PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake killed between 250,000 and 300,000 people, the head of the United Nations mission in the country said Thursday.
Until now, the Haitian government death toll was more than 220,000.
April 21 "marked the 100th day since the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, leaving between 250,000 and 300,000 people dead," said Edmond Mulet, the head of the UN mission in Haiti.
Mulet also said that 300,000 people were wounded in the disaster, and more than one million people were left homeless.
The 7.0-magnitude quake left much of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince in ruins, destroying infrastructure and the seat of government and causing a humanitarian catastrophe in a country already considered the poorest in the Americas.
Mulet, speaking at a press conference, said that he wants the UN Security Council to send an extra 800 police officers to provide safety in the refugee camps.
"In the history of humanity one has never seen a natural disaster of this dimension," said Mulet, adding that the Haiti quake death toll was twice the toll of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
Mulet said that the next 12 to 18 months will be "critical," noting that peacekeepers in the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) will focus on five areas: helping support the government organize quick elections, coordinate "post-disaster" humanitarian aid, provide general security, support the Haitian government in carrying out its reconstruction plan, and "help Haiti rebuild its human capital."
Concerning security, Mulet said MINUSTAH forces will help the Haitian National Police have "a more visible presence" to help the tens of thousands of people living in 1,200 refugee camps.
Mulet, a native of Guatemala, took over the UN mission on March 31, replacing Tunisian Hedi Annabi, who was killed in the quake.
If the Security Council accepts Mulet's recommendations, the overall number of UN police in Haiti will rise to 4,391.
When the MINUSTAH peacekeeping soldiers are also counted -- though Mulet has not asked for an increase in this force -- the total UN force would reach 13,300 supported by more than 2,000 civilians.
Separately, Mulet said the Haitian government on Thursday ordered a three-week moratorium on the forced evacuation of refugees camping out on private land, schools or markets.
For nearly two weeks, the authorities and private property owners have urged people squatting on their property to leave.
More than 7,000 people who took refuge at the Port-au-Prince stadium were moved out 10 days ago, and last week some 10,000 Haitians living in a school were ordered out.
"There are students that want to return to their schools to continue their studies, and there are refugees living in the schools. So in order to avoid clashes, a moratorium was established," Mulet said.
UN officials have opened two refugee camps on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince in order to accept some 10,000 refugees currently in danger of being affected by flooding as the Caribbean rainy season is set to begin.
Mulet also said that Haiti "is going on the right path" towards reconstruction, and that he was showing "prudent optimism." He also urged people to "not underestimate the size of the task and the challenges that Haiti faces."
April 23, 2010
caribbeannetnews
An International Caribbean Online Log about the news and opinions in the Americas and World. This Caribbean Blog of global reach and appeal is maintained by Bahamian Blogger - Dennis Dames with all readers and subscribers in mind.
Showing posts with label Haiti quake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haiti quake. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Haiti warned to brace for another big quake
By Mica Rosenberg:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- Haiti should be preparing for another major earthquake that could be triggered by the catastrophic one last month which killed up to 200,000 people and left the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins, experts say.
Teams of geophysicists, who have been tracking movements in the fault line that slashes across Haiti and into the Dominican Republic, came to the nation last week to measure changes in the Earth's crust after the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12.
Increased pressure on the fault after the quake could unleash another of the same size or bigger, although scientists acknowledge they have no way of knowing exactly when or where it will hit.
"Faults are always waiting for the right moment but if another earthquake gives them a little kick they go before their time," said Eric Calais, a professor of geophysics from Purdue University in Indiana, who is leading the seismology project in Haiti.
Preliminary calculations by his group show the January 12 quake could be the "little kick" that sets off another temblor along the 186 mile fault where two regional tectonic plates have been scraping together for millions of years.
More than 50 aftershocks, including one measuring 5.9 magnitude, have shaken Port-au-Prince after last month's quake. The US Geological Survey says the aftershock sequence will continue for months, "if not years", and "damaging earthquakes will remain possible in the coming months".
Calais was due to take his findings to a meeting on Monday with President Rene Preval and the head of the United Nations mission in Haiti, in which he would stress the urgent need to rebuild the city's critical infrastructure safely and quickly.
Haiti's government has announced plans to relocate up to half a million homeless quake victims -- many now camped out in rubble-strewn streets -- in temporary villages outside of Port-au-Prince. But some experts suggest the whole capital should be rebuilt away from the dangerous fault line.
Calais was part of a group of experts who warned Haitian officials in 2008 that there could be a 7.2 magnitude quake on the horizon.
But Haitian officials said there was not enough time or funds to shore up the impoverished Caribbean's country's shoddy construction or take precautions, and in last month's quake, many buildings pancaked, their bricks crumbling to dust.
"It's not too late. Now is the time to really get serious about this," Calais said.
Over 200 years ago, when Haiti saw its last major earthquake, there were actually several temblors in a row, two in 1751 and another in 1770, Calais said.
In one destroyed neighborhood in the Haitian capital, where people now live in tents made of bed sheets and sticks, curious children watched the scientists set up specialized global positioning systems. The devices, placed at different points along the fault, will gather data over three days and compare it to information gathered over the past five years.
But for all the precise measurements, there is no such thing as an exact science of earthquake prediction.
Haiti's national geological survey offices collapsed in the quake, killing some 30 people inside, including the institute's director. This complicates future research in a country that has no seismic network, except for Calais' GPS monitors.
"Scientists are blind when it comes to this earthquake ... We rely on data that is coming from stations that are far away," he said.
"It's like if you go to your doctor and the only thing we can do is look at you with binoculars -- so the diagnostic would be pretty poor."
February 2, 2010
caribbeannetnews
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- Haiti should be preparing for another major earthquake that could be triggered by the catastrophic one last month which killed up to 200,000 people and left the capital Port-au-Prince in ruins, experts say.
Teams of geophysicists, who have been tracking movements in the fault line that slashes across Haiti and into the Dominican Republic, came to the nation last week to measure changes in the Earth's crust after the 7.0-magnitude quake on January 12.
Increased pressure on the fault after the quake could unleash another of the same size or bigger, although scientists acknowledge they have no way of knowing exactly when or where it will hit.
"Faults are always waiting for the right moment but if another earthquake gives them a little kick they go before their time," said Eric Calais, a professor of geophysics from Purdue University in Indiana, who is leading the seismology project in Haiti.
Preliminary calculations by his group show the January 12 quake could be the "little kick" that sets off another temblor along the 186 mile fault where two regional tectonic plates have been scraping together for millions of years.
More than 50 aftershocks, including one measuring 5.9 magnitude, have shaken Port-au-Prince after last month's quake. The US Geological Survey says the aftershock sequence will continue for months, "if not years", and "damaging earthquakes will remain possible in the coming months".
Calais was due to take his findings to a meeting on Monday with President Rene Preval and the head of the United Nations mission in Haiti, in which he would stress the urgent need to rebuild the city's critical infrastructure safely and quickly.
Haiti's government has announced plans to relocate up to half a million homeless quake victims -- many now camped out in rubble-strewn streets -- in temporary villages outside of Port-au-Prince. But some experts suggest the whole capital should be rebuilt away from the dangerous fault line.
Calais was part of a group of experts who warned Haitian officials in 2008 that there could be a 7.2 magnitude quake on the horizon.
But Haitian officials said there was not enough time or funds to shore up the impoverished Caribbean's country's shoddy construction or take precautions, and in last month's quake, many buildings pancaked, their bricks crumbling to dust.
"It's not too late. Now is the time to really get serious about this," Calais said.
Over 200 years ago, when Haiti saw its last major earthquake, there were actually several temblors in a row, two in 1751 and another in 1770, Calais said.
In one destroyed neighborhood in the Haitian capital, where people now live in tents made of bed sheets and sticks, curious children watched the scientists set up specialized global positioning systems. The devices, placed at different points along the fault, will gather data over three days and compare it to information gathered over the past five years.
But for all the precise measurements, there is no such thing as an exact science of earthquake prediction.
Haiti's national geological survey offices collapsed in the quake, killing some 30 people inside, including the institute's director. This complicates future research in a country that has no seismic network, except for Calais' GPS monitors.
"Scientists are blind when it comes to this earthquake ... We rely on data that is coming from stations that are far away," he said.
"It's like if you go to your doctor and the only thing we can do is look at you with binoculars -- so the diagnostic would be pretty poor."
February 2, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Haiti must learn to live with earthquakes, experts say
By Jordi Zamora:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- It will be difficult to convince Haitians to spend extra money and rebuild their quake-ravaged country with structures able to withstand another powerful earthquake, experts said Friday.
Some 170,000 people were killed in the devastating January 12 quake that toppled weak buildings across the Haitian capital.
Two fault lines run under the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, but Haitians have long forgotten about the danger of earthquakes.
"Between six and eight generations of people have gone by who lived with no awareness of earthquakes," Haitian engineer Hans Zennid told AFP.
The previous earthquakes known to have struck the island nation took place in 1742, 1772 and 1842, said Zennid. The 1842 quake was so devastating it forced the government to move the capital from Cap Haitien to its current location.
Despite the devastation, President Rene Preval has said that Port-au-Prince will continue being Haiti's capital.
The presidential palace, built in the 1920s, the Congress building, and virtually every ministry building collapsed when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck.
However an 11-floor building belonging to the telephone company towers over the rubble, largely intact.
Zennid was the engineer responsible for making sure that building was earthquake-ready.
"From the start I planned to make the building strong enough to resist a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, because the possibilities of a 7 (magnitude) like the one that just happened is something that happens every 150 years," said Zennid, as he surveyed the building.
A report by US structural engineers giving people the green light to use the building is posted at the entrance, perhaps to ease the fears of workers desperately seeking a semblance of normality. The report said that only one of the pillars suffered minimum damage.
Zennid said he increased the building's strength after a soil analysis.
"When we began to lay the building foundation and I analyzed the soil quality, I added 20 percent to the security level, which allowed it to resist a 7.3," he said.
That meant adding 15 percent more reinforced concrete and steel to the foundation, which meant increasing the cost by some 150,000 dollars.
At first his employers "were upset, but in the end they accepted the price increase," he said.
Haiti's elegant presidential palace can be rebuilt on the same site, even keeping the same style, Zennid said, but engineers will have to completely re-work the building's foundation.
That also applies to the vast majority of homes in Port-au-Prince, including the most luxurious mansions and hotels, many of which collapsed when the quake struck, he said.
As in most underdeveloped countries, even rich Haitians tend to expand their homes in stages instead of building them according to a single, structurally sound blueprint.
In order to do that builders need a large pot of money, and "there is no tradition of home loans here," said French architect Christian Dutour, who has carried out several projects in Haiti.
It will be difficult to explain the importance of proper building codes to a population that overwhelmingly lives below the poverty line.
In the noisy, chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince, street vendors are already selling metal rods salvaged from the earthquake rubble.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which tracks earthquakes around the world, Haiti's quake could represent the beginning of a new cycle of earthquakes after nearly 170 years of geological peace.
The quake's epicenter was just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Haiti and struck at a very shallow depth of 13 kilometers (eight miles).
The USGS estimated recently that there was a 25 percent probability that one or several magnitude 6 aftershocks could strike in the coming weeks, although they will space out more and more over time.
The January 12 quake freed much of the tension accumulated on one portion of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which runs along the southern portion of Hispaniola -- but another segment east of the epicenter and adjacent to Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince has barely moved, according to the USGS.
"We are sitting on a powder keg," geologist Claude Prepetit, an engineer from the Haitian Mines and Energy bureau, told AFP.
"We are faced with the threat of future earthquakes and have to decentralize, and depopulate Port-au-Prince," he said.
January 30, 2010
caribbeannetnews
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- It will be difficult to convince Haitians to spend extra money and rebuild their quake-ravaged country with structures able to withstand another powerful earthquake, experts said Friday.
Some 170,000 people were killed in the devastating January 12 quake that toppled weak buildings across the Haitian capital.
Two fault lines run under the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, but Haitians have long forgotten about the danger of earthquakes.
"Between six and eight generations of people have gone by who lived with no awareness of earthquakes," Haitian engineer Hans Zennid told AFP.
The previous earthquakes known to have struck the island nation took place in 1742, 1772 and 1842, said Zennid. The 1842 quake was so devastating it forced the government to move the capital from Cap Haitien to its current location.
Despite the devastation, President Rene Preval has said that Port-au-Prince will continue being Haiti's capital.
The presidential palace, built in the 1920s, the Congress building, and virtually every ministry building collapsed when the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck.
However an 11-floor building belonging to the telephone company towers over the rubble, largely intact.
Zennid was the engineer responsible for making sure that building was earthquake-ready.
"From the start I planned to make the building strong enough to resist a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, because the possibilities of a 7 (magnitude) like the one that just happened is something that happens every 150 years," said Zennid, as he surveyed the building.
A report by US structural engineers giving people the green light to use the building is posted at the entrance, perhaps to ease the fears of workers desperately seeking a semblance of normality. The report said that only one of the pillars suffered minimum damage.
Zennid said he increased the building's strength after a soil analysis.
"When we began to lay the building foundation and I analyzed the soil quality, I added 20 percent to the security level, which allowed it to resist a 7.3," he said.
That meant adding 15 percent more reinforced concrete and steel to the foundation, which meant increasing the cost by some 150,000 dollars.
At first his employers "were upset, but in the end they accepted the price increase," he said.
Haiti's elegant presidential palace can be rebuilt on the same site, even keeping the same style, Zennid said, but engineers will have to completely re-work the building's foundation.
That also applies to the vast majority of homes in Port-au-Prince, including the most luxurious mansions and hotels, many of which collapsed when the quake struck, he said.
As in most underdeveloped countries, even rich Haitians tend to expand their homes in stages instead of building them according to a single, structurally sound blueprint.
In order to do that builders need a large pot of money, and "there is no tradition of home loans here," said French architect Christian Dutour, who has carried out several projects in Haiti.
It will be difficult to explain the importance of proper building codes to a population that overwhelmingly lives below the poverty line.
In the noisy, chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince, street vendors are already selling metal rods salvaged from the earthquake rubble.
According to the US Geological Survey (USGS), which tracks earthquakes around the world, Haiti's quake could represent the beginning of a new cycle of earthquakes after nearly 170 years of geological peace.
The quake's epicenter was just 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Haiti and struck at a very shallow depth of 13 kilometers (eight miles).
The USGS estimated recently that there was a 25 percent probability that one or several magnitude 6 aftershocks could strike in the coming weeks, although they will space out more and more over time.
The January 12 quake freed much of the tension accumulated on one portion of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which runs along the southern portion of Hispaniola -- but another segment east of the epicenter and adjacent to Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince has barely moved, according to the USGS.
"We are sitting on a powder keg," geologist Claude Prepetit, an engineer from the Haitian Mines and Energy bureau, told AFP.
"We are faced with the threat of future earthquakes and have to decentralize, and depopulate Port-au-Prince," he said.
January 30, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Monday, January 25, 2010
Traumatised Haitians struggle to comprehend grim fate
By Dave Clark:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- It's not immediately clear where the crowd gathered in prayer ends and where the refugee encampment begins, as one group of listless, traumatised people bleeds into another.
With a symbol of state strength, Haiti's once magnificent National Palace, lying in ruins behind them, thousands left homeless by the devastating quake pin their hopes of salvation on God rather than on the works of man.
The reading is Psalm 102, and the reader has a high, clear voice, sometimes distorted by feedback through the massive rock concert-size speakers.
"Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee," she declares. "Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily."
Worshippers in the crowd follow the text with their fingers in battered copies of the Bible salvaged from their demolished homes. In a break in the text their wavering voices sing along with a Misericordia prayer.
"For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth," the Psalm continues. "My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread."
"For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping," runs the reading. "Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down."
Many Haitians were cast down on January 12, when a 7.0-magnitude quake tore into the capital and surrounding region, burying at least 112,000 people in the ruins of their shops and homes and leaving a million homeless.
Now the survivors are looking for sense among the senseless waste. A queue of them waits by the side of the stage as the reading continues.
One by one they take the microphone and loudly confess their sins and those of their people, begging the forgiveness of a God they can only suppose to have been so angered by Haitians that his wrath felled them in their thousands.
"My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass," the reader continues, her voice tireless. "But thou, O Lord, shall endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations."
"He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord."
Not everyone in the crowd has come to pray, some are just bored by life in the tents and makeshift bivouacs carpeting the surrounding ceremonial square. others are here to do what business they can to survive.
A haggard-looking woman hawks a neat pile of freshly cleaned and pressed face towels. One optimist has erected a stall selling souvenir key rings with the Haitian flags and arm bands celebrating US President Barack Obama.
Elsewhere, family life continues. One woman huddles in a tiny patch of shade, breast-feeding an infant. Small boys wash in a bucket of soapy water while nearby their playmates fly kites made of wire and plastic waste.
Stands sell short sticks of sugar cane and small oily pastries.
Two young men unload French-language textbooks from a sack to sell on the kerbside. The cover boasts that readers will become fluent after a few easy lessons, but the salesmen themselves struggle to express themselves.
"What do I think of what happened? I don't think anything about it."
Across the road, marshalled by police with pump-action shotguns, a large but orderly and calm crowd presses around the door of a newly reopened bank, hoping to access cash, hoping that relatives abroad have sent donations.
"The cause of the quake was natural, but in what other country would it have had such an effect?" asks 33-year-old security guard Mercelus Luckner, fearful that he is unemployed after finding his firm's offices in ruins.
"Haitians have made many mistakes. They offended God. God is punishing us," he reasons, holding on to a vague hope that one of the foreign aid workers arriving in the city will pluck him from the crowd and offer him a job.
The Psalm ends: "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure:"
January 25, 2010
caribbeannetnews
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) -- It's not immediately clear where the crowd gathered in prayer ends and where the refugee encampment begins, as one group of listless, traumatised people bleeds into another.
With a symbol of state strength, Haiti's once magnificent National Palace, lying in ruins behind them, thousands left homeless by the devastating quake pin their hopes of salvation on God rather than on the works of man.
The reading is Psalm 102, and the reader has a high, clear voice, sometimes distorted by feedback through the massive rock concert-size speakers. "Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee," she declares. "Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily."
Worshippers in the crowd follow the text with their fingers in battered copies of the Bible salvaged from their demolished homes. In a break in the text their wavering voices sing along with a Misericordia prayer.
"For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth," the Psalm continues. "My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread."
"For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping," runs the reading. "Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down."
Many Haitians were cast down on January 12, when a 7.0-magnitude quake tore into the capital and surrounding region, burying at least 112,000 people in the ruins of their shops and homes and leaving a million homeless.
Now the survivors are looking for sense among the senseless waste. A queue of them waits by the side of the stage as the reading continues.
One by one they take the microphone and loudly confess their sins and those of their people, begging the forgiveness of a God they can only suppose to have been so angered by Haitians that his wrath felled them in their thousands.
"My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass," the reader continues, her voice tireless. "But thou, O Lord, shall endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations."
"He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer. This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord."
Not everyone in the crowd has come to pray, some are just bored by life in the tents and makeshift bivouacs carpeting the surrounding ceremonial square. others are here to do what business they can to survive.
A haggard-looking woman hawks a neat pile of freshly cleaned and pressed face towels. One optimist has erected a stall selling souvenir key rings with the Haitian flags and arm bands celebrating US President Barack Obama.
Elsewhere, family life continues. One woman huddles in a tiny patch of shade, breast-feeding an infant. Small boys wash in a bucket of soapy water while nearby their playmates fly kites made of wire and plastic waste.
Stands sell short sticks of sugar cane and small oily pastries.
Two young men unload French-language textbooks from a sack to sell on the kerbside. The cover boasts that readers will become fluent after a few easy lessons, but the salesmen themselves struggle to express themselves.
"What do I think of what happened? I don't think anything about it."
Across the road, marshalled by police with pump-action shotguns, a large but orderly and calm crowd presses around the door of a newly reopened bank, hoping to access cash, hoping that relatives abroad have sent donations.
"The cause of the quake was natural, but in what other country would it have had such an effect?" asks 33-year-old security guard Mercelus Luckner, fearful that he is unemployed after finding his firm's offices in ruins.
"Haitians have made many mistakes. They offended God. God is punishing us," he reasons, holding on to a vague hope that one of the foreign aid workers arriving in the city will pluck him from the crowd and offer him a job.
The Psalm ends: "Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure:"
January 25, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Help Haiti out of Haiti
Jamaicaobserver Editorial:
Centuries ago, the colonial powers of the western world executed a monstrous plan to transport millions of Africans across the Atlantic in the name of slavery. It was, in every sense of the word, a raw ride -- the Africans were shackled and crammed like sardines below the decks of the cargo ships -- which still makes for horrific reading.
Countless Africans succumbed to the disease and depression that accessorised the trip, jumping overboard to escape the unrelenting wretchedness which was every bit as heart-rending as what is going on in earthquake-devastated Haiti today.
But as long as the slave trade was profitable, no amount of suffering could undermine the objectives of its organisers. They needed free labour and they weren't about to let logistics, regard for human rights, or anything else get in the way of the transatlantic slave trade. On and on it went, for over 300 years, defying rebellion after rebellion, until the economics of it no longer made sense.
Even when slavery was completely abolished in 1838, the hard-fought-for freedom proved elusive for most, as the process of transitioning from a slave society to an emancipated one was far easier said than done.
The devil was in the detail.
Much as it is in Haiti where, according to several reports coming out of that country, people are dying of thirst and hunger within shouting distance of life-saving supplies.
According to one Associated Press (AP) report published in our Friday edition, General Douglas Fraser, head of the US Southern command that is running Haiti's airports, said 1,400 flights are on a waiting list for slots at the Port-au-Prince airport that can handle 120-140 flights per day. Further afield, artistes of international acclaim are releasing songs, more money is being collected and benefits are being staged... all in the name of helping Haiti.
We hate to appear cynical, or worse, ungrateful.
However, the fact is that even as the world comes up with scheme after scheme to help Haiti, the desperate earthquake survivors are running amok among the rubble, literally maddened by the stench of death and devastation.
According to one report, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the head while allegedly making off with two stolen pictures. What was going through her adolescent mind at the time is anyone's guess now.
Was she thinking of selling them for money to buy food?
If so, to whom?
Was she even aware of what she was doing?
Either way, it just doesn't make sense.
What people like this late young girl need more than all the entertainment, all the millions, in the world right now, is to be removed from the trauma that is Haiti. That's why those who can, have flocked to the shores, desperate to get out on the first thing smoking.
The survivors need a clean environment, compassion, food, a warm bed, medical aid and maybe a picture or two to give them a mental break, however brief, from the horrors of the past two weeks.
That just isn't available in Haiti at the moment, but it is in the countries that are tripping over themselves to help.
History tells us that with the will, evacuation would be a cinch.
Reality says otherwise.
January 24, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Centuries ago, the colonial powers of the western world executed a monstrous plan to transport millions of Africans across the Atlantic in the name of slavery. It was, in every sense of the word, a raw ride -- the Africans were shackled and crammed like sardines below the decks of the cargo ships -- which still makes for horrific reading.
Countless Africans succumbed to the disease and depression that accessorised the trip, jumping overboard to escape the unrelenting wretchedness which was every bit as heart-rending as what is going on in earthquake-devastated Haiti today.
But as long as the slave trade was profitable, no amount of suffering could undermine the objectives of its organisers. They needed free labour and they weren't about to let logistics, regard for human rights, or anything else get in the way of the transatlantic slave trade. On and on it went, for over 300 years, defying rebellion after rebellion, until the economics of it no longer made sense.
Even when slavery was completely abolished in 1838, the hard-fought-for freedom proved elusive for most, as the process of transitioning from a slave society to an emancipated one was far easier said than done.
The devil was in the detail.
Much as it is in Haiti where, according to several reports coming out of that country, people are dying of thirst and hunger within shouting distance of life-saving supplies.
According to one Associated Press (AP) report published in our Friday edition, General Douglas Fraser, head of the US Southern command that is running Haiti's airports, said 1,400 flights are on a waiting list for slots at the Port-au-Prince airport that can handle 120-140 flights per day. Further afield, artistes of international acclaim are releasing songs, more money is being collected and benefits are being staged... all in the name of helping Haiti.
We hate to appear cynical, or worse, ungrateful.
However, the fact is that even as the world comes up with scheme after scheme to help Haiti, the desperate earthquake survivors are running amok among the rubble, literally maddened by the stench of death and devastation.
According to one report, a 15-year-old girl was shot in the head while allegedly making off with two stolen pictures. What was going through her adolescent mind at the time is anyone's guess now.
Was she thinking of selling them for money to buy food?
If so, to whom?
Was she even aware of what she was doing?
Either way, it just doesn't make sense.
What people like this late young girl need more than all the entertainment, all the millions, in the world right now, is to be removed from the trauma that is Haiti. That's why those who can, have flocked to the shores, desperate to get out on the first thing smoking.
The survivors need a clean environment, compassion, food, a warm bed, medical aid and maybe a picture or two to give them a mental break, however brief, from the horrors of the past two weeks.
That just isn't available in Haiti at the moment, but it is in the countries that are tripping over themselves to help.
History tells us that with the will, evacuation would be a cinch.
Reality says otherwise.
January 24, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Haiti debacle
By Lloyd B Smith:
WONDER what is going through the minds of Jean-Claude Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the two exiled top honchos of Haiti? No doubt, both men would love to return at this time to their country which has been devastated by what has been described as that poverty-stricken country's worst earthquake in 200 years.
In the case of Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc), will his conscience sufficiently prick him to the extent where he will repatriate some of the many millions that he plundered from the public purse? Surely, he cannot return in the flesh lest he be numbered among the thousands of corpses in short order. Aristide, on the other hand, has a tremendous following but his return may well present a serious political dilemma for an already very confused state.
I don't know about my readers, but when I ponder the fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere that has now been hit by perhaps the worst natural disaster in living memory in the same region, one has to wonder if bad luck is worse than obeah (or is it voodoo?) Incidentally, it has been rumoured in Haiti that a high-ranking voodoo priest is responsible for this latest debacle because of an ungrateful people who made Aristide go. And here in Jamaica, there are the many cynics who maintain that the Haitians "wuk too much obeah (voodoo)", so that's why they received such a catastrophic visitation.
Be that as it may, the Haiti quake may well turn out in the long run to be a blessing in disguise for that most unfortunate country. Indeed, one cannot help but ask why, after all these decades during which Haiti has been ignored and despised, it is now being showered with so much aid, money and debt forgiveness? Isn't there some amount of hypocrisy involved here?
I must confess that I have become a bit sceptical about this massive outpouring of generosity and can only hope that most if not all that is being donated will in fact reach those thousands of suffering victims now bereft of just about everything except their miserable lives. In this vein, I must warn would-be donors to be wary of scammers and shysters who will use even this most tragic spectacle for self-aggrandisement. And please, don't just send "ole clothes" or personal effects that you have got tired of and were waiting to throw out, not to mention those expired foodstuff, including canned goods. The Haitians are poor and beleaguered, but they still have their dignity and self-respect.
In the meantime, what I find most interesting, if not intriguing, is the juxtaposition of the Jamaican "tax quake" which jolted us recently thanks to "Papa Bruce" and his team and that seismic wonder not too far from our shores. God-fearing Jamaicans are praising the Almighty for having spared us, because if it was us and not Haiti which had been so affected by that quake, then not even dog would want to eat our supper!
Despite the fact that Jamaica and Haiti are in the same fault line, we experienced only some minor shocks. But you know, I have to wonder if God is partial? After all, why should he bypass us and take on Haiti? Are we the preferred "children of Israel"? Whichever way one looks at this scenario, it is obvious that we are a very lucky country and Haiti, on the other hand, is a very unlucky place to live. Four hurricanes in one year battered that country, then this quake.
But while Jamaica has been spared the debilitating effects of natural disasters (acts of God), we have been subject to many acts of man such as our record number of murders. So let us not become too smug as if to say everything is coming up roses. Indeed, if all the promises and plans now being offered by the international community to Haiti should materialise, then Jamaica may well begin to compete for its current position - that of being the poorest country in the West!
It is good to see Jamaicans rising to the occasion in a bid to help our Haitian brothers and sisters in their distress. Our Prime Minister Bruce Golding has taken on the task of leading the charge on behalf of Caricom and this is most commendable, although he must be reminded that he still has his "quake back a yard" to deal with. In this context, we can only hope that Mr Golding does not become too comfy and distracted from his major task at hand - that of salvaging the Jamaican economy.
I am a bit worried about what I am hearing on the streets being spouted by gleeful Jamaica Labour Party supporters who feel that the Golding Cabinet pulled a fast one on the Jamaican public with respect to the tax package and the debt-management initiative. Against this background, Mr Golding needs to clarify whether the first tax package announced at the end of 2009 was a deliberate ploy to prepare the country for the debt-management initiative. There is talk that this was the only way to get the International Monetary Fund to soften its position while at the same time bullying the well-off who were benefiting so profusely from government paper to decide to share some of the burden. Is this a classic case of the politics of deception or expediency?
Meanwhile, there are many lessons to be learnt from the Haitian debacle, chief of which is what corruption can do to a country, including the needless loss of many human lives. More anon.
lloydbsmith@hotmail.com
January 19, 2010
jamaicaobserver
WONDER what is going through the minds of Jean-Claude Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the two exiled top honchos of Haiti? No doubt, both men would love to return at this time to their country which has been devastated by what has been described as that poverty-stricken country's worst earthquake in 200 years.In the case of Jean-Claude Duvalier (Baby Doc), will his conscience sufficiently prick him to the extent where he will repatriate some of the many millions that he plundered from the public purse? Surely, he cannot return in the flesh lest he be numbered among the thousands of corpses in short order. Aristide, on the other hand, has a tremendous following but his return may well present a serious political dilemma for an already very confused state.
I don't know about my readers, but when I ponder the fact that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere that has now been hit by perhaps the worst natural disaster in living memory in the same region, one has to wonder if bad luck is worse than obeah (or is it voodoo?) Incidentally, it has been rumoured in Haiti that a high-ranking voodoo priest is responsible for this latest debacle because of an ungrateful people who made Aristide go. And here in Jamaica, there are the many cynics who maintain that the Haitians "wuk too much obeah (voodoo)", so that's why they received such a catastrophic visitation.
Be that as it may, the Haiti quake may well turn out in the long run to be a blessing in disguise for that most unfortunate country. Indeed, one cannot help but ask why, after all these decades during which Haiti has been ignored and despised, it is now being showered with so much aid, money and debt forgiveness? Isn't there some amount of hypocrisy involved here?
I must confess that I have become a bit sceptical about this massive outpouring of generosity and can only hope that most if not all that is being donated will in fact reach those thousands of suffering victims now bereft of just about everything except their miserable lives. In this vein, I must warn would-be donors to be wary of scammers and shysters who will use even this most tragic spectacle for self-aggrandisement. And please, don't just send "ole clothes" or personal effects that you have got tired of and were waiting to throw out, not to mention those expired foodstuff, including canned goods. The Haitians are poor and beleaguered, but they still have their dignity and self-respect.
In the meantime, what I find most interesting, if not intriguing, is the juxtaposition of the Jamaican "tax quake" which jolted us recently thanks to "Papa Bruce" and his team and that seismic wonder not too far from our shores. God-fearing Jamaicans are praising the Almighty for having spared us, because if it was us and not Haiti which had been so affected by that quake, then not even dog would want to eat our supper!
Despite the fact that Jamaica and Haiti are in the same fault line, we experienced only some minor shocks. But you know, I have to wonder if God is partial? After all, why should he bypass us and take on Haiti? Are we the preferred "children of Israel"? Whichever way one looks at this scenario, it is obvious that we are a very lucky country and Haiti, on the other hand, is a very unlucky place to live. Four hurricanes in one year battered that country, then this quake.
But while Jamaica has been spared the debilitating effects of natural disasters (acts of God), we have been subject to many acts of man such as our record number of murders. So let us not become too smug as if to say everything is coming up roses. Indeed, if all the promises and plans now being offered by the international community to Haiti should materialise, then Jamaica may well begin to compete for its current position - that of being the poorest country in the West!
It is good to see Jamaicans rising to the occasion in a bid to help our Haitian brothers and sisters in their distress. Our Prime Minister Bruce Golding has taken on the task of leading the charge on behalf of Caricom and this is most commendable, although he must be reminded that he still has his "quake back a yard" to deal with. In this context, we can only hope that Mr Golding does not become too comfy and distracted from his major task at hand - that of salvaging the Jamaican economy.
I am a bit worried about what I am hearing on the streets being spouted by gleeful Jamaica Labour Party supporters who feel that the Golding Cabinet pulled a fast one on the Jamaican public with respect to the tax package and the debt-management initiative. Against this background, Mr Golding needs to clarify whether the first tax package announced at the end of 2009 was a deliberate ploy to prepare the country for the debt-management initiative. There is talk that this was the only way to get the International Monetary Fund to soften its position while at the same time bullying the well-off who were benefiting so profusely from government paper to decide to share some of the burden. Is this a classic case of the politics of deception or expediency?
