Africa Aids Haiti as Search Effort is Called off
The government of Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital has donated US$ 1 million to the Haiti relief effort as Africa rallies to the aid of the earthquake-devastated black nation.
Usually, the recipient of aid, All Africa.com reports that African nations donating aid to the country include war-torn Rwanda which donated US$100,000, Liberia (US$50,000) and Zambia (20m Kwachas – the equivalent of about US$4,400). The Zambian response was led by members of the Miracle Life Bible Church in Lusaka, which has sent the money through a sister Christian organization already working in Haiti. The government of Botswana has also donated 1m Pulas (about US$147,000), while legislators in Nigeria’s administrative capital Abuja contributed the sum of 7.2m Naira (the equivalent of about US$48,000). Aid workers from the South African NGO Gift of Givers have joined the international team of aid workers who have been in Haiti helping with the relief effort there. The South African response team is part of a 15m Rand (about US$2m) package put together by the South African government. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has described the humanitarian crisis caused by the earthquake in Haiti as the worst crisis the world has seen in this decade, dwarfing even the Asian Tsunami. Official estimates reveal that up to 200,000 people may have died in the earthquake that brought life to a standstill. Up to 150000 bodies have already been recovered. An unknown number of persons remain buried under the rubble of homes, public buildings and offices.
Haitian-born Singer Wyclef Jean founder of the Yele Haiti foundation broke down in tears as he made an emotional appeal for the evacuation of about 2 million victims from Port-au-Prince last week. The former Fugees singer arrived in Haiti a few days after the earthquake first hit to join in emergency efforts in his home country. Emergency resources are stretched thin in the nation’s capital where there was a paucity of resources and the UN was already feeding up to 1 million people prior to the earthquake. With the earthquake killing key government officials and destroying food storage and communication facilities, the nation’s capital that was barely functioning practically ground to a halt. Many city officials are either missing or otherwise affected by the quake. The civil service, police and emergency services are all unable to function. Many international agencies with missions in the country lost personnel and resources, including Oxfam which lost up to 90% of its emergency kits during the earthquake. 46 UN staff members died when the UN building collapsed.
US troops and Marines joined crews of international rescue workers from Israel, Britain, the US, Germany, Canada and many more countries from all around the world to free victims trapped under the rubble of buildings. A hospital ship, destroyers, Coast Guard cutters and transport aircraft along with the USS Carl Vinson were deployed as President Barack Obama made good on his pledge that the US will be a partner and friend to Haitians at the time of this incomprehensible tragedy. The US Department of Homeland Security also halted the deportation of illegal Haitian migrants. Officials say two C-130 aircraft with a team of military engineers, operational planners, communications specialists and a command and control group joined the rescue teams and Coast Guard helicopters evacuated four injured U.S. Embassy personnel to a hospital at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba last Wednesday.
News of miraculous survival stories continue to pour out of the devastated country of Haiti where the Daily Mail reports that a British rescue team worked for five hours over last weekend to free a two-year-old child from the ruins of her nursery which was levelled by the earthquake. The toddler Mia laid for several days next to her dead friends before her breathing was picked up by sonar equipment. British rescue workers from Manchester and Wales worked with their hands, shovels and picks to free her from the rubble as her mother watched helplessly. Placed into the waiting arms of her mother on Saturday, Mia was dehydrated but had only suffered a few cuts and grazes, unlike an unknown number of her friends who were crushed when the roof and walls of their nursery came crashing down. The Inquirer also reports that 22-year-old Marie-France’s crushed arm had to be amputated to get her out alive on Monday, 12 hours after French and US workers first heard her cries for help. The determined young lady clung to life stubbornly under the concrete slabs and steel door that shielded and trapped her under the debris of her shop. Marie-French’s rescuers worked with Brazilian UN rescue workers. The UK Guardian carried a blog by Troy Livesay a worker with Christian NGO WorldWide Village in which Livesay confirmed that whole buildings such as the Caribbean market, churches, hospitals and schools collapsed with all the occupants still inside them. Livesay said it “defies logic” that his house stood and his children are all alive, while his neighbours’ did not. Among the survivors is a Father who was inconsolable as he cradled the body of his dead child. Another Church worker who was on a mission in Haiti when the earthquake struck was reunited with his family back in the US.
A 64-man-strong team of volunteer British firefighters from across the country flew out a few days after the earthquake. UK charity agencies organized a multimillion-pound aid response. The United Nations, whose Haiti mission was destroyed by the quake, released £6 million from its emergency funds while the European Commission pledged £2.7 million in grants. The UN also mobilized 37 search and rescue teams and has sent 60,000 tons of food to the shattered country. The Canadian Broadcast Corporation reports that Minister of International Co-operation Bev Oda provided aid funds of up to $ 50 million from the Canadian government. Thousands of individuals have already sent contributions to charity organizations in support of humanitarian and recovery efforts.
Two earthquakes in as many days
The US Geological Survey agency website reported that a second earthquake aftershock measuring 5.3 hit Haiti at 02:43 PM GMT Wednesday, bringing to about 30 the number of aftershock tremors that continued through the nation’s capital after the initial earthquake that hit on Tuesday. Measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, the devastating earthquake toppled buildings in Port-au-Prince the country’s capital, causing death and injuries. The most recent aftershock activity took place on Monday 25th at about 12.30 a.m. GMT. It measured 4.7 in magnitude.
In 2008, Geologists predicted that a fault line on the south side of the island posed a ‘major seismic hazard’. The last earthquake of a similar magnitude in the region was in 1770. Media reports show survivors digging their way out of the rubble of their homes and shops with their bare hands. One eyewitness reports that he saw a ravine where several homes once stood. International aid agencies are now rallying to the side of the impoverished nation where thousands of bodies are piled up in the streets. Among the dead are Hedi Annabi, the United Nations’ secretary-general’s special envoy and Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, whose body was discovered in the ruins of his office. Aid continues to pour into the country through the airport and neighbouring countries where the injured have fled in search of medical attention. During the week, logistics difficulties persisted. The International Red Cross in Geneva says up to three million people were affected. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive had estimated in the early days of the incident that the dead could be “well over 100,000.” Haiti’s health care system was at best rudimentary prior to the earthquake and aid is slowly reaching those who need it. Donors from around the world are encouraged to send money rather than in-kind goods due to logistic challenges.
Search Efforts called off
As rescue workers raced against time to find people trapped under the ruins of buildings, several survival stories continue to amaze them. These include 23-day-old baby Elisabeth who was rescued after seven days underground and 70-year-old Anna Zizi who emerged singing as she was rescued from the rubble of the Haiti National Cathedral. A volunteer doctor working in Haiti at the time of the earthquake lost 30 of his colleagues who were working in the room next to his. Dr Branson Call an eye doctor from Utah made his annual trip to the poor nation to offer free services there. He has since been reunited with his family in the United States. All around the world, prayers continue to be said for the ravaged nation. On Saturday, UK Guardian reported that 24-year-old Wismond Extanus became the last known survivor to be rescued out from underneath the rubble of the shop where he worked as a cashier on the ground floor of the Napoli hotel, barely 24 hours after the government called off Search and Rescue operations under the assumption that there could be no more survivors alive under the rubble. Extanus was found weak but alive 11 days after the levelling earthquake buried him. Aid efforts will now focus on getting the nation back on its feet. CNN is operating a survivors search service as part of its Missing Persons project I’m Alive: Messages From Haiti @http://www.ireport.com/ir-topic-stories.jspa?topicId=389953. Donations can be made at www.unicefusa.org/haitiquake. Haiti is the world’s oldest black republic and the second-oldest republic in the West after the United States.
