2010 Haiti Earthquake

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and many more have been injured and displaced from their homes.The International Red Cross estimated that about three million people were affected by the quake, and Haitian Interior Minister believes that up to 200,000 have died as a result of the disaster, exceeding earlier Red Cross estimates of 45,000- 50,000 several prominent public figures are among the dead.

The Haitian Minister Jean-Max Bellerive recently announced that 70,000 bodies have but three million people were affected by the quake, and Haitian Interior Minister believes that up to 200,000 have diedeen buried in mass graves. Senior senator Youri Latortue believes that up to 500,000 may have died.The International Red Cross estimated that abo as a result of the disaster, exceeding earlier Red Cross estimates of 45,000- 50,000 several prominent public figures are among the dead. The Haitian Minister Jean-Max Bellerive recently announced that 70,000 bodies have been buried in mass graves. Senior senator Youri Latortue believes that up to 500,000 may have died.

"The whole city is in darkness, you have thousands of people sitting in the streets, with nowhere to go," Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with Food for the Poor, told Reuters from Port-au-Prince.

"I've seen seven to eight buildings, from office buildings to hotels and shopping stores, collapsed ... I think hundreds of casualties would be a serious understatement," he added.

This is terribly serious. The people have nothing at all. Just a fragile network of care giving organizations, totally underfunded. Their houses, if you can call them that, are perched on precipitous hillsides, and the city of Port Au Prince contains 2 plus million people in tiers of block buildings--this, a city that was built for 50,000. The cinder block walls of most all buildings are not reinforced as elsewhere, so might as well be bricks...this crisis is horrible.

Haiti sits on a large fault that has caused catastrophic quakes in the past, but this one was described as among the most powerful to hit the region. With many poor residents living in tin-roof shacks that sit precariously on steep ravines and with much of the construction in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in the country of questionable quality, the expectation was that the quake caused major damage to buildings and significant loss of life.

picture 1 information:Uploaded on January 15, 2010  by IFRC

picture 2 informatiomn:Uploaded on January 13, 2010   by diegoWRESTLEMANIAC!