Meanwhile, there are many lessons to be learnt from the Haitian debacle, chief of which is what corruption can do to a country, including the needless loss of many human lives. More anon.
lloydbsmith@hotmail.com
January 19, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Turning Guantanamo Bay into a point of light
By Jean H Charles:
The American base at Guantanamo in Cuba, refitted to receive the enemy combatant prisoners and the terrorists of Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, is on the verge of being closed again due to negative publicity surrounding the alleged mistreatment of those prisoners. Guantanamo Bay, with proper leadership and foresight, can reborn brightly as the most suitable place from critical care to recovery and rehabilitation for the Haitians victims of the devastating earthquake in a longer term. It is at only half an hour from the town of Mole St Nicholas, Haiti where Christopher Columbus landed in the country five hundred years ago.
Those Haitians will return home later to a Haiti rebuilt and ready to receive them. Guantanamo, with the leadership of the United States and financial support from the rest of the world, is a potential first response disaster relief and management center for the Western Hemisphere. Fidel and Raul Castro, I am certain, would applaud such a move, causing a melting of the ice between the two governments, Cuba and the United States. Such synergy is already in place in Leogane, Haiti, where Cuban and American doctors are working hand in hand in perfect harmony.
The vista of a young man with broken feet being discharged from the hospital with no one to receive him and no home to go to is disheartening at best. Haiti after 1/12/10 needs a rehabilitation center for the thousand of discharged patients and halfway home for the thousand of orphaned children before adoption. The situation in Haiti is similar to the fate of Europe after the defeat of the Nazis. It took the leadership of a General John Marshall to transform the towns and the cities of France, Germany and England into vibrant entities. It took also the leadership of General MacArthur in Asia to transform Japan into the power house of today.
Haiti, a pearl of the islands before its independence, was destined to become a ever-shining pearl after its gallant victory over slavery. It has not been such. This massive destruction will set Haiti years behind if no proper leadership is exhibited. I share the concern of millions in the world, who wish Haiti well and would like to see its people enter into the kingdom of peace, harmony and welfare.
The state of the state of Haiti today is now one of confusion. The United States has asked Canada and Brazil to join its administration in taking the lead for the reconstruction of Haiti, yet France and the European Community want to be major players in a country where French language and French mores are still queen. Israel, Cuba, Venezuela and Turkey have been so far the most ready helpers. The Dominican Republic is now setting itself to become the trustee of Haiti.
The Haitian government is nowhere to be found. There was no better governance in the best of times. President Barack Obama has promised not to let the Haitians suffer alone in this difficult situation. He will have to appoint a strong leader to lead the recovery, bring the sick, and the ones with broken limbs to Guantanamo, work with Europe and the other countries that want to devise a Marshall plan for Haiti and help instill in the country a sense of urgency, safety and solidarity of one towards the other.
One week after the earthquake, the excuses in the delay in breaking the bottleneck for essential delivery of health care to the people affected by the disaster are not reasonable. The Haitian people once more have demonstrated their resilience, they know not to expect solace from their own government, they expect, though, a better coordination of leadership and logistics from the international community.
The Haitian government has paid the transportation for the refugees to return home to their ancestral towns. It is planning tent cities on the outskirt of Port au Prince, against the grain of Haitian ethos that refuse to be refugees in their own country. They need a hospitality center in each one of the small towns of Haiti to alleviate and organize the arrivals of the new residents. A purse of a minimum of one million dollars in each one of the 150 towns of Haiti will go a long way in setting the stage for the reconstruction of Haiti and easing the pressure on the capital.
The power vacuum in Haiti on the national and international level is potentially as explosive as the recent earthquake:
– the political ballet dance of the United States not wanting to offend the Haitian government in taking charge of essential services,
– the United Nations wounded by the loss of its people and discredited for dismal performance for the last five years in Haiti,
– the rest of the international community already into a mode of a charity fatigue due to unnecessary bottleneck by those three players,
– the posturing of the major nonprofit organizations more interested in putting the spotlight on themselves instead of working together to bring essential services to the ordinary earthquake afflicted person.
– the Haitian government culture of treating its own citizens as pariah entities.
These are all the ingredients that will impede the speedy recovery of Haiti. As the doctors and the nurses in the field who need essential tools and medication to save the sick and the wounded, as the community leaders in the slum documented by BBC, who provide better services for burying the dead, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry than the slow pace of the world armada camped at the airport still discussing logistics and protocol while Haitians are dying from post and non treatment.
I am crying for help, please! The ghost of Katrina is still haunting Haiti.
January 23, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The American base at Guantanamo in Cuba, refitted to receive the enemy combatant prisoners and the terrorists of Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, is on the verge of being closed again due to negative publicity surrounding the alleged mistreatment of those prisoners. Guantanamo Bay, with proper leadership and foresight, can reborn brightly as the most suitable place from critical care to recovery and rehabilitation for the Haitians victims of the devastating earthquake in a longer term. It is at only half an hour from the town of Mole St Nicholas, Haiti where Christopher Columbus landed in the country five hundred years ago.
Those Haitians will return home later to a Haiti rebuilt and ready to receive them. Guantanamo, with the leadership of the United States and financial support from the rest of the world, is a potential first response disaster relief and management center for the Western Hemisphere. Fidel and Raul Castro, I am certain, would applaud such a move, causing a melting of the ice between the two governments, Cuba and the United States. Such synergy is already in place in Leogane, Haiti, where Cuban and American doctors are working hand in hand in perfect harmony. The vista of a young man with broken feet being discharged from the hospital with no one to receive him and no home to go to is disheartening at best. Haiti after 1/12/10 needs a rehabilitation center for the thousand of discharged patients and halfway home for the thousand of orphaned children before adoption. The situation in Haiti is similar to the fate of Europe after the defeat of the Nazis. It took the leadership of a General John Marshall to transform the towns and the cities of France, Germany and England into vibrant entities. It took also the leadership of General MacArthur in Asia to transform Japan into the power house of today.
Haiti, a pearl of the islands before its independence, was destined to become a ever-shining pearl after its gallant victory over slavery. It has not been such. This massive destruction will set Haiti years behind if no proper leadership is exhibited. I share the concern of millions in the world, who wish Haiti well and would like to see its people enter into the kingdom of peace, harmony and welfare.
The state of the state of Haiti today is now one of confusion. The United States has asked Canada and Brazil to join its administration in taking the lead for the reconstruction of Haiti, yet France and the European Community want to be major players in a country where French language and French mores are still queen. Israel, Cuba, Venezuela and Turkey have been so far the most ready helpers. The Dominican Republic is now setting itself to become the trustee of Haiti.
The Haitian government is nowhere to be found. There was no better governance in the best of times. President Barack Obama has promised not to let the Haitians suffer alone in this difficult situation. He will have to appoint a strong leader to lead the recovery, bring the sick, and the ones with broken limbs to Guantanamo, work with Europe and the other countries that want to devise a Marshall plan for Haiti and help instill in the country a sense of urgency, safety and solidarity of one towards the other.
One week after the earthquake, the excuses in the delay in breaking the bottleneck for essential delivery of health care to the people affected by the disaster are not reasonable. The Haitian people once more have demonstrated their resilience, they know not to expect solace from their own government, they expect, though, a better coordination of leadership and logistics from the international community.
The Haitian government has paid the transportation for the refugees to return home to their ancestral towns. It is planning tent cities on the outskirt of Port au Prince, against the grain of Haitian ethos that refuse to be refugees in their own country. They need a hospitality center in each one of the small towns of Haiti to alleviate and organize the arrivals of the new residents. A purse of a minimum of one million dollars in each one of the 150 towns of Haiti will go a long way in setting the stage for the reconstruction of Haiti and easing the pressure on the capital.
The power vacuum in Haiti on the national and international level is potentially as explosive as the recent earthquake:
– the political ballet dance of the United States not wanting to offend the Haitian government in taking charge of essential services,
– the United Nations wounded by the loss of its people and discredited for dismal performance for the last five years in Haiti,
– the rest of the international community already into a mode of a charity fatigue due to unnecessary bottleneck by those three players,
– the posturing of the major nonprofit organizations more interested in putting the spotlight on themselves instead of working together to bring essential services to the ordinary earthquake afflicted person.
– the Haitian government culture of treating its own citizens as pariah entities.
These are all the ingredients that will impede the speedy recovery of Haiti. As the doctors and the nurses in the field who need essential tools and medication to save the sick and the wounded, as the community leaders in the slum documented by BBC, who provide better services for burying the dead, healing the sick, and feeding the hungry than the slow pace of the world armada camped at the airport still discussing logistics and protocol while Haitians are dying from post and non treatment.
I am crying for help, please! The ghost of Katrina is still haunting Haiti.
January 23, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Friday, January 22, 2010
Jamaica shares same earthquake faultline as Haiti
KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- Jamaica shares the same faultline (a crack or break in the earth's surface) with Haiti, which suffered a devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 11.
This was disclosed by the Head of the Earthquake Unit of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr Lyndon Brown, at a JIS Think Tank in Kingston on Wednesday.
"The fault that created the quake in Haiti runs right across the western end of the Dominican Republic, through Haiti, cuts across the Caribbean Sea into Jamaica and continues more or less into different fault lines across Jamaica: one continuous fault line runs across from Haiti to Jamaica," Dr Brown stated.
He added that the activities in the region, following the Haiti earthquake, are not unusual, at this time.
"A number of aftershocks have taken place, and this is quite natural. The aftershocks will be more continuous after the large earthquake, but then this will die down and become less frequent," he said.
Aftershocks, such as the magnitude 6.1 tremor that occurred in Haiti again on the Wednesday morning (January 20), can be large but will become less frequent over time.
He said, however, that the other earthquakes that have taken place in Guatemala, Venezuela, and El Salvador are happening on the Pacific Plate fault line, which is not the same one on which Haiti and Jamaica is located.
"Right now we do not see the association between the events," he added.
He said that while studies are being done by an American researcher, to see the relationships between the fault lines, none has so far been established, and what is happening is that stresses are being naturally released along respective fault lines.
"Earthquakes are very, very, common. If you look at a map of Jamaica you will see that last year we had about eight felt events (earthquakes) and about 200 that were weak but could just be picked up as earthquakes," he said.
He stated that, on average, there have been about16 earthquakes on an annual basis that are greater that magnitude 7.0 , about 120 around magnitude 6.0 and an innumerable amount at magnitude 5.0 and below.
"What is happening in the region is very interesting. Earthquakes are natural events that happen when stresses that have built up along fault lines are released, creating elastic waves that generate convolutions on the face of the earth," Dr Brown said.
He added that the destruction wrought by an earthquake is dependent on the location and strength of a building, as well as the strength of the earthquake.
January 22, 2010
caribbeannetnews
This was disclosed by the Head of the Earthquake Unit of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr Lyndon Brown, at a JIS Think Tank in Kingston on Wednesday. "The fault that created the quake in Haiti runs right across the western end of the Dominican Republic, through Haiti, cuts across the Caribbean Sea into Jamaica and continues more or less into different fault lines across Jamaica: one continuous fault line runs across from Haiti to Jamaica," Dr Brown stated.
He added that the activities in the region, following the Haiti earthquake, are not unusual, at this time.
