People flee for safety in the throws of Haiti's earthquake that registered at 7.0. The country experienced tremendous damage to the capital Port-au-Prince and other areas.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Caribbean on tsunami alert as rescue operation gets under way
London Guardian
A huge rescue operation was under way this morning after a powerful earthquake hit Haiti, toppling buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, burying residents in rubble and sparking tsunami alerts in what is feared to be a major catastrophe.
A 7.0-magnitude quake – the biggest recorded in this part of the Caribbean – rocked Port-au-Prince last night, collapsing a hospital and sending houses tumbling into ravines.
Witnesses reported seeing bodies in the rubble and clouds of dust shrouding the city, but with telephone communications cut the extent of damage was not immediately clear.
"Everything started shaking, people were screaming, houses started collapsing, it's total chaos," said Joseph Guyler Delva, a Reuters reporter. "I saw people under the rubble, and people killed. People were screaming 'Jesus, Jesus' and running in all directions."
Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the US, told CNN from Washington: "I think it is really a catastrophe of major proportions."
The quake, which was shallow, with a depth of just 6.2 miles, struck at 4.53pm local time with the epicentre 10 miles south-west of Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey. It was said to have lasted around a minute and was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude. The last major temblor to hit the capital was a magnitude 6.7 in 1984.
The size and proximity to heavily populated slum areas made Tom Jordan, a quake specialist at the University of Southern California, fear the worst. "It's going to be a real killer."
Before telephone lines were broken, Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative, told US-based colleagues that "there must be thousands of people dead," the aid group reported.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center ruled out a major tsunami but said coasts up to 60 miles away might be affected, prompting alerts in neighbouring Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas.
Haiti, a former French colony which forms half of the island of Hispaniola, is especially vulnerable to natural disasters. Most of the capital's 3 million people live in hillside slums made of wood, tin and cheap concrete.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a US agriculture official visiting Haiti. "The sky is just grey with dust." He was walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake. "I just held on and bounced across the wall. I just heard a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
A local employee for the US charity Food for the Poor reported seeing a five-storey building collapse in Port-au-Prince. A colleague said there were more houses destroyed than standing in Delmas Road, a major thoroughfare.
The hospital in Petionville, a well to do neighbourhood, home to diplomats and expatriates, was wrecked. As darkness fell survivors filled the streets trying to dig people from rubble with their bare hands and improvised tools.
The US president, Barack Obama, issued a statement saying his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti. "We are closely monitoring the situation and we stand ready to assist the people of Haiti." Bill Clinton, the former president and the UN's special envoy for Haiti, echoed the pledge.
The quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, sending people in the capital Santo Domingo running on to the streets in panic. Houses shook in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported. "We felt it very strongly and I would say for a long time. We had time to evacuate," said Monsignor Dionisio Garcia, archbishop of Santiago.
Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said:
"Communication is absolutely impossible. I cannot get through."
7.0 quake hits Haiti; could be 'catastrophe,' official says
January 13, 2010 -- Updated 0201 GMT (1001 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
--Damage to presidential palace, hospital, homes, reports say
--Ambassador: Official in Haiti told me it's "catastrophe of major proportions"
--Earthquake struck just off coast of capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday
The Associated Press reported that a hospital had collapsed
Editor's note: Watch continuing coverage of the earthquake in Haiti on CNN.
(CNN) -- A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.
"The only thing I can do now is pray and hope for the best," the ambassador, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.
Witnesses reported heavy damage throughout the capital, Port-au-Prince, including to the president's residence and century-old homes nearby, and The Associated Press reported that a hospital collapsed. President Rene Preval is safe, Joseph said, but there was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening.
The magnitude 7.0 quake struck about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince shortly before 5 p.m. Joseph said one official of his government told him houses had crumbled "on the right side of the street and the left side of the street."
"He said it is a catastrophe of major proportions," Joseph said.
Frank Williams, the Haitian director of the relief agency World Vision International, said the quake left people "pretty much screaming" all around Port-au-Prince. He said the agency's building shook for about 35 seconds, "and portions of things on the building fell off."
