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
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.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
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
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Haiti president describes `unimaginable' catastrophe; thousands feared dead
By JACQUELINE CHARLES, CAROL ROSENBERG, JEAN-CYRIL PRESSOIR AND JIM WYSS
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haitian President René Préval issued an urgent appeal for his earthquake-shattered nation Wednesday, saying he had been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament.
Préval, in his first interview since the earthquake, said the country was destroyed and he believed there were thousands of people dead but was reluctant to provide a number.
``We have to do an evaluation,'' Préval said, describing the scene as ``unimaginable.''
``Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,'' he said. ``There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.''
The U.N. said casualties were ``vast'' but impossible to calculate.
The International Red Cross said a third of Haiti's nine million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge, the Associated Press reported.
As the scope of the damage was becoming clear Wednesday, some Haitians were crossing the border into the Dominican Republic.
``I don't have work, I don't have a future here,'' said Antonio Bacevil, 39, a farmer wearing ragged shorts and muddy boat shoes who was on his way to Santiago. ``What you see is what I have. . . . A lot of people are dead.''
The U.S. State Department said there are 45,000 American citizens living in Haiti and efforts were being made to locate them. Of the more than 170 personnel at the U.S. Embassy, eight were injured, four of them seriously enough to be evacuated by the Coast Guard, officials said in a briefing.
Préval said he had traveled through several neighborhoods and seen the damage. ``All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe,'' he said.
The U.N. said Haiti's principal prison had collapsed and inmates had escaped.
A Florida-based shipper said the cranes at the Port-au-Prince cargo pier had toppled into the water and that much of the pier was destroyed.
The second story and dome of the ornate Presidential Palace pancaked onto the first floor. The Parliament was also in ruins, trapping Senate President Kely Bastien, Préval said.
The body of the Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, the Associated Press reported.
In Washington Wednesday, President Barack Obama said search-and-rescue teams from Florida, California and Virginia were on their way to Haiti and that USAID would be coordinating a broad-based effort to take food, water and emergency supplies to the nation.
``We have to be there for them in their hour of need,'' he said.
The military also swung into action early Wednesday, moving a 30-member advance team from Southern Command in Miami by C-130 cargo plane to work with U.S. Embassy personnel and sending a Navy reconnaissance plane from a U.S base in Comalpa, El Salvador, to study the quake damage. The Navy also diverted the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to Haiti. It was expected to be off the coast Thursday.
According to media reports, survivors were digging through the rubble and stacking bodies along the streets of Haiti's capital after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the island nation Tuesday afternoon. The earthquake has left the nation virtually isolated, with countless crumbled buildings, including the six-story United Nations headquarters.
The U.N. confirmed five of its workers had been killed and more than 100 were missing. Among those unaccounted for were the mission chief, Hédi Annabi, and his deputy, the U.N. said Wednesday.
Brazil's army said at least 11 of its peacekeepers were killed, while Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed, the AP reported.
Préval said he has not slept since the earthquake. Others slept in the streets fearing their homes would be toppled by aftershocks.
``This is a catastrophe,'' the first lady, Elisabeth Préval, said. ``I'm stepping over dead bodies. A lot of people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers.''
While official details about the scope of the damage were scarce, eyewitness accounts and media reports painted a picture of widespread destruction that could leave thousands dead.
A hospital was reported to have collapsed and people were heard screaming for help, and the World Bank offices in Petionville were also destroyed, but most of the staff were safely accounted for, the organization said.
Part of the road to Canape Vert, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, has collapsed, along with houses perched in the mountains of Petionville, where the quake was centered. Petionville is a suburb about 10 miles from downtown Port-au-Prince.
As the damage mounted, Florida Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen pressed Obama for immediate humanitarian aid for Haiti and renewed their request for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals residing in the United States.
``Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti tonight as emergency responders work to ensure the safety of their citizens. It is important that the U.S. make available all possible humanitarian assistance to our friend and neighbor, Haiti,'' Lincoln Diaz-Balart said.
And Ros-Lehtinen called for the U.S. to immediately stop deporting Haitian nationals ``due to the crisis in this already devastated country.''
Broward Democrat Alcee Hastings added his name to the effort, calling it ``not only immoral, but irresponsible'' not to do so.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said the organization had released $10 million in ``emergency funds'' to set up immediate operations. He said Assistant Secretary General Eduard Moulet would be dispatched to the region as soon as conditions permit.
OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said the OAS ``will do everything within our means to support the victims of this catastrophic phenomenon.'' He said Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin was gathering damage information to report to the group's Permanent Council Wednesday to allow member states to contribute to Haiti.
``It is at such times that people, governments and leaders across the hemisphere, as neighbors and friends of the people of Haiti, should show solidarity and support in a real, effective and immediate manner, guided by the country's government, which knows best where the most urgent need lies,'' Insulza said.
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democrat who represents parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties, said: ``I am monitoring the situation very closely and am prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives and bring swift disaster relief to Haiti and the Haitian people at this time. I ask that all Americans please keep the Haitian people and all victims of this disaster in their thoughts and prayers.''
From Broward, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who was in Haiti in June, said she was ``deeply saddened'' by the news.
``I know only too well how much this earthquake will add to the already immense obstacles facing the Haitian people,'' she said, adding that she would work with colleagues in Congress and the Obama administration to provide aid to Haiti.
The American Red Cross was poised to move aid from a warehouse in Panama -- blankets, kitchen sets and water containers for about 5,000 families -- as soon as a flight or means of delivery could be found, Eric Porterfield said in Washington.
Field reports, he said, indicated ``lots of damage and lots of aftershocks.''
In addition, the American Red Cross had already released $200,000 to its counterpart Haitian Red Cross.
On Wednesday, Haitian Sen. Joseph Lambert also described the scene in Haiti. Standing outside the Parliament building, he said: ``Imagine schools, hospitals, government buildings all destroyed.''
When asked about the prospect of Haiti rebuilding, Lambert said, ``It's our country. We have no other choice. It's a catastrophe, but we have no other choice but to rebuild.''
01.13.10
miamiherald
Miami Herald staff writers Nancy San Martin, Lesley Clark, Trenton Daniel, Frances Robles, Martha Brannigan, Jim Wyss, Robert Samuels, Nadege Charles, Mary Ellen Klas and Herald special correspondent Stewart Stogel contributed to this report, which was supplemented by wire services.
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Haitian President René Préval issued an urgent appeal for his earthquake-shattered nation Wednesday, saying he had been stepping over dead bodies and hearing the cries of those trapped under the rubble of the national Parliament.
Préval, in his first interview since the earthquake, said the country was destroyed and he believed there were thousands of people dead but was reluctant to provide a number.
``We have to do an evaluation,'' Préval said, describing the scene as ``unimaginable.''
``Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed,'' he said. ``There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.''
The U.N. said casualties were ``vast'' but impossible to calculate.
The International Red Cross said a third of Haiti's nine million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge, the Associated Press reported.
As the scope of the damage was becoming clear Wednesday, some Haitians were crossing the border into the Dominican Republic.
``I don't have work, I don't have a future here,'' said Antonio Bacevil, 39, a farmer wearing ragged shorts and muddy boat shoes who was on his way to Santiago. ``What you see is what I have. . . . A lot of people are dead.''
The U.S. State Department said there are 45,000 American citizens living in Haiti and efforts were being made to locate them. Of the more than 170 personnel at the U.S. Embassy, eight were injured, four of them seriously enough to be evacuated by the Coast Guard, officials said in a briefing.
Préval said he had traveled through several neighborhoods and seen the damage. ``All of the hospitals are packed with people. It is a catastrophe,'' he said.
The U.N. said Haiti's principal prison had collapsed and inmates had escaped.
A Florida-based shipper said the cranes at the Port-au-Prince cargo pier had toppled into the water and that much of the pier was destroyed.
The second story and dome of the ornate Presidential Palace pancaked onto the first floor. The Parliament was also in ruins, trapping Senate President Kely Bastien, Préval said.
The body of the Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, the Associated Press reported.
In Washington Wednesday, President Barack Obama said search-and-rescue teams from Florida, California and Virginia were on their way to Haiti and that USAID would be coordinating a broad-based effort to take food, water and emergency supplies to the nation.
``We have to be there for them in their hour of need,'' he said.
The military also swung into action early Wednesday, moving a 30-member advance team from Southern Command in Miami by C-130 cargo plane to work with U.S. Embassy personnel and sending a Navy reconnaissance plane from a U.S base in Comalpa, El Salvador, to study the quake damage. The Navy also diverted the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to Haiti. It was expected to be off the coast Thursday.