"A number of aftershocks have taken place, and this is quite natural. The aftershocks will be more continuous after the large earthquake, but then this will die down and become less frequent," he said.
Aftershocks, such as the magnitude 6.1 tremor that occurred in Haiti again on the Wednesday morning (January 20), can be large but will become less frequent over time.
He said, however, that the other earthquakes that have taken place in Guatemala, Venezuela, and El Salvador are happening on the Pacific Plate fault line, which is not the same one on which Haiti and Jamaica is located.
"Right now we do not see the association between the events," he added.
He said that while studies are being done by an American researcher, to see the relationships between the fault lines, none has so far been established, and what is happening is that stresses are being naturally released along respective fault lines.
"Earthquakes are very, very, common. If you look at a map of Jamaica you will see that last year we had about eight felt events (earthquakes) and about 200 that were weak but could just be picked up as earthquakes," he said.
He stated that, on average, there have been about16 earthquakes on an annual basis that are greater that magnitude 7.0 , about 120 around magnitude 6.0 and an innumerable amount at magnitude 5.0 and below.
"What is happening in the region is very interesting. Earthquakes are natural events that happen when stresses that have built up along fault lines are released, creating elastic waves that generate convolutions on the face of the earth," Dr Brown said.
He added that the destruction wrought by an earthquake is dependent on the location and strength of a building, as well as the strength of the earthquake.
January 22, 2010
caribbeannetnews
CARICOM strengthens response to Haiti
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CDEMA) -- CARICOM efforts to provide relief to Haiti after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 are being strengthened following an assessment of the situation on the ground. Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Jeremy Collymore updated on the CARICOM response to Haiti at a press conference Thursday at the CDEMA Coordinating Unit in Barbados.
The Executive Director stressed the role that the region has played to date singling out the role of Jamaica, the CDEMA Sub Regional Focal Point (SRFP) with responsibility for Haiti.
Immediately on receiving notification of the earthquake, the Director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) communicated with the Executive Director of CDEMA and confirmed that Jamaica as the SRFP with responsibility for Haiti, would take the lead on immediate actions in response to the event.
Collymore said, “It is important to recognize the efforts of Jamaica within the larger context of the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM). The mission by the Jamaican Prime Minister was the genesis for informing the community’s prioritizing focus of its efforts in Haiti.”
“Jamaica (the SRFP) responded to the catastrophe within the first 24 hours deploying a Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) vessel with military personnel and emergency supplies and is now the staging point for CARICOM relief activities to Haiti.”
CDEMA’s SRFP has provided search and rescue support, rescuing three persons and recovering two bodies in collaboration with international agencies. Additionally, the team has provided health support services, treating approximately 400 persons and performing minor surgeries. The team is also conducting ongoing public health awareness activities.
The SRFP is also providing security assistance to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) efforts and the more than 350 personnel from eleven CARICOM countries currently involved in the operations area.
The CDEMA head declared that responding to the Haiti earthquake has been “the major challenge to the humanitarian response practice globally in recent times.”
He noted that a major challenge to the response effort is “congestion on the ground of ‘unprioritised’ response driven more by emotional considerations rather than a structured mechanism have contributed to delays in the delivery of aid.” He said the delivery of emergency aid is further compromised by the damage to the sea ports.
As CARICOM intensifies its response, efforts will be centered on both short and long term initiatives in the targeted community.
He noted that the Community’s intervention going forward will be based on three principles. It is holistic, targeted and developmental.
The primary focus will be on the health sector. This will encompass assessment of facilities, emergency repair, provision of medical and support personnel, critical medical supplies, emergency supplies and security.
Regional governments have already pledged four million US dollars along with a cadre of emergency support, supplies and materials to the Haiti relief effort. This does not include the substantial fund raising activities by civil society.
CARICOM has also enhanced its presence in Haiti with a Special Coordinator appointed by CDEMA who is working with Haiti Civil Defence Protection, and the CARICOM security forces, international donors and humanitarian community on the ground to ensure a sustained and effective coordination of the CARICOM relief efforts.
In addition, the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit (CDRU) will continue to deploy regional emergency and medical personnel to strengthen and support the work of 350 CARICOM personnel already on the ground.
CARICOM recognizes the need for the continued support of Haiti beyond the response period and will continue to work towards meeting those needs beyond this initial response phase.
January 22, 2010
caribbeannetnews
The Executive Director stressed the role that the region has played to date singling out the role of Jamaica, the CDEMA Sub Regional Focal Point (SRFP) with responsibility for Haiti.
Immediately on receiving notification of the earthquake, the Director of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) communicated with the Executive Director of CDEMA and confirmed that Jamaica as the SRFP with responsibility for Haiti, would take the lead on immediate actions in response to the event.
Collymore said, “It is important to recognize the efforts of Jamaica within the larger context of the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM). The mission by the Jamaican Prime Minister was the genesis for informing the community’s prioritizing focus of its efforts in Haiti.”
“Jamaica (the SRFP) responded to the catastrophe within the first 24 hours deploying a Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) vessel with military personnel and emergency supplies and is now the staging point for CARICOM relief activities to Haiti.”
CDEMA’s SRFP has provided search and rescue support, rescuing three persons and recovering two bodies in collaboration with international agencies. Additionally, the team has provided health support services, treating approximately 400 persons and performing minor surgeries. The team is also conducting ongoing public health awareness activities.
The SRFP is also providing security assistance to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) efforts and the more than 350 personnel from eleven CARICOM countries currently involved in the operations area.
The CDEMA head declared that responding to the Haiti earthquake has been “the major challenge to the humanitarian response practice globally in recent times.”
He noted that a major challenge to the response effort is “congestion on the ground of ‘unprioritised’ response driven more by emotional considerations rather than a structured mechanism have contributed to delays in the delivery of aid.” He said the delivery of emergency aid is further compromised by the damage to the sea ports.
As CARICOM intensifies its response, efforts will be centered on both short and long term initiatives in the targeted community.
He noted that the Community’s intervention going forward will be based on three principles. It is holistic, targeted and developmental.
The primary focus will be on the health sector. This will encompass assessment of facilities, emergency repair, provision of medical and support personnel, critical medical supplies, emergency supplies and security.
Regional governments have already pledged four million US dollars along with a cadre of emergency support, supplies and materials to the Haiti relief effort. This does not include the substantial fund raising activities by civil society.
CARICOM has also enhanced its presence in Haiti with a Special Coordinator appointed by CDEMA who is working with Haiti Civil Defence Protection, and the CARICOM security forces, international donors and humanitarian community on the ground to ensure a sustained and effective coordination of the CARICOM relief efforts.
In addition, the CARICOM Disaster Relief Unit (CDRU) will continue to deploy regional emergency and medical personnel to strengthen and support the work of 350 CARICOM personnel already on the ground.
CARICOM recognizes the need for the continued support of Haiti beyond the response period and will continue to work towards meeting those needs beyond this initial response phase.
January 22, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Haiti's Preval, a survivor in a turbulent land
By Joseph Guyler Delva:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- When a team of Reuters reporters landed in Haiti the morning after its catastrophic earthquake, President Rene Preval was there on the airport tarmac, greeting some of those arriving on one of the first charter jets coming in from Florida with a handshake and a wry smile.
Impeccably turned out in a starched white shirt and dark tropical wool dress pants, you would never have guessed that he had spent hours the night before getting a first-hand look at the death and destruction wreaked on the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince from the back of a motorbike.
An enigma to many, and often criticized for his seemingly minimalist approach to governance in the poorest nation in the Americas, Prevail has few concrete achievements to highlight since he took office in May 2006.
Far from a hands-on, hard-charging management style, he has even failed to give a national address in the week since Haiti was hit by the 7.0 magnitude quake, which authorities estimate may have taken 200,000 lives in one of the world's worst natural disasters.
Preval has, however, given numerous media interviews and traveled to the neighboring Dominican Republic to meet with aid donors.
The soft-spoken agronomist, 67, took charge of a treasury that was empty and a parliament that was in tatters when Haiti's overwhelming majority of poor swept him to office four years ago.
And international observers say he has held steadfastly to efforts to establish a stable democracy in a country that has suffered upheaval and dictatorship since it threw off French rule more than 200 years ago.
"He's in shock right now, the whole country is in a state of shock, but Preval is not a bad man and I'm sure he'll do the best he can when things settle down a bit and he can focus his efforts on rebuilding Haiti," said Jean Baptiste, a student of international relations whose father is a doctor in downtown Port-au-Prince.
"The question is where does he begin," he added, saying the enormity of the challenges lying ahead after the earthquake were enough to overwhelm anyone.
Violent unrest and rioting could still shake Haiti in the days and months to come, if distribution problems, bottlenecks or corruption prevent international aid from reaching people made homeless and poorer than ever by the Jan. 12 temblor.
But a massive influx of aid, and support from around the globe, could buoy Preval's fragile government before his term ends in 2011 and few here seem to think the balding and graying Haitian leader will be ousted, like so many other elected Haitian leaders have been before.
He became the only Haitian leader to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand over power when he first served as president from 1996 through 2001.
Haiti's ornate presidential palace, a relic of better times in the late 1800s when its sugar plantations and other resources prompted the country to be known as a "Pearl of the Antilles," was caved in by the quake.
Preval was not in the building when the disaster struck. But speaking later, in various meetings with reporters and local government officials at the police station that has become his home and office in the wrecked capital, he spoke of the haunting images he saw from one of Port-au-Prince's ubiquitous "motor taxis" on his nighttime ride through the capital a short while after the quake.
"The damage I have seen here can be compared to the damage you would see if the country was bombed for 15 days. It is like in a war," Preval told Reuters.
January 20, 2010
caribbeannetnews
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- When a team of Reuters reporters landed in Haiti the morning after its catastrophic earthquake, President Rene Preval was there on the airport tarmac, greeting some of those arriving on one of the first charter jets coming in from Florida with a handshake and a wry smile.
Impeccably turned out in a starched white shirt and dark tropical wool dress pants, you would never have guessed that he had spent hours the night before getting a first-hand look at the death and destruction wreaked on the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince from the back of a motorbike.
An enigma to many, and often criticized for his seemingly minimalist approach to governance in the poorest nation in the Americas, Prevail has few concrete achievements to highlight since he took office in May 2006. Far from a hands-on, hard-charging management style, he has even failed to give a national address in the week since Haiti was hit by the 7.0 magnitude quake, which authorities estimate may have taken 200,000 lives in one of the world's worst natural disasters.
Preval has, however, given numerous media interviews and traveled to the neighboring Dominican Republic to meet with aid donors.
The soft-spoken agronomist, 67, took charge of a treasury that was empty and a parliament that was in tatters when Haiti's overwhelming majority of poor swept him to office four years ago.
And international observers say he has held steadfastly to efforts to establish a stable democracy in a country that has suffered upheaval and dictatorship since it threw off French rule more than 200 years ago.
"He's in shock right now, the whole country is in a state of shock, but Preval is not a bad man and I'm sure he'll do the best he can when things settle down a bit and he can focus his efforts on rebuilding Haiti," said Jean Baptiste, a student of international relations whose father is a doctor in downtown Port-au-Prince.
"The question is where does he begin," he added, saying the enormity of the challenges lying ahead after the earthquake were enough to overwhelm anyone.