"None of our staff were injured, but lots of walls are falling down," Williams said. "Many of our staff have tried to leave, but were unsuccessful because the walls from buildings and private residences are falling into the streets, so that it has pretty much blocked significantly most of the traffic."
Many of the homes in Port-au-Prince are concrete-block structures built on steep hillsides. Mike Godfrey, an American contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said "a huge plume of dust and smoke rose up over the city" within minutes of the quake -- "a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 20 minutes until the atmosphere dissipated the dust."
The quake was centered about 6 miles (10 kilometers) underground, according to the USGS. A magnitude 5.9 aftershock followed soon afterward, about 30 miles further west, followed by a 5.5 aftershock closer to the location of the first quake.
When aftershocks hit, "there is a kind of wail as people are very frightened by it," Williams said. "But most people are out in the streets and just kind of looking up."
The Rev. Kesner Ajax, executive director of a school in the southwestern city of Les Cayes, said several people were hurt when they rushed to get out of the building. Two homes in the area collapsed and the top of a church collapsed in a nearby town, he said, but he did not know of any fatalities.
Les Cayes, a city of about 400,000 people, is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince.
Appeals for aid after quake strikes Haiti
Jean Bernard, an eyewitness in Port-au-Prince, told CNN the city had no electricity Tuesday evening. The first quake lasted about 40 seconds, he said.
"A lot of houses [and] buildings went down, and people are still running all over the streets," Bernard said. "People are looking for their wives, looking for their husbands and their kids. It's scary."
Luke Renner, an American staying in Cap-Hatien, a city nearly 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince, said he was sitting at his home when "the whole world started to shake."
"It felt like our whole house was balancing on a beach ball," Renner said. "We heard the whole community screaming and in an uproar during that whole 20- to 30-second window."
"I haven't seen any structural damage here," Renner continued. "With the sun setting it may be difficult to tell. In the morning we'll know for sure."
Because of the earthquake's proximity to the capital, and because the city is densely populated and has poorly constructed housing, "it could cause significant casualties," said Jian Lin, a senior geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
Haiti's government is backed by a U.N. peacekeeping mission established after the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Efforts to contact the U.N. mission were unsuccessful Tuesday evening, but former President Clinton -- now the U.N. special envoy for Haiti -- said the world body was "committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti in their relief, rebuilding and recovery efforts."
The disaster is the latest to befall Haiti, which has a population of about 9 million people and is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Hurricane Gordon killed more than 1,000 people in 1994, while Hurricane Georges killed more than 400 and destroyed the majority of the country's crops in 1998.
In 2004, heavy rains from Hurricane Jeanne -- which passed north of the country -- caused landslides and flooding that killed more than 3,000 people, mostly in the northwestern city of Gonaives. Gonaives was hit heavily again in 2008, when four tropical systems passed through.
A tsunami watch for Haiti, the Dominican Republic and parts of Cuba following the earthquake has been canceled, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.
Eighty percent of Haiti's population lives under the poverty line, according to the CIA World Factbook.
Ferocious Earthquake Rocks Haiti
By JOSé DE CóRDOBA and DAVID LUHNOW
A powerful earthquake tore through Haiti on Tuesday, causing a hospital and several other buildings to collapse in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation and leading to an unknown number of fatalities, officials and witnesses said.
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake was centered just 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, the capital. Making matters worse, the earthquake was relatively shallow at a depth of five miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Shallow earthquakes can cause more damage.
"I think it's really a catastrophe of major proportions," Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.
A hospital in the impoverished and crowded Port-au-Prince had collapsed, along with dozens of other buildings, including at one in the presidential compound and one other government ministry building, according to Alice Blanchet, a special adviser to the Haitian government.
Ms. Blanchet, who lives in New York but had been in contact with several Haitian government officials, said the building that collapsed in the presidential compound was not the main presidential palace.
"I think the only good news was that it hit late and many of the people who would have been working in the buildings were on the street or at home," she said.
