake were attributed to faulty construction, particularly in masonry structures.
The fault zone stretches westward to Jamaica, which is likewise vulnerable to large earthquakes. The fault zone was most likely the cause of four significant earthquakes in the 18th and 19th centuries, including ones that destroyed Port-au-Prince in 1751 and again in 1770, in addition to the 2010 quake.
After the earthquake in Camp-Perrin, Haiti, on Sunday, firefighters and rescue workers assess the wreckage. Credit… The New York Times’ Valerie Baeriswyl
MACELINE — An aftershock blasted through the hilly village, shaking the collapsed corrugated tin roofs scattered over the ground, and the nephew of Ilda Pierre had just found her corpse amid the seats of St. Agnes church.
As he sat on what had once been the church’s wall — now simply a slab of cement — Honore Faiyther closed his eyes and waited for the shaking to subside. Ms. Pierre’s corpse lay on a metal grate a few steps away from him, covered in a white sheet.
Ms. Pierre and a companion were cleaning the church on Saturday when the earthquake hit with a magnitude of 7.2. A pillar fell just as Ms. Pierre’s companion reached the door, hitting her in the head and shattering her skull as they attempted to flee. She was immediately dead.
It’s unclear if Ms. Pierre was also murdered right away. Mr. Faiyther and three friends had been looking for her since mid-morning Saturday, but her battered and bleeding corpse was finally found Sunday afternoon after neighbors banded together to pry open the church’s roof, which had fallen, trapping the debris underneath.
Mr. Faiyther said, “My aunt has four children and is extremely involved in our community, having volunteered at this church for five years.” “Her husband is in denial; he can’t accept the fact that she is no longer alive.”
After the earthquake, Father Jean Edy Desravines recounted how screams penetrated the mountain range as people sought for their loved ones.
Father Desravines, alluding to the coronavirus epidemic, stated, “I was prepared a talk for today to encourage parents to bring their children back to school next month, to have them rejoin our community after such a difficult year.”
“There is no school to send them to now,” the priest added, adding that the elementary school his church operates was also destroyed by the earthquake.
No official assistance had come more than 24 hours after the earthquake.
He said that he would be sleeping in his pickup vehicle later that night. He was concerned that without flowing water, the situation would worsen and illness would become an issue.
The route from Les Cayes on the coast to Maceline in the city’s highlands was broken in the middle, with stones and tree branches obstructing it.
Families from Les Cayes to Maceline, a distance of approximately 25 kilometers, are sleeping in the open since their houses have been badly damaged or destroyed. Many others claimed they were too afraid of the aftershocks to seek refuge beneath a roof.
Fenicile Marssius, the mayor of Maceline, whose house had been damaged, went up to the church to check on Father Desravines.
“This is a disaster. We have received no help from the government. “Perhaps they are so busy in the metropolis that they are unable to reach us in these distant areas,” Ms. Marssius speculated. “We think many people are still trapped under the debris, and many homes and churches have collapsed,” said the group.
On Saturday morning, Tropical Storm Grace formed in the eastern Caribbean. Credit… Noaa
The danger of yet another natural catastrophe hangs over Haiti as people frantically seek for survivors of a catastrophic earthquake.
The National Hurricane Center predicts that Tropical Storm Grace will pass over Haiti on Monday. A tropical storm watch has been issued, and the National Hurricane Center has urged residents on the island to keep an eye on the storm’s course, which may bring heavy rain and strong gusts to Haiti.
The earthquake, according to Robbie Berg, a hurricane expert at the center, may enhance the risk of mudslides.
“It may have moved some of the earth and soil, increasing the likelihood of mudslides,” he added.
On Sunday, the storm was bypassing Puerto Rico and headed north toward the United States’ Gulf Coast, passing straight over the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and eventually Cuba.
On Saturday morning, the storm developed in the eastern Caribbean as Haiti’s western peninsula was jolted by an earthquake. It is the sixth named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season, and it comes after Tropical Storm Fred, which fell to a tropical depression last week, caused several days of flooding and power disruptions.