Violent unrest and rioting could still shake Haiti in the days and months to come, if distribution problems, bottlenecks or corruption prevent international aid from reaching people made homeless and poorer than ever by the Jan. 12 temblor.
But a massive influx of aid, and support from around the globe, could buoy Preval's fragile government before his term ends in 2011 and few here seem to think the balding and graying Haitian leader will be ousted, like so many other elected Haitian leaders have been before.
He became the only Haitian leader to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand over power when he first served as president from 1996 through 2001.
Haiti's ornate presidential palace, a relic of better times in the late 1800s when its sugar plantations and other resources prompted the country to be known as a "Pearl of the Antilles," was caved in by the quake.
Preval was not in the building when the disaster struck. But speaking later, in various meetings with reporters and local government officials at the police station that has become his home and office in the wrecked capital, he spoke of the haunting images he saw from one of Port-au-Prince's ubiquitous "motor taxis" on his nighttime ride through the capital a short while after the quake.
"The damage I have seen here can be compared to the damage you would see if the country was bombed for 15 days. It is like in a war," Preval told Reuters.
January 20, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Monday, January 18, 2010
The earthquake in Haiti requires the world's human response
By Wellington C Ramos:
Ever since the black people of this Caribbean country fought and defeated the French to gain their independence in 1804, this nation has been left by most European countries to just go downhill. For the people who have no knowledge of the Haitian Revolution, they should take some time to study it. During the era of colonialism, England, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain and other European countries roamed the planet earth, landed on different continents, slaughtered the indigenous people of most lands, made them slaves and took out all of their wealth and natural resources back to their respective homelands.
The landing of Christopher Columbus in this part of the world in 1492 set the pace for this exploitation to begin, with the approval of the Catholic Spanish Pope Alexander the V1 in the Treaty of Tordesillas signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494. With the exception of Brazil, Spain was given all the land and people in the Americas and the Caribbean while Portugal had the continent of Africa for themselves.
England, France and Holland protested this bold move by the Catholic Pope and pledged to fight against this unlawful treaty. The British formed a group called privateers, who were highly trained to navigate the high seas and look for non-British vessels, capture them, take their cargoes and kill all the sailors on board. In addition, they signed agreements with Spain to temporarily occupy some of their illegal territories with the intention to stay on them permanently. The French did this on the Spanish island of Hispaniola in the early 1600s which eventually developed into two countries, one by the name of Haiti and the other the Dominican Republic. Today, these two countries are divided and their relationship remains strained up to this day because of their cultural and historical differences.
The British did the same thing in 1638 by getting permission to cut logwood and mahogany from the Spanish crown in one of their occupied territories in Central America that was under the Captaincy General of Granados, which capital was in Guatemala City and New Spain that had its capital in Mexico City. The Mexican government, in a treaty with England, later renounced their claim to Belize. While the Guatemalan government kept hanging on to their unlawful claim.
Like the French, the British had no intention of leaving because they said from the beginning that they will never honor the treaty that was signed between Spain and Portugal giving them both titles to the entire Americas, Caribbean and Africa. Today, that settlement has led to the emergence of a nation called Belize that is struggling to maintain its independence but still haunted by a Guatemalan claim because of Europeans’ unlawful actions.
The Haitians were able to defeat France with the help of their ancestors and their powerful war god “Ogun”, one of the most powerful gods in the religion of the Yoruba people, who mostly live in the country of Nigeria on the African continent. Most Haitians are descendants of various African cultures that were brought from the continent of Africa during slavery.
Many Europeans look down on African people with disdain as if they are uncivilized, backward and stupid even up to this day. Yet they know that the first people on this planet earth were black people and great civilizations existed on the continent of Africa long before the Europeans set foot on the African continent. In fact many African kings and queens sponsored expeditions and invasions of several territories in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The Empires of Mali like; King Askia Mohammad, Songhay and Ghana are typical examples.
The Haitians are still looked upon by many Europeans and some Caribbean people as evil people but this assertion is far from the truth. They are entitled to practice whatever religion they chose to practice like everybody else to save their own souls. For me it is laughable for anyone to believe that the Europeans are interested in saving the souls of other people after all the atrocities they have committed upon the people of this planet.
Europeans must accept the fact that Christianity is not the only religion on earth. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and several other religions are common on this planet earth. As a Garifuna person, it took me some time to accept and understand my own culture’s religion, which is also based on African ancestral rites called “Dugu”. I have accepted it and will not depart from my religion just to remain a Christian. This religion has provided me with solace and healing over the years.
The country of Haiti needs the entire world to be on its side at this current moment because a natural disaster can occur anywhere at any time. If there are any people in this world who have suffered and been punished, enough they are the Haitian people and enough is enough. Several people have died in this country and the structural damages and human suffering done nationwide is severe. Looking at the news has brought tears to my eyes because as a human being, I have feelings and these people are all God’s children like me.
There is enough in this world to give every human being in this world who is in need of something but we have got to rid ourselves from this culture of greed and selfishness and just give. We all shall die one day and everything we possess will remain here after we have departed this planet earth.
January 18, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Ever since the black people of this Caribbean country fought and defeated the French to gain their independence in 1804, this nation has been left by most European countries to just go downhill. For the people who have no knowledge of the Haitian Revolution, they should take some time to study it. During the era of colonialism, England, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain and other European countries roamed the planet earth, landed on different continents, slaughtered the indigenous people of most lands, made them slaves and took out all of their wealth and natural resources back to their respective homelands.
The landing of Christopher Columbus in this part of the world in 1492 set the pace for this exploitation to begin, with the approval of the Catholic Spanish Pope Alexander the V1 in the Treaty of Tordesillas signed by Spain and Portugal in 1494. With the exception of Brazil, Spain was given all the land and people in the Americas and the Caribbean while Portugal had the continent of Africa for themselves. England, France and Holland protested this bold move by the Catholic Pope and pledged to fight against this unlawful treaty. The British formed a group called privateers, who were highly trained to navigate the high seas and look for non-British vessels, capture them, take their cargoes and kill all the sailors on board. In addition, they signed agreements with Spain to temporarily occupy some of their illegal territories with the intention to stay on them permanently. The French did this on the Spanish island of Hispaniola in the early 1600s which eventually developed into two countries, one by the name of Haiti and the other the Dominican Republic. Today, these two countries are divided and their relationship remains strained up to this day because of their cultural and historical differences.
The British did the same thing in 1638 by getting permission to cut logwood and mahogany from the Spanish crown in one of their occupied territories in Central America that was under the Captaincy General of Granados, which capital was in Guatemala City and New Spain that had its capital in Mexico City. The Mexican government, in a treaty with England, later renounced their claim to Belize. While the Guatemalan government kept hanging on to their unlawful claim.
Like the French, the British had no intention of leaving because they said from the beginning that they will never honor the treaty that was signed between Spain and Portugal giving them both titles to the entire Americas, Caribbean and Africa. Today, that settlement has led to the emergence of a nation called Belize that is struggling to maintain its independence but still haunted by a Guatemalan claim because of Europeans’ unlawful actions.
The Haitians were able to defeat France with the help of their ancestors and their powerful war god “Ogun”, one of the most powerful gods in the religion of the Yoruba people, who mostly live in the country of Nigeria on the African continent. Most Haitians are descendants of various African cultures that were brought from the continent of Africa during slavery.
Many Europeans look down on African people with disdain as if they are uncivilized, backward and stupid even up to this day. Yet they know that the first people on this planet earth were black people and great civilizations existed on the continent of Africa long before the Europeans set foot on the African continent. In fact many African kings and queens sponsored expeditions and invasions of several territories in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. The Empires of Mali like; King Askia Mohammad, Songhay and Ghana are typical examples.
The Haitians are still looked upon by many Europeans and some Caribbean people as evil people but this assertion is far from the truth. They are entitled to practice whatever religion they chose to practice like everybody else to save their own souls. For me it is laughable for anyone to believe that the Europeans are interested in saving the souls of other people after all the atrocities they have committed upon the people of this planet.
Europeans must accept the fact that Christianity is not the only religion on earth. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and several other religions are common on this planet earth. As a Garifuna person, it took me some time to accept and understand my own culture’s religion, which is also based on African ancestral rites called “Dugu”. I have accepted it and will not depart from my religion just to remain a Christian. This religion has provided me with solace and healing over the years.
The country of Haiti needs the entire world to be on its side at this current moment because a natural disaster can occur anywhere at any time. If there are any people in this world who have suffered and been punished, enough they are the Haitian people and enough is enough. Several people have died in this country and the structural damages and human suffering done nationwide is severe. Looking at the news has brought tears to my eyes because as a human being, I have feelings and these people are all God’s children like me.
There is enough in this world to give every human being in this world who is in need of something but we have got to rid ourselves from this culture of greed and selfishness and just give. We all shall die one day and everything we possess will remain here after we have departed this planet earth.
January 18, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Chavez says US 'occupying Haiti' in name of aid
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday accused the United States of using the earthquake in Haiti as a pretext to occupy the devastated Caribbean country and offered to send fuel from his OPEC nation.
"I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United States should send," Chavez said on his weekly television show. "They are occupying Haiti undercover."
"On top of that, you don't see them in the streets. Are they picking up bodies? ... Are they looking for the injured? You don't see them. I haven't seen them. Where are they?"
Chavez promised to send as much gasoline as Haiti needs for electricity generation and transport.
A perennial foe of US "imperialism," Chavez said he did not wish to diminish the humanitarian effort made by the United States and was only questioning the need for so many troops.
The United States is sending more than 5,000 Marines and soldiers to Haiti, and a hospital ship is due to arrive later this week.
The country's president said US troops would help keep order on Haiti's increasingly lawless streets.
Venezuela has sent several planes to Haiti with doctors, aid and some soldiers. A Russia-Venezuela mission was set to leave Venezuela on Monday carrying aid on Russian planes.
Chavez said Venezuela's planes were the first to land in Haiti after Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which wrecked the capital Port-Au-Prince and killed as many as 200,000 people.
January 18, 2010
caribbeannetnews
"I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that's what the United States should send," Chavez said on his weekly television show. "They are occupying Haiti undercover."
"On top of that, you don't see them in the streets. Are they picking up bodies? ... Are they looking for the injured? You don't see them. I haven't seen them. Where are they?"
Chavez promised to send as much gasoline as Haiti needs for electricity generation and transport.
A perennial foe of US "imperialism," Chavez said he did not wish to diminish the humanitarian effort made by the United States and was only questioning the need for so many troops.
The United States is sending more than 5,000 Marines and soldiers to Haiti, and a hospital ship is due to arrive later this week.
The country's president said US troops would help keep order on Haiti's increasingly lawless streets.
Venezuela has sent several planes to Haiti with doctors, aid and some soldiers. A Russia-Venezuela mission was set to leave Venezuela on Monday carrying aid on Russian planes.
Chavez said Venezuela's planes were the first to land in Haiti after Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which wrecked the capital Port-Au-Prince and killed as many as 200,000 people.
January 18, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Caricom blocked from landing in Haiti
BY RICKEY SINGH Observer Caribbean correspondent:
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados -- The Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising heads of government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devastated country's airport, now under the control of the USA.
