The Haitian capital Port-au-Prince may be dark at night - but it is not quiet. Many of the survivors of last week's devastating earthquake have no homes to go to and are too scared to shelter inside those buildings still standing. So at night, they gather on the streets and they sing and pray, mourning the dead and praising God.
RNW correspondent Hans Jaap Melissen is in the Haitian capital in the wake of what the UN has described as the one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades. He met quake survivor Jalai, one of the many Haitians who pass the hours of darkness outdoors, joining in impromptu religious services.
"They come here to say, thank you God. I'm alive. Because if they didn't have God they'd be buried in the cemetery. That's why they pray. I can't tell you what happened to me and my family - because I don't have no family left. I've only got me. My daughter, my dad, my mother, my sister, all of them gone. Right now I'm alone on the street."
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The International Red Cross is putting the probable death toll from last Tuesday's quake at around 50,000, but the head of the United States rescue workers, Lieutenant-General Ken Keen, believes the figures may go as high as 200,000. Around one and a half million people are thought to have lost their homes, with some three million affected by the disaster.
Most challenging ever
Large numbers of those who did survive are having to fend for themselves, with food, water. and medicine still in desperately short supply. International aid is arriving in the country but distribution is being severely hampered by the lack of infrastructure.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon travelled to Haiti on Sunday, and described the situation as the most challenging humanitarian disaster ever in terms of relief work. Amid reports of looting and violence, he appealed to frustrated Haitians to be patient saying help was coming.
International effort
A vast US military relief effort is underway with another 7,500 troops expected to join the almost 6,000 already on the ground on Monday. Many other countries have also sent search and rescue and medical teams to Haiti as well as providing aid supplies.
The UN has launched an appeal for 390 million dollars to help those in need of emergency relief over the next six months. Canada has announced that an international donors conference will be held in Montreal on 25 January to discuss the reconstruction effort.
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While this is a terrible tragedy,the above person was right,there was jst an earthquake in California a few years ago,a 6.something and although they weren't major injuries or damage no one said a whole lot or jumped to help,same with Katrina,now this quake was a 7 on te scale and there is total devastation. Where is all the cashadvance coming from to help these people,many of them that can't get out alive will end up migrating to Florida anyway,end getting jobs before any americans are offered them.Maybe i sound a bit shallow,but i personally am tired of hearing about this and could really careless.The US has always been the rest of the world's savior.
The earthquake in Haiti shook the whole world, not just Haiti. I never thought that such a disaster like this is possible. It's because of scenarios like this I decided to add some modification to my life and home insurance and I do pray that I'll never have to use any of the two.
New high resolution pictures on the destruction from the 2010 Haiti Earthquake have been posted from on the ground in Port-Au-Prince and Jacmel
http://www.jlaforums.com/album.php?search=haiti&search_cond=Pic%20Descri...
http://www.jlaforums.com/album.php?search=haiti&search_cond=Pic%20Title&...
A 65-year-old Indian-Amercan doctor, who went to Haiti to attend an IMA World Health's meeting two days before the killer earthquake, had a miraculous escape from beneath tons of rubble where she was buried for 50 hours in a collapsed Port-au-Prince hotel.
A slightly-bruised but traumatized Sarla Chand came back home to Teaneck, New Jersey,on Saturday night, after she was evacuated and sent to the Dominican Republic from where she travelled to Miami [ Images ] and then onto Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Friday night. "I went to drive my mom back home from the airport," Shiraz Lall, Chand's elder son, told rediff.com.
Chand could not speak to rediff.com as she was resting, but her son said, his mother, vice president of IMA World Health's international programs, which takes care of tropical diseases in developing countries, and two other American employees, had just finished a meeting at the Montana Hotel in the Haitian capital when the quake struck.
"My mom was standing with her colleagues at the entrance of the hotel after the meting, discussing where they could go for dinner when the hotel Montana began to tremble. In no time the building started to collapse and a piece of concrete hit her head trapped as she was under concrete," Lall said.
Describing his mother's ordeal, he said "She was trapped under rubble and lay underneath all alone for 50 hours before she was pulled out from that small crevice. She told me later that she tried crawling within that small little space looking for a hole. She never gave up, being a brave woman," Lall said.
"Almost two days later, my mom discovered a hole in the concrete through which she could see the trees outside as well as the sunlight. After her persistent screaming, a firefighter came to her help and ultimately rescued her," Lall said.
'I've always said that I'm a blessed woman. And after this experience, I repeat these words,' Chand was quoted as saying soon after arrival here last night.
report by Suman Guha Mozumder in New York
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