Raphaelle Chenet, the administrator of Mercy and Sharing, a charity that takes care of 109 orphans, said she saw about 10 dead bodies in the street after the quake struck.
"I saw dead bodies, people are screaming, they are on the street panicking, people are hurt," she told The Wall Street Journal. "There are a lot of wounded, broken heads, broken arms."
In Port-au-Prince, many houses built on steep ravines have collapsed, Ms. Chenet said. She had heard a couple of explosions, which she believed to be gas explosions. The orphans in the two institutions run by Mercy and Sharing weren't hurt, although an orphanage worker suffered a broken leg, she said.
Ms. Chenet added: "There is no electricity, electric poles are down all over the place."
In the U.S., President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with the people of Haiti, and U.S. officials said they would consider immediate humanitarian aid.
At least 1.8 million people live within the area where the earthquake had its highest intensity, John Bellini, a geophysicist at the USGS, told The Wall Street Journal. "With a strong and shallow earthquake like this in such a populated area, it could really cause substantial damage," he said.
The quake was the most powerful to hit Haiti since at least 1770, according to USGS records, Mr. Bellini added.
"This isn't normally an earthquake-prone area," he said.
Within minutes of the original tremor, two aftershocks rolled through the area, with magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.5.
Elise St. Louis Accilien, director of Haitian American for United Progress, a nonprofit organization that helps refugees and immigrants, said she had been in touch with several residents of Port-Au-Prince who described the town as "in a cloud of dust." "Nobody can get anywhere.... Wherever you are right now you're stuck in your building."
She added that her organization wasn't raising money for a relief effort of its own, but rather encouraging its members to send donations to the charity organizations Red Cross or World Vision.
In recent years, Haiti, overcrowded and deforested, and the poorest country in the Americas, has been hit by a series of devastating storms.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, said: "This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago."
The country has also been shaken by political instability. In 2004, President Bertrand Aristide, a fiery former Catholic priest, was overthrown by a rebellion of former soldiers and flew into exile in South Africa. In 2008, the country was shaken as thousands took to the streets to protest the high prices of food.
Eight in 10 Haitians live in poverty, according to the CIA World Factbook.
The American Red Cross said it would send $200,000 to assist aid victims and said it would be sending local responders to assess the situation.
"As with most earthquakes, we expect to see immediate needs for food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support," the organization said Tuesday evening.
—Nicholas Casey contributed to this article.
Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation-world/sns-ap-cb-haiti-earthquake,0,7342777.story
baltimoresun.com
Haiti hit by largest earthquake in over 200 years, collapsing hospital, buildings
JONATHAN M. KATZ
Associated Press Writer
9:29 PM EST, January 12, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The largest earthquake to hit Haiti in more than 200 years rocked the Caribbean nation Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help and heavily damaging other buildings. U.S. officials reported bodies lying in the streets and an aid official described "total disaster and chaos."
Communications were widely disrupted, making it impossible to get a full picture of damage as powerful aftershocks shook a desperately poor country where many buildings are flimsy. Electricity was out in some places.
Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues before phone service failed that "there must be thousands of people dead," according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Sara Fajardo.
"He reported that it was just total disaster and chaos, that there were clouds of dust surrounding Port-au-Prince," Fajardo said from the group's offices in Maryland.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed.
"They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said.
An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians, as well as many poor people. Elsewhere in the capital, a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.
Kenson Calixte of Boston spoke to an uncle and cousin in Port-au-Prince shortly after the earthquake by phone. He could hear screaming in the background as his relatives described the frantic scene in the streets. His uncle told him that a small hotel near their home had collapsed, with people inside.
"They told me it was total chaos, a lot of devastation," he said. More than four hours later, he still was not able to get them back on the phone for an update.
Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph, said from his Washington office that he spoke to President Rene Preval's chief of staff, Fritz Longchamp, just after the quake hit. He said Longchamp told him that "buildings were crumbling right and left" near the national palace. He too had not been able to get through by phone to Haiti since.