Consequently, the Caricom "assessment mission" that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the mind-boggling earthquake disaster last Tuesday had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective home destinations.
On Friday afternoon, the US State Department confirmed signing two Memoranda of Understanding with the Government of Haiti that made "official that the United States is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid offloading".
Further, according to the agreements signed, US medical personnel "now have the authority to operate on Haitian citizens and otherwise render medical assistance without having to wait for licences from Haiti's Government".
Prior to the US taking control of Haiti's airport, a batch of some 30 Cuban doctors had left Havana, following the earthquake, to join more than 300 of their colleagues who have been working there for more than a year.
Last evening, the frustration suffered by the Caricom mission to get landing permission was expected to be raised in a scheduled meeting at Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport between Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Golding, who was making arrangements for the meeting with Clinton, following her visit earlier in the day to witness the devastation of the capital Port-au-Prince, said he could not comment on details to be discussed.
He, however, told this correspondent: "I appreciate the chaos and confusion at Haiti's airport, where there is just one operational runway. But Haiti is a member of Caricom and we simply have to be facilitated and the truth is there is hardly a functioning government in Haiti."
Asked whether the difficulties encountered by the Caricom mission may be related to reports that US authorities were not anxious to facilitate landing of aircraft from Cuba and Venezuela, Prime Minister Golding said he could "only hope that there is no truth to such immature thinking in the face of the horrific scale of Haiti's tragedy".
Golding, who has lead portfolio responsibility among Caricom leaders for external economic relations, got a first-hand assessment of the damage when he flew to Haiti on Thursday.
A contingent of some 150 members of the Jamaica Defence Force has since established a camp with medical facilities in the vicinity of Haiti's airport.
Ahead of last evening's scheduled meeting with Clinton, Prime Minister Golding had discussed on Friday in Kingston some of the problems to be overcome at a meeting with the prime ministers of Barbados and Dominica and the Community's secretary general Edwin Carrington.
Carrington explained that proper use of the Norman Manley Airport would be consistent with a decision last week for Jamaica to serve as the Sub-regional Operational Focal Point for responses to the Haitian humanitarian crisis.
January 17, 2010
jamaicaobserver
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados -- The Caribbean Community's emergency aid mission to Haiti, comprising heads of government and leading technical officials, failed to secure permission Friday to land at that devastated country's airport, now under the control of the USA.
Consequently, the Caricom "assessment mission" that was to determine priority humanitarian needs resulting from the mind-boggling earthquake disaster last Tuesday had to travel back from Jamaica to their respective home destinations.
On Friday afternoon, the US State Department confirmed signing two Memoranda of Understanding with the Government of Haiti that made "official that the United States is in charge of all inbound and outbound flights and aid offloading".
Further, according to the agreements signed, US medical personnel "now have the authority to operate on Haitian citizens and otherwise render medical assistance without having to wait for licences from Haiti's Government".
Prior to the US taking control of Haiti's airport, a batch of some 30 Cuban doctors had left Havana, following the earthquake, to join more than 300 of their colleagues who have been working there for more than a year.
Last evening, the frustration suffered by the Caricom mission to get landing permission was expected to be raised in a scheduled meeting at Jamaica's Norman Manley International Airport between Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Golding, who was making arrangements for the meeting with Clinton, following her visit earlier in the day to witness the devastation of the capital Port-au-Prince, said he could not comment on details to be discussed.
He, however, told this correspondent: "I appreciate the chaos and confusion at Haiti's airport, where there is just one operational runway. But Haiti is a member of Caricom and we simply have to be facilitated and the truth is there is hardly a functioning government in Haiti."
Asked whether the difficulties encountered by the Caricom mission may be related to reports that US authorities were not anxious to facilitate landing of aircraft from Cuba and Venezuela, Prime Minister Golding said he could "only hope that there is no truth to such immature thinking in the face of the horrific scale of Haiti's tragedy".
Golding, who has lead portfolio responsibility among Caricom leaders for external economic relations, got a first-hand assessment of the damage when he flew to Haiti on Thursday.
A contingent of some 150 members of the Jamaica Defence Force has since established a camp with medical facilities in the vicinity of Haiti's airport.
Ahead of last evening's scheduled meeting with Clinton, Prime Minister Golding had discussed on Friday in Kingston some of the problems to be overcome at a meeting with the prime ministers of Barbados and Dominica and the Community's secretary general Edwin Carrington.
Carrington explained that proper use of the Norman Manley Airport would be consistent with a decision last week for Jamaica to serve as the Sub-regional Operational Focal Point for responses to the Haitian humanitarian crisis.
January 17, 2010
jamaicaobserver
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Haiti's fault rupture boosts long-term risk of Jamaica quake
By Tom Randall and Meg Tirrell:
NEW YORK, USA (Bloomberg) -- The magnitude 7 earthquake that killed as many as 100,000 people in Haiti this week may increase the likelihood of a future quake in Jamaica, according to seismologists who study geologic risk.
When aftershocks subside in the coming weeks, Haiti’s prospects of another earthquake will plummet, while areas west along the same fault line will see increased seismic pressure, said Stuart Sipkin, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. It could take decades or a century for the pressure to rupture on the western edge of the fault in Jamaica.
A similar quake flattened the Haitian capital of Port-au- Prince 240 years ago, so long ago that most residents were unaware they were at risk, said Roger Musson, who advises engineers on regional dangers for the British Geological Survey. The 1770 upheaval was part of a string of westward-moving temblors that culminated in Jamaica in 1907, he said.
“In Haiti, there’s not been earthquakes in living memory; now it’s likely that the stress will be increased on the next segment along,” Musson, the agency’s head of seismic hazard, said in a telephone interview. However, he added, “You are constantly surprised by earthquakes doing things that they’re not supposed to do.”
Haiti lies near the eastern end of a fault line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates -- massive subterranean sections of the earth’s crust that move at about the speed that human fingernails grow, Sipkin said.
When the two passing tectonic plates get stuck together, pressure builds until it is relieved through a violent movement of earth, Sipkin said.
It probably took about 20 to 30 seconds for the fault to break, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
“People probably felt it for longer,” Hutton said today in a telephone interview. “People’s perception of time slows down when they get really stressed.”
The Haiti earthquake was a “worst-case scenario,” a shallow rupture in the earth that ripped through a densely populated and poorly constructed city, said Pedro de Alba, professor of civil engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The depth of the rupture is important, because if it occurs deep in the earth, much of the energy is absorbed by rock, he said.
“A shallow earthquake is the worst possible kind,” de Alba said in a telephone interview today. “Pressure was building up for quite a long time.”
De Alba said the probability of a future quake west along the fault line has increased, “but to what extent we simply can’t predict.”
January 16, 2010
caribbeannetnews
NEW YORK, USA (Bloomberg) -- The magnitude 7 earthquake that killed as many as 100,000 people in Haiti this week may increase the likelihood of a future quake in Jamaica, according to seismologists who study geologic risk.
When aftershocks subside in the coming weeks, Haiti’s prospects of another earthquake will plummet, while areas west along the same fault line will see increased seismic pressure, said Stuart Sipkin, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado. It could take decades or a century for the pressure to rupture on the western edge of the fault in Jamaica.
A similar quake flattened the Haitian capital of Port-au- Prince 240 years ago, so long ago that most residents were unaware they were at risk, said Roger Musson, who advises engineers on regional dangers for the British Geological Survey. The 1770 upheaval was part of a string of westward-moving temblors that culminated in Jamaica in 1907, he said.
“In Haiti, there’s not been earthquakes in living memory; now it’s likely that the stress will be increased on the next segment along,” Musson, the agency’s head of seismic hazard, said in a telephone interview. However, he added, “You are constantly surprised by earthquakes doing things that they’re not supposed to do.”
Haiti lies near the eastern end of a fault line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates -- massive subterranean sections of the earth’s crust that move at about the speed that human fingernails grow, Sipkin said.
When the two passing tectonic plates get stuck together, pressure builds until it is relieved through a violent movement of earth, Sipkin said.
It probably took about 20 to 30 seconds for the fault to break, said Kate Hutton, a seismologist at the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
“People probably felt it for longer,” Hutton said today in a telephone interview. “People’s perception of time slows down when they get really stressed.”
The Haiti earthquake was a “worst-case scenario,” a shallow rupture in the earth that ripped through a densely populated and poorly constructed city, said Pedro de Alba, professor of civil engineering at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The depth of the rupture is important, because if it occurs deep in the earth, much of the energy is absorbed by rock, he said.
“A shallow earthquake is the worst possible kind,” de Alba said in a telephone interview today. “Pressure was building up for quite a long time.”
De Alba said the probability of a future quake west along the fault line has increased, “but to what extent we simply can’t predict.”
January 16, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Friday, January 15, 2010
Bahamas: Evacuated Bahamians tell of Haiti's horror
By KRYSTEL ROLLE ~ Guardian Staff Reporter ~ krystel@nasguard.com:
Amid the death and despair that clouds Haiti, comes a miraculous story of survival.
Two Bahamians narrowly escaped death on Tuesday after a powerful earthquake ripped off the walls of the hotel they were staying in and flattened buildings all around them.
As the death toll rose as more bodies were dug out of concrete graves, Civil Aviation Director Captain Patrick Rolle and Flight Inspector Hubert Adderley said they are lucky to be alive.
The raw anguish permeating throughout the impoverished nation is something they said they could not have concocted in their worst nightmares.
The men, who were evacuated from Haiti on Wednesday and taken to Jamaica before arriving in New Providence on a Sky Bahamas flight yesterday, told of horrific scenes they said would not be forgotten anytime soon.
Both Rolle and Adderley said they were just getting settled in their rooms in Hotel Carib in Port-au-Prince when the earth shook.
The two were in Haiti attending an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Safety and Security Conference.
"I was just checked in, got into the room and was sending an e-mail to my wife letting her know that I had arrived safe. When I got up from the chair to go over to the bed to make a note of something, the room started vibrating," Rolle recalled.
He said the wall in his room then collapsed around him, part of which hit him in his head.
"The room itself basically caved in," he added.
Rolle said he tried to get out of the main door but could not as the door frame was warped.
As a result, Rolle said he left through a sliding door and jumped a wall onto the roof of a restaurant.
"I did it. It sounds simple, but I don't know how I did it," Rolle added.
Adderley said he made a similar escape.
"My first instinct was to get out of this place quick," he said.
And, according to Adderley, that's exactly what he did.
"The sliding door was open. So I just got out, jumped over the railing, fell on the ground and continued moving to an open area," he said.
"I've never been in an earthquake before. My immediate thought was my family at home. I didn't come over here to not go back."
Rolle and Adderley said as they were riding away from the collapsed hotel, they saw a frightening sight — dead bodies all around them.
The harrowing images that are shown of the ravaged Port-au-Prince only reveal the beginning of the total devastation and despair that the powerful earthquake wrought on the nation, the Bahamian survivors said.
"What they're showing you [on the international news] is the main street," Rolle said. "What they're not showing you are the side streets where everyone lived — where nobody lives now. All the residents moved and now sleep in the middle of the street. Everyone is literally living in the streets."
He said the residents used stones to block the road so they could make their beds in the streets on the side of their dead loved ones.
