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This is part two of Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
By Mark on January 29, 2010
Has i have written in my previous post about this earthquake i was lucky enough to find some information on Wikipedia: about what happened in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday 12th January 2010. As you can imagine it was a shock for many Hatians seeing their homes, gardens, business’s, shops, parks, pubs etc being destroyed and it would not have given the citizens much confidence, hearing that their President and Government had also been effected.
So what actually went wrong, well it all started in the small coastal city of Léogâne in the south of Haiti, it is about 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, it was around 16:53 local time when a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck the coastal city, it was at a depth of 13 km (8.1 miles). It past very quickly through the country to Port-au-Prince, by the 24th January it had been recorded that at least 52 aftershocks hit the country, measuring 4.5 or more.
It had been reported that the International Red Cross gave an estimate of around 3 million people had been effected. The Haitian Interior Minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé, said on the 15th January that 100,000 or even 200,000 lives had been lost and then tragic news was broadcasted by the Haitian President Rene Preval on the 27th January the bodied count was “nearly 170,000″. Has you can imagine an earthquake can be disasterous, but imagine if you are also a poor nation and are just surviving before the quake. So much damage was done like in Jacmel and other settlements in the region.
Lots of well known landmarks had been destroyed, some of them included the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Also sadly some well known people died like the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot,and opposition leader Micha Gaillard, and worst of all the headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which you will find in the capital city, was also destroyed causing many many deaths including the Mission’s Chief, Hédi Annabi.
Thankfully, though the news hit the world extremely quick and hard and many countries were offering help and assitance including humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel. But it was thanks to America and the rest of the world for supplying food, and hospitalization on board a ship, as you can imagine communication was very hard because most of the air, land, and sea transport facilities, hospitals, and electrical networks were all damaged. There were delays, with aid etc and their were many angry Haitians, but the aid and support did finally get through. Even though there was alot of looting going on and certain people taking more aid than was needed at that time.
It was on the 22nd January that the United Nations decide it was time to stop the emergency aid and that the relief work was slowing down. This mean’t that they would stop searching for survivors, but a few survivors have still managed to get out of the situations that they were dangerously in. The following day it was then announced by the Haitian government that it was time to call off the search. Even today surprises are still happening when survivors come through and the way that the Haitians have mangaed to pull themselves through this dramatic time, thank you for reading this, and my hopes and prays go to the all the Haitian people and I hope things get better for them soon.
- Learn about the earthquake in Haiti on wikipedia:
- Learn about the Catherdral in Port-au-Prince on Wikipedia:
- Learn about the Moment magnitude scale on Wikipedia:
- Learn about the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti on Wikipedia:
- Find Haiti on Google Maps:
- Find Port-au-Prince on Google Maps:
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