With phones down, some of the only communication came from social media such as Twitter. Richard Morse, a well-known musician who manages the famed Olafson Hotel, kept up a stream of dispatches on the aftershocks and damage reports. The news, based mostly on second-hand reports and photos, was disturbing, with people screaming in fear and roads blocked with debris. Belair, a slum even in the best of times, was said to be "a broken mess."
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.
The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said earthquake expert Tom Jordan at the University of Southern California. The earthquake's size and proximity to populated Port-au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.
"It's going to be a real killer," he said. "Whenever something like this happens, you just hope for the best."
Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of the buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.
Tuesday's quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, and some panicked residents in the capital of Santo Domingo fled from their shaking homes. But no major damage was reported there.
In eastern Cuba, houses shook but there were also no reports of significant damage.
"We felt it very strongly and I would say for a long time. We had time to evacuate," said Monsignor Dionisio Garcia, archbishop of Santiago.
The few reports emerging from Haiti made clear the country had suffered extensive damage.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."
Bahn said he was walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake.
"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said. "I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
Bahn said there were rocks strewn about and he saw a ravine where several homes had stood: "It's just full of collapsed walls and rubble and barbed wire."
In the community of Thomassin, just outside Port-au-Prince, Alain Denis said neighbors told him the only road to the capital had been cut but that phones were all dead so it was hard to determine the extent of the damage.
"At this point, everything is a rumor," he said. "It's dark. It's nighttime."
Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy for Haiti, issued a statement saying his office would do whatever he could to help the nation recover and rebuild.
"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti," he said.
President Barack Obama ordered U.S. officials to start preparing in case humanitarian assistance was needed.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said his government planned to send a military aircraft carrying canned foods, medicine and drinking water and also would dispatch a team of 50 rescue workers.
Brazil's government was trying to re-establish communications with its embassy and military personnel in Haiti late Tuesday, according to the G1 Web site of Globo TV. Brazil leads a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force there.
Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said he was concerned about everyone in Haiti, including his relatives.
"Communication is absolutely impossible," he said. "I've been trying to call my ministry and I cannot get through. ... It's mind-boggling."
___
Associated Press videographer Pierre Richard Luxama in Haiti and AP writers David Koop in Mexico City, David McFadden and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Lee in Washington; Alicia Chang in Los Angeles and Andrea Rodriguez in Havana contributed to this report.
January 12, 2010
Earthquakes common in Caribbean
This evening's devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti has been followed by a series of large aftershocks measuring more than 5.0 on the Richter scale. It was also preceded by smaller quakes (2.9 to 3.4) in Puerto Rico, across the Mona Passage from the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. Here's more news from Haiti.
Although it is not as familiar as the Pacific's seismically and volcanically active "Ring of Fire," the Caribbean Islands also lie on an active fault system. Earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are all facts of life in the islands, past and present.
The much-visited port of Charlotte Amalie, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was the scene of a devastating tsunami in 1867 that sent a 20-foot wall of water surging in to the harbor. Large U.S. Naval ships were beached by the waves. Other Caribbean ports also felt the tsunami.
Another large quake (magnitude 7.5) in October 1918 struck Puerto Rico. It killed more than 100 people, caused widespread damage, and sent a tsunami as high as 20 feet ashore.
An earthquake in Jamaica in 1692 destroyed the port city of Kingston, and dropped it into the sea. More than 5,000 people died. Jamaicans felt the Tuesday evening quake in Haiti, too.
The most famous volcanic event in the Caribbean was the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pele, on theMonserrat ash flow French island of Martinique. Now regarded as the deadliest volcanic eruprtion of the 20th century, it killed nearly all 30,000 residents of the capital, Saint-Pierre.
One of the two survivors lived because he was in a poorly ventilated jail cell.
On the island of Monserrat (right), the Soufriere Hills volcano has been in some state of eruption since 1995, when it destroyed the capital town of Plymouth. Two-thirds of the island's population was forced to leave.
ReplyDelete"Many Feared Dead As Huge Earthquake Hits Caribbean Nation"
A well-wish for Haitian who affected the destructive disaster.