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the coast of Haiti at approximately 4:43 p.m. Tuesday.
Rolle, who had a gash on his head, said thousands of people were injured during the quake but are unable to get medical help.
"So they're there and there is no medical aid; the hospital has collapsed," he said.
"The UN medical clinic is overwhelmed. Another hospital was declared unfit. So everyone who was in ICU had to be taken out. There were literally hundreds of persons there, arms missing, foot off, bones exposed," he said.
"The media [are] saving the public from some of the things that [are] actually happening. The worst part is seeing persons sitting near their dead relatives. There's no one collecting the dead bodies."
The American Red Cross estimates that the earthquake may have affected about three million people in and near Port-au-Prince.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti are feared dead.
Bodies are piled along the devastated streets of Port-au-Prince. However, no official count has been made as thousands of people are thought to be trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings.
"It's something that I would not like to experience again, seeing the amount of dead persons," Rolle said.
He added that he's still not sure what he feels.
"I can tell you that things that I thought were important in life are no longer important. When you see people lose everything they've got you realize that there is nothing else there. The only thing you have, I guess for myself as a Christian, is a relationship that cannot be broken by disaster," he said.
"And you have a hope that you can't lose but when you see all of the people walking around with no hope and not knowing where they're going to get water or food, with no homes to go to, we realize that as a human the only thing you have are relationships."
Adderley said the images that he saw will stay with him for a long time.
"What was gut wrenching about all this, in the back of the hotel there's a hill and on the side of the hill are all these homes and when you look over in that area all you saw was a white cloud of dust and all you heard were moans and the cries of people and it was just gut wrenching," he said.
"It's something that I would never want to experience again. It's going to take a couple days to process out of this. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone because there are persons we saw an hour or two before who we haven't seen since. It's a really, really horrific situation in Haiti right now."
January 15, 2010
thenassauguardian
Amid the death and despair that clouds Haiti, comes a miraculous story of survival.
Two Bahamians narrowly escaped death on Tuesday after a powerful earthquake ripped off the walls of the hotel they were staying in and flattened buildings all around them.
As the death toll rose as more bodies were dug out of concrete graves, Civil Aviation Director Captain Patrick Rolle and Flight Inspector Hubert Adderley said they are lucky to be alive.
The raw anguish permeating throughout the impoverished nation is something they said they could not have concocted in their worst nightmares.
The men, who were evacuated from Haiti on Wednesday and taken to Jamaica before arriving in New Providence on a Sky Bahamas flight yesterday, told of horrific scenes they said would not be forgotten anytime soon.
Both Rolle and Adderley said they were just getting settled in their rooms in Hotel Carib in Port-au-Prince when the earth shook.
The two were in Haiti attending an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Safety and Security Conference.
"I was just checked in, got into the room and was sending an e-mail to my wife letting her know that I had arrived safe. When I got up from the chair to go over to the bed to make a note of something, the room started vibrating," Rolle recalled.
He said the wall in his room then collapsed around him, part of which hit him in his head.
"The room itself basically caved in," he added.
Rolle said he tried to get out of the main door but could not as the door frame was warped.
As a result, Rolle said he left through a sliding door and jumped a wall onto the roof of a restaurant.
"I did it. It sounds simple, but I don't know how I did it," Rolle added.
Adderley said he made a similar escape.
"My first instinct was to get out of this place quick," he said.
And, according to Adderley, that's exactly what he did.
"The sliding door was open. So I just got out, jumped over the railing, fell on the ground and continued moving to an open area," he said.
"I've never been in an earthquake before. My immediate thought was my family at home. I didn't come over here to not go back."
Rolle and Adderley said as they were riding away from the collapsed hotel, they saw a frightening sight — dead bodies all around them.
The harrowing images that are shown of the ravaged Port-au-Prince only reveal the beginning of the total devastation and despair that the powerful earthquake wrought on the nation, the Bahamian survivors said.
"What they're showing you [on the international news] is the main street," Rolle said. "What they're not showing you are the side streets where everyone lived — where nobody lives now. All the residents moved and now sleep in the middle of the street. Everyone is literally living in the streets."
He said the residents used stones to block the road so they could make their beds in the streets on the side of their dead loved ones.
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the coast of Haiti at approximately 4:43 p.m. Tuesday.
Rolle, who had a gash on his head, said thousands of people were injured during the quake but are unable to get medical help.
"So they're there and there is no medical aid; the hospital has collapsed," he said.
"The UN medical clinic is overwhelmed. Another hospital was declared unfit. So everyone who was in ICU had to be taken out. There were literally hundreds of persons there, arms missing, foot off, bones exposed," he said.
"The media [are] saving the public from some of the things that [are] actually happening. The worst part is seeing persons sitting near their dead relatives. There's no one collecting the dead bodies."
The American Red Cross estimates that the earthquake may have affected about three million people in and near Port-au-Prince.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti are feared dead.
Bodies are piled along the devastated streets of Port-au-Prince. However, no official count has been made as thousands of people are thought to be trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings.
"It's something that I would not like to experience again, seeing the amount of dead persons," Rolle said.
He added that he's still not sure what he feels.
"I can tell you that things that I thought were important in life are no longer important. When you see people lose everything they've got you realize that there is nothing else there. The only thing you have, I guess for myself as a Christian, is a relationship that cannot be broken by disaster," he said.
"And you have a hope that you can't lose but when you see all of the people walking around with no hope and not knowing where they're going to get water or food, with no homes to go to, we realize that as a human the only thing you have are relationships."
Adderley said the images that he saw will stay with him for a long time.
"What was gut wrenching about all this, in the back of the hotel there's a hill and on the side of the hill are all these homes and when you look over in that area all you saw was a white cloud of dust and all you heard were moans and the cries of people and it was just gut wrenching," he said.
"It's something that I would never want to experience again. It's going to take a couple days to process out of this. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone because there are persons we saw an hour or two before who we haven't seen since. It's a really, really horrific situation in Haiti right now."
January 15, 2010
thenassauguardian
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Haiti quake was nightmare waiting to happen say scientists
By Richard Ingham:
PARIS, France (AFP) -- The quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday was a killer that had massed its forces for a century and a half before unleashing them against a wretchedly poor country, turning buildings into death traps, experts said on Wednesday.
Scientists painted a tableau of horror, where natural forces, ignorance and grinding poverty had conspired to wreak a death toll tentatively estimated by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive at more than 100,000.
The 7.0-magnitude quake occurred very close to the surface near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving almost no natural buffer to soften the powerful shockwave, these experts said.
"It was a very shallow earthquake, occurring at a depth of around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)," seismologist Yann Klinger of the Institute of the Physics of the Globe (IPG) in Paris told AFP.
"Because the shock was so big and occurred at such a shallow depth, just below the city, the damage is bound to be very extensive," he said.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake occurred at 2153 GMT on Tuesday 15 kms (9.4 miles) southwest of Port-au-Prince.
It happened at a boundary where two mighty chunks of the Earth's crust, the Caribbean plate and the North America plate, rub and jostle in a sideways, east-west movement.
The USGS said the rupture occurred on the "Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system," a slow-moving fault that last unleashed a large quake in 1860. Prior major events to that were in 1770, 1761, 1751, 1684, 1673 and 1618.
Sandy Steacey, director of the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, said the high death toll could be pinned overwhelmingly to construction.
"It's a very, very poor country without the building codes. Probably the fact that earthquakes (there) are very infrequent contributes in a way, because it's not a country that is focussed on seismic safety.
"Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings are of) breeze-block or cinder-block construction, and what you need in an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they stay together when they get shaken," said Steacey.
"In a wealthy country with good seismic building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not very much."
French seismologist Pascal Bernard, also at the IPG, said that, given the nature of the fault, there was a "sizeable probability" that another large quake could occur in the same region within a matter of years.
Like other faults around the world, the Haitian crack is well known for domino activity, in which the release of pressure on one stretch piles on pressure in an adjoining stretch, bringing it closer to rupture.
In Haiti's case, the likeliest spot of a bust would be to the east of Tuesday's quake, Bernard said.
Asked whether another big quake was in the offing, Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics at Durham University, northeast England, said, "In the coming years, almost surely."
"We know pretty much where earthquakes occur, they've been mapped themselves and we can map faults and so on.
"The difficulty is it's very, very hard to predict when they will occur, because the network is so complex.
"It's a bit like making a pile of stones. You put more on the pile and it gets steeper and steeper and sooner or later the thing is going to collapse but you never which stone is going to do it and just where it's going to start to fail."
January 14, 2010
caribbeannetnews
PARIS, France (AFP) -- The quake that hit Haiti on Tuesday was a killer that had massed its forces for a century and a half before unleashing them against a wretchedly poor country, turning buildings into death traps, experts said on Wednesday.
Scientists painted a tableau of horror, where natural forces, ignorance and grinding poverty had conspired to wreak a death toll tentatively estimated by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive at more than 100,000.
The 7.0-magnitude quake occurred very close to the surface near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving almost no natural buffer to soften the powerful shockwave, these experts said.
"It was a very shallow earthquake, occurring at a depth of around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)," seismologist Yann Klinger of the Institute of the Physics of the Globe (IPG) in Paris told AFP.
"Because the shock was so big and occurred at such a shallow depth, just below the city, the damage is bound to be very extensive," he said.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake occurred at 2153 GMT on Tuesday 15 kms (9.4 miles) southwest of Port-au-Prince.
It happened at a boundary where two mighty chunks of the Earth's crust, the Caribbean plate and the North America plate, rub and jostle in a sideways, east-west movement.
The USGS said the rupture occurred on the "Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault system," a slow-moving fault that last unleashed a large quake in 1860. Prior major events to that were in 1770, 1761, 1751, 1684, 1673 and 1618.
Sandy Steacey, director of the Environmental Science Research Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, said the high death toll could be pinned overwhelmingly to construction.
"It's a very, very poor country without the building codes. Probably the fact that earthquakes (there) are very infrequent contributes in a way, because it's not a country that is focussed on seismic safety.
"Looking at the pictures, essentially it looks as if (the buildings are of) breeze-block or cinder-block construction, and what you need in an earthquake zone is metal bars that connect the blocks so that they stay together when they get shaken," said Steacey.
"In a wealthy country with good seismic building codes that are enforced, you would have some damage, but not very much."
French seismologist Pascal Bernard, also at the IPG, said that, given the nature of the fault, there was a "sizeable probability" that another large quake could occur in the same region within a matter of years.
Like other faults around the world, the Haitian crack is well known for domino activity, in which the release of pressure on one stretch piles on pressure in an adjoining stretch, bringing it closer to rupture.
In Haiti's case, the likeliest spot of a bust would be to the east of Tuesday's quake, Bernard said.
Asked whether another big quake was in the offing, Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics at Durham University, northeast England, said, "In the coming years, almost surely."
"We know pretty much where earthquakes occur, they've been mapped themselves and we can map faults and so on.
"The difficulty is it's very, very hard to predict when they will occur, because the network is so complex.
"It's a bit like making a pile of stones. You put more on the pile and it gets steeper and steeper and sooner or later the thing is going to collapse but you never which stone is going to do it and just where it's going to start to fail."
January 14, 2010
caribbeannetnews
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