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7.0 Strong Earthquake Hits Haiti

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Keith Ranville
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« on: January 12, 2010, 06:55:18 pm »



By JOSé DE CóRDOBA and DAVID LUHNOW

A powerful earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale shook Haