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HOPE
AMID HAITI’S RUINS |
| It’s
like Mogadishu or Beirut during the height of conflict, says
one veteran relief worker. Entire neighbourhoods reduced
to rubble. Another compared the quake’s aftermath to
the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, which wiped out whole communities
and claimed 230,000 lives in a dozen countries. The numbers
in Haiti back up the comparison: 225,000 killed, 1.2 million
left homeless. In Haiti, however, the disaster was concentrated
on one island already dealing with chronic poverty, hurricanes
and floods. Despite these facts, there is hope: the massive
global response and the legendary Haitian toughness offer
a foundation on which Haiti can rise again.
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Moments of joy, amid the pain
Amid
the ruin and their own sorrow, many volunteers said
their work gave them a sense of purpose, even an occasional
cause for joy. “I was working at the first-aid
post when I received a call from the team leader,” recounts
25-year-old Jude Celoge, with the Haitian National
Red Cross Society . “He told me: ‘Jude,
you need to get over to Carrefour-Feuilles right away.
There’s a girl in the wreckage who's still alive.’ “I
was there in five minutes. Local residents were there
with hammers, saws, chisels and shovels. A Red Cross
rescue worker had crawled in through a hole in the
rubble and talked to the girl. She had been in the
shower when the earthquake struck. She immediately
gave us a number to call her family.” The young
woman, 16-year-old Darlene Etienne, survived.
©REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz,
courtesy www.alertnet.org |
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Rapid global response
The Haiti operation quickly became one
of the largest, fastest and most complex responses
to a natural disaster in Movement history. Within a
month of the earthquake, more than 600 people representing
33 National Red Cross or Red Crescent Societies were
in Haiti delivering aid. By month’s end, 21 Emergency
Response Units from 16 National Societies, staffed
by 232 people, had been deployed. Above, Dominican
Red Cross volunteer Joel Calazan Batista organizes
tarpaulins for distribution in Port-au-Prince.
©Marko Kokic/ICR |
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Rapid global
response
Led by the Haitian
National Red Cross Society, Movement volunteers set
up emergency hospitals, got basic healthcare functioning,
and within weeks were treating 1,600 patients a day.
Here, a Canadian Red Cross volunteer treats the
broken leg of 12-year-old Guedline outside Port-au-
Prince’s university hospital.
©Marko
Kokic/ICRC |
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Silent suffering
The earthquake had
a devastating effect on people who were already extremely
vulnerable. Elderly people, for example, suffered tremendously
under the shock and strain of post-quake upheaval.
The man above, made homeless by the quake, sits in
the former chapel of a home for the elderly in Port-au-Prince’s
Delmas 2 district.
©Marko Kokic/ICRC |
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Unimaginable loss
Because the quake
struck during peak business hours, many schools, government
offices and shopping malls were full of people when
buildings began to topple. At left, Roselord Oregene
learns that her daughter Sefmi, 11, was killed by the
quake while at school at Rue du Centre, Port-Au-Prince.
©Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross |
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Resilience among the ruins
Amid the
suffering and pain, there were signs that life will
go on. Often, it’s the children who remind us
that after the grief, we will find hope and happiness.
Here, children play football in a rubble-strewn square,
the toppled Notre Dame Cathedral providing a sombre
background.
©Marko Kokic/ICRC |
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Rebuilding, one brick at a time
The effort to rebuild Haiti will likely
take decades and require a global commitment of labour,
capital and political will. For many in Haiti, the
rebuilding effort began with whatever bricks, iron
bars or wood scraps could be found amid the rubble.
It was a matter of immediate survival. This man carries
cinder blocks from a destroyed church in Port-au-Prince.
©REUTERS/Carlos Barria, courtesy www.alertnet.org |
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