According to media reports, survivors were digging through the rubble and stacking bodies along the streets of Haiti's capital after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the island nation Tuesday afternoon. The earthquake has left the nation virtually isolated, with countless crumbled buildings, including the six-story United Nations headquarters.
The U.N. confirmed five of its workers had been killed and more than 100 were missing. Among those unaccounted for were the mission chief, Hédi Annabi, and his deputy, the U.N. said Wednesday.
Brazil's army said at least 11 of its peacekeepers were killed, while Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed, the AP reported.
Préval said he has not slept since the earthquake. Others slept in the streets fearing their homes would be toppled by aftershocks.
``This is a catastrophe,'' the first lady, Elisabeth Préval, said. ``I'm stepping over dead bodies. A lot of people are buried under buildings. The general hospital has collapsed. We need support. We need help. We need engineers.''
While official details about the scope of the damage were scarce, eyewitness accounts and media reports painted a picture of widespread destruction that could leave thousands dead.
A hospital was reported to have collapsed and people were heard screaming for help, and the World Bank offices in Petionville were also destroyed, but most of the staff were safely accounted for, the organization said.
Part of the road to Canape Vert, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, has collapsed, along with houses perched in the mountains of Petionville, where the quake was centered. Petionville is a suburb about 10 miles from downtown Port-au-Prince.
As the damage mounted, Florida Republican Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen pressed Obama for immediate humanitarian aid for Haiti and renewed their request for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals residing in the United States.
``Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti tonight as emergency responders work to ensure the safety of their citizens. It is important that the U.S. make available all possible humanitarian assistance to our friend and neighbor, Haiti,'' Lincoln Diaz-Balart said.
And Ros-Lehtinen called for the U.S. to immediately stop deporting Haitian nationals ``due to the crisis in this already devastated country.''
Broward Democrat Alcee Hastings added his name to the effort, calling it ``not only immoral, but irresponsible'' not to do so.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said the organization had released $10 million in ``emergency funds'' to set up immediate operations. He said Assistant Secretary General Eduard Moulet would be dispatched to the region as soon as conditions permit.
OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said the OAS ``will do everything within our means to support the victims of this catastrophic phenomenon.'' He said Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin was gathering damage information to report to the group's Permanent Council Wednesday to allow member states to contribute to Haiti.
``It is at such times that people, governments and leaders across the hemisphere, as neighbors and friends of the people of Haiti, should show solidarity and support in a real, effective and immediate manner, guided by the country's government, which knows best where the most urgent need lies,'' Insulza said.
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democrat who represents parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties, said: ``I am monitoring the situation very closely and am prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives and bring swift disaster relief to Haiti and the Haitian people at this time. I ask that all Americans please keep the Haitian people and all victims of this disaster in their thoughts and prayers.''
From Broward, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who was in Haiti in June, said she was ``deeply saddened'' by the news.
``I know only too well how much this earthquake will add to the already immense obstacles facing the Haitian people,'' she said, adding that she would work with colleagues in Congress and the Obama administration to provide aid to Haiti.
The American Red Cross was poised to move aid from a warehouse in Panama -- blankets, kitchen sets and water containers for about 5,000 families -- as soon as a flight or means of delivery could be found, Eric Porterfield said in Washington.
Field reports, he said, indicated ``lots of damage and lots of aftershocks.''
In addition, the American Red Cross had already released $200,000 to its counterpart Haitian Red Cross.
On Wednesday, Haitian Sen. Joseph Lambert also described the scene in Haiti. Standing outside the Parliament building, he said: ``Imagine schools, hospitals, government buildings all destroyed.''
When asked about the prospect of Haiti rebuilding, Lambert said, ``It's our country. We have no other choice. It's a catastrophe, but we have no other choice but to rebuild.''
01.13.10
miamiherald
Miami Herald staff writers Nancy San Martin, Lesley Clark, Trenton Daniel, Frances Robles, Martha Brannigan, Jim Wyss, Robert Samuels, Nadege Charles, Mary Ellen Klas and Herald special correspondent Stewart Stogel contributed to this report, which was supplemented by wire services.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
French Caribbean regions reject more autonomy
By Dominique Bareto:
FORT-DE-FRANCE (Reuters) - Voters in the French Caribbean territories of Martinique and Guyana rejected the option of greater autonomy in a referendum at the weekend, authorities said.
