tagged w/ port-au-prince
-
Port-au-Prince/Paris /New York, 17 January 2009—Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urges that its cargo planes carrying essential medical and surgical material be allowed to land in Port-au-Prince in order to treat thousands of wounded waiting for vital surgical operations. Priority must be given immediately to planes carrying lifesaving equipment and medical personnel.
Despite guarantees, given by the United Nations and the US Defense Department, an MSF cargo plane carrying an inflatable surgical hospital was blocked from landing in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, and was re-routed to Samana, in Dominican Republic. All material from the cargo is now being sent by truck from Samana, but this has added a 24-hour delay for the arrival of the hospital.
A second MSF plane is currently on its way and scheduled to land today in Port- au-Prince at around 10 am local time with additional lifesaving medical material and the rest of the equipment for the hospital. If this plane is also rerouted then the installation of the hospital will be further delayed, in a situation where thousands of wounded are still in need of life saving treatment.
The inflatable hospital includes 2 operating theaters, an intensive care unit, 100-bed hospitalization capacity, an emergency room and all the necessary equipment needed for sterilizing material.
MSF teams are currently working around the clock in 5 different hospitals in Port-au-Prince, but only 2 operating theaters are fully functional, while a third operating theater has been improvised for minor surgery due to the massive influx of wounded and lack of functional referral structures.Port-au-Prince/Paris /New York, 17 January 2009—Doctors Without... more
-
-
-
-
Troops and planeloads of food and medicine streamed into Haiti to aid a traumatized nation still rattled by aftershocks from the catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings and buried countless people.
The Haitian Red Cross said it believed 45,000 to 50,000 people had died and 3 million more -- one third of Haiti's population -- were hurt or left homeless by the major 7.0 magnitude quake that hit its impoverished capital on Tuesday.
Planes full of supplies arrived at the Port-au-Prince airport faster than ground crews could unload them and aviation authorities restricted non-military flights from U.S. airspace for fear planes would run out of fuel while waiting to land.
Many hospitals were too battered to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce.
Several nations sent mobile hospitals, surgeons and even psychologists to help traumatized Haitians. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort was on the way back to Haiti, where it delivered medical care after a spate of storms caused massive flooding and mudslides in 2008.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Troops and planeloads of food and medicine streamed into Haiti to aid a traumatized... more
-
-
Thousands of people made homeless in Haiti's massive earthquake woke up after a third night in makeshift tents with their despair turning to anger.
Planes full of supplies and search and rescue equipment continued to arrive at Port-au-Prince airport faster than ground crews could unload them, jamming the limited ramp space and forcing arriving aircraft to circle for up to two hours before landing.
Bodies lay all around the hilly city following Haiti's catastrophic quake, which flattened buildings and killed tens of thousands, leaving countless others homeless. People covered their noses with cloth to block the stench of death.
The Haitian Red Cross said it believed 45,000 to 50,000 people had died and 3 million more -- one third of Haiti's population -- were hurt or left homeless by the quake.
Doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, were ill-equipped to treat the injured. Relief workers warned that many more people will die if the injured, many with broken bones and serious loss of blood, do not get first aid in the next day or so.
Many hospitals were too battered to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce.
Under a U.N. appeal, the World Food Program will seek to provide life-saving food rations to 2 million destitute people for the next month. A longer-term operation is planned up to July 15.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Thousands of people made homeless in Haiti's massive earthquake woke up after a... more
-
-
Christa Brelsford, a graduate student at Arizona State University, was among the first wave of Haiti earthquake victims airlifted to the United States for medical care.
A native of Alaska, Brelsford was on an 11-day volunteer literacy trip to Dabonne, about 12 miles outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck.
She said her brother, her boyfriend Julian and she were on the second floor of a house when they felt the earthquake.
Trying to get out of the house, she ran down the stairs but slipped and her legs became trapped in the rubble.
Brelsford was taken by motorcycle to the United Nations base where she was eventually airlifted out of the country and back to the United States.
Doctors at the University of Miami Jackson Memorial Hospital amputated her right leg.
Dr. Mark McKenney said Brelsford is one of 11 earthquake victims taken to the hospital, many of whom have fractured bones and punctured lungs.
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in the strongest earthquake to hit Haiti in 200 years.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Christa Brelsford, a graduate student at Arizona State University, was among the first... more
-
-
-
Troops and planeloads of food and medicine streamed into Haiti to aid a traumatized nation still rattled by aftershocks from the catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings and buried countless people.
There were 300 people inside Port-au-Prince's landmark Montana Hotel when the earthquake struck. A hundred managed to escape, but 200 people remain trapped inside.
Members of the French Civil Security rescue team based in Brignolles arrived in the Haitian capital with equipment and medical staff.
A Chilean contingent of U.N. peacekeepers helped excavate rubble at the Montana Hotel and pulled 14 people out alive, including a young girl.
Bodies lay all around the hilly city, and people covered their noses with cloth to try to block the stench. Haitian citizens began digging graves as the infrastructure was overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Troops and planeloads of food and medicine streamed into Haiti to aid a traumatized... more
-
-
With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the presidential palace, a string of ministries and the headquarters of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, Haiti faces a dangerous vacuum in security and government.
The Caribbean nation of 9 million people, the poorest in the western hemisphere, was devastated by the massive earthquake.
Many people in the capital Port-au-Prince continued to pick away at crumbled buildings with bare hands, sticks and hammers hoping to find loved-ones alive. Thousands of homeless people have set up their own tent camps anywhere they could.
The Haitian Red Cross said it believes that 3 million, one third of Haiti's population, were hurt or left homeless by the quake and between 45,000 and 50,000 people were killed.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/With the 7.0 magnitude earthquake collapsing the presidential palace, a string of... more
-
-
The Bisson family were among the first wave of Haiti earthquake victims airlifted back to France.
Patricia Bisson and her husband Michel had travelled to Haiti over a week ago to pick up their new adopted son, Jefferson. They were at the orphanage when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck.
She said their first thoughts after the quake were for the safety of their new son, who they barely knew, and to get the 40 other children aged between three months and fourteen years old, out of the dangerous buildings.
Jefferson smiled as he entered his new home country, where his mother hopes he will be able to forget the horrors of the Haiti he left and lead a happy, stable life. Patricia Bisson says he is presumed to be ten, and has already suffered enough.
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have died in the strongest earthquake to hit Haiti in 200 years.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/The Bisson family were among the first wave of Haiti earthquake victims airlifted back... more
-
-
The United Nations delivered food and essentials in Haiti, just days after dozens of its personnel were killed in Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti, the worst loss of life the world body has ever suffered in a single incident.
More than 48 hours after the disaster, tens of thousands of people clamored for food and water and help digging out relatives still missing under the rubble.
The Haitian Red Cross said it believed 45,000 to 50,000 people had died and 3 million more -- one third of Haiti's population -- were hurt or left homeless by the major 7.0 magnitude quake that hit its impoverished capital on Tuesday.
The quake flattened buildings across entire hillsides and many people were still trapped alive in the rubble after two days, with little sign of organized rescue efforts.
U.N. peacekeepers stood by as aid workers delivered food to hundreds of people waiting in long lines.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier that around 150 U.N. staff remained unaccounted for. He added that he had no news about the fate of the head of the peacekeeping mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi of Tunisia.
Haitian President Rene Preval said on Wednesday that Annabi was dead. But U.N. officials later cast doubt on his remarks, saying they had no information to confirm it.
The U.N. force, which includes about 9,000 troops and police from more than 40 countries, was sent to the country in 2004 to try to bring stability after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted by armed gangs and former soldiers.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/The United Nations delivered food and essentials in Haiti, just days after dozens of... more
-
-
Mass graves are springing up all over the city in Haiti's capital Port-Au-Prince for the dead while those who were left hurt or homeless in Tuesday's earthquake begged for food, water and medical assistance on Friday.
Tens of thousands are feared dead from Tuesday's massive quake. The Pan American Health Organization estimated the death toll could be 50,000 to 100,000, higher than previous figures from the Haitian Red Cross, which saw deaths at up to 50,000.
Citizens in the wrecked coastal capital Port-au-Prince spent a third night sleeping out in the open on sidewalks and streets strewn with rubble and scattered decomposing bodies, as aftershocks rippled through the hilly neighborhoods.
On a barren area in the hillsides ten kilometers outside the city, in Ti Tanyen, there were recently dug mass graves for victims all with bodies in them.
Raggedly-dressed survivors held out their arms to foreign reporters in the streets, begging for food and water.
At one destroyed supermarket scores of people swarmed over the rubble to try to reach the food underneath. Just outside Cite Soleil slum, desperate people crowded around a burst water pipe jostling to drink from the pipe or fill up buckets.
Some survivors, angry over the delay in getting aid, build roadblocks with corpses in one part of the city.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Mass graves are springing up all over the city in Haiti's capital Port-Au-Prince... more
-
-
Still pictures show extent of Haiti tragedy after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the capital Port-au-Prince. A massive international relief effort was underway Friday, led by the United Nations as thousands of Haitians were still missing and many feared, buried beneath the rubble.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/Still pictures show extent of Haiti tragedy after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck... more
-
-
A Chinese rescue team began relief work in Haiti, treating injured people and searching for survivors, state television (CCTV) reported.
A 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly tens of thousands of people as it toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike, leaving the poor Caribbean nation appealing for international help.
As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment to move debris and a sufficient force of emergency personnel.
Nations around the world are sending rescue teams with search dogs and heavy equipment, helicopters, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and communications teams.
China dispatched a 50-member-strong search and rescue team to assist in aid efforts in Haiti.
According to official Xinhua News Agency, the team consisted of experienced medical and search and rescue personnel and three sniffer dogs.
The team also carried some food, equipment and medicine with them, state media said.
China was struck by a powerful earthquake in May 2008, when an 7.9 magnitude tremor hit the southwestern Sichuan province, killing over 80,000 people.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/A Chinese rescue team began relief work in Haiti, treating injured people and... more
-
-
A major earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly thousands of people as it toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike and left the Caribbean nation appealing for international help.
A five-story U.N. building was also brought down by Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude quake, the most powerful to hit Haiti in more than 200 years according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, there were scenes of chaos on the streets with people sobbing and appearing dazed amid the rubble.
The quake's epicenter was only 10 miles (16 km) from Port-au-Prince. About 4 million people live in the city and surrounding area. Aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into Wednesday.
Reports on casualties and damage were slow to emerge due to communication problems.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/A major earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly thousands of people as it toppled... more
-
-
By Alison Hamm, Media Consortium Blogger
Over 100,000 people are believed dead after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck near the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, on Tuesday afternoon. The quake buried countless buildings, from shantytowns to the presidential palace. All hospitals in Port-au-Prince have been leveled or abandoned. The United Nations headquarters and the city’s main prison have collapsed as well. Thousands of residents are homeless and without food, water, or electricity.
On the ground in Port-au-Prince
Haiti is in a state of chaos, as Kayla Coleman reports for Care2. “The streets…are flooded with the rubble of collapsed buildings and displaced people. … The earthquake has destroyed much of the already fragile and overburdened infrastructure.”
Because all hospitals have been destroyed, there is nowhere to take the injured. According to Coleman, the United Nations says it will immediately release $10 million from its emergency fund to aid relief efforts.
Haiti before the earthquake
And though Americans are now paying attention to Haiti in the wake of this disaster, little to no attention was paid to the “daily chaos and misery” that plagues the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, as James Ridgeway writes for Mother Jones. “It is hard to imagine what a magnitude 7 earthquake might do to a city that on any ordinary day already resembles a disaster area.”
Ridgeway also cites a 2006 New York Times report that details how the Bush administration helped destabilize Haiti in the years leading up to the 2004 coup.
Ridgeway writes:
“For the most part, Europe and the United States have continued to sit by as Haiti has grown poorer and poorer. When I was there you could find the children just outside Cite Soleil, the giant slum, living in the garbage dump, waiting for the U.S. army trucks to dump the scraps left from the meals of American soldiers. There they stood, knee deep in garbage, fighting for bits of food. As for the old, they people every street, gathering at the Holiday Inn at Port-au-Prince in wheelchairs, waiting at the doorway in search of a coin or two. They have no social safety net. And nobody with any money—no bank, no insurance company, no hedge fund, no mutual fund—ever makes any serious investment in the country.”
Will prevailing attitudes towards Haiti change?
At RaceWire, Michelle Chen writes that Haiti, a place “where buildings have been known to suddenly collapse on their own, even without the help of a natural disaster,” was still trying to recover from the severe tropical storms last spring that leveled hundreds of schools and left tens of thousands homeless.
Now the situation is desperate. “There will be an outpouring of sympathy across borders, a spasm of humanitarian aid,” Chen writes. But “will there be an attitude shift in the power structures that have long compounded natural disaster with politically manufactured crisis?”
‘Supporting the right kind of aid’
For those in Haiti, outside help is crucial. The country is in need of search and rescue volunteers, field hospitals, emergency health, water purification, and telecommunications. To ensure that you are supporting the right kind of aid—”the kind that builds local self-resilience, strengthens the local economy, and fosters local leadership,” as Sarah van Gelder details for Yes! Magazine—donate to one or more groups with a proven track record, such as Doctors without Borders, Grassroots International, Partners in Health, and Action Aid, among others.
Hip-hop artist and Haitian native Wyclef Jean has led efforts to help Haiti for years through his charity Yele Haiti. Jessica Calefati at Mother Jones reports that Yele spends $100,000 a year on athletic programs for Haitian children and helps feed 50,000 people a month with food donated by the UN. When Jean received word of the disaster, he immediately acted, sending a “flurryBy Alison Hamm, Media Consortium Blogger
Over 100,000 people are believed dead... more
-
-
There is some good news coming out of the Haiti earthquake disaster for some relatives of Mississippians who were in Haiti during the 7.0 magnitude earthquake Tuesday afternoon.There is some good news coming out of the Haiti earthquake disaster for some relatives... more
-
-
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-384099
UC Davis called me (20 minutes ago) - Sylvia Wright. They received a
call from Starry Sprenkle's father that she called him early this
morning. He said they spent the night outside and now is with her
husbands family in the hills above Port-au-Prince.
'We are incredible relieved and hopeful they survived the earthquake
and now if they can survive the aftermath then we are all good', says
Starry Sprenkle Father
click on the click to see the video.http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-384099
UC Davis called me (20 minutes ago) - Sylvia... more
-
-
Haiti is dealing with its worst disaster in its history after the strongest earthquake in recent memory struck the island nation Tuesday afternoon.Haiti is dealing with its worst disaster in its history after the strongest earthquake... more
-
-
Africa taking quite a lot of the bottom ten spots, with Baghdad at Iraq bottom. Germany getting three cities in the top ten, and Vienna somewhat surprisingly taking the top spot. Amazed that Orpington didn't make the worst list, but i guess it's not a city and to be fair isn't quite as gnarly as Port-Au-Prince.Africa taking quite a lot of the bottom ten spots, with Baghdad at Iraq bottom.... more
-