A year after protests against high prices in the island of Guadeloupe spread to other French overseas regions, the referendum offered the chance to vote for giving local lawmakers more scope to initiate legislation of their own.
Like other parts of France's overseas territories and regions, Martinique and Guyana depend heavily on support from the mainland, but suffer from higher unemployment than the rest of France and rely on expensive imported food and fuel.
The proposed changes would have given the regions a status similar to that of French Polynesia, which has more responsibility for its own affairs than the so-called overseas "departments" but they would not have led to full independence.
But nearly 70 percent of voters in Guyana, on the South American mainland, and 79.3 percent of voters on the island of Martinique voted to remain overseas "departments" that count as full parts of France and the European Union.
"I was surprised by the size of the result but not by the trend," said Marcellin Nadeau a local mayor who had backed the "yes" vote in the referendum.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the vote last year, saying changes were needed to improve governance in the Caribbean regions but his office said in a statement the vote showed how attached they were to the French Republic.
The vote was widely seen as a rebuff to local politicians who had asked Sarkozy to hold the referendum but officials said various factors were at issue.
"There were those who did not answer the question and who saw it as 'Do you want independence?' and who voted No," said Patrick Karam, a government official responsible for overseeing equality issues in the overseas territories.
"Then there were those...who asked 'What will happen to our social benefits in future?'" he told France Info radio.
The vote came as tensions returned to Guadeloupe, the scene of last year's most violent confrontations, where shops were burned and looted and a union leader was killed during a 44-day stand-off between protesters and police.
High prices, combined with what protesters saw as an unfair dominance of key sectors of the economy by the old white elite were the triggers for the protests and the problems have not disappeared despite an accord last year.
Elie Domota, leader of the LKP group which spearheaded the protests, last week called a strike on the island on January 20, saying prices had gone up sharply at the beginning of the year, despite government pledges.
Last year's protests in Guadeloupe ended with a deal to boost the local minimum wage by 200 euros a month and set price pegs on dozens of staple items to reduce the cost of living.
January 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
FORT-DE-FRANCE (Reuters) - Voters in the French Caribbean territories of Martinique and Guyana rejected the option of greater autonomy in a referendum at the weekend, authorities said.
A year after protests against high prices in the island of Guadeloupe spread to other French overseas regions, the referendum offered the chance to vote for giving local lawmakers more scope to initiate legislation of their own.
Like other parts of France's overseas territories and regions, Martinique and Guyana depend heavily on support from the mainland, but suffer from higher unemployment than the rest of France and rely on expensive imported food and fuel.
The proposed changes would have given the regions a status similar to that of French Polynesia, which has more responsibility for its own affairs than the so-called overseas "departments" but they would not have led to full independence.
But nearly 70 percent of voters in Guyana, on the South American mainland, and 79.3 percent of voters on the island of Martinique voted to remain overseas "departments" that count as full parts of France and the European Union.
"I was surprised by the size of the result but not by the trend," said Marcellin Nadeau a local mayor who had backed the "yes" vote in the referendum.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the vote last year, saying changes were needed to improve governance in the Caribbean regions but his office said in a statement the vote showed how attached they were to the French Republic.
The vote was widely seen as a rebuff to local politicians who had asked Sarkozy to hold the referendum but officials said various factors were at issue.
"There were those who did not answer the question and who saw it as 'Do you want independence?' and who voted No," said Patrick Karam, a government official responsible for overseeing equality issues in the overseas territories.
"Then there were those...who asked 'What will happen to our social benefits in future?'" he told France Info radio.
The vote came as tensions returned to Guadeloupe, the scene of last year's most violent confrontations, where shops were burned and looted and a union leader was killed during a 44-day stand-off between protesters and police.
High prices, combined with what protesters saw as an unfair dominance of key sectors of the economy by the old white elite were the triggers for the protests and the problems have not disappeared despite an accord last year.
Elie Domota, leader of the LKP group which spearheaded the protests, last week called a strike on the island on January 20, saying prices had gone up sharply at the beginning of the year, despite government pledges.
Last year's protests in Guadeloupe ended with a deal to boost the local minimum wage by 200 euros a month and set price pegs on dozens of staple items to reduce the cost of living.
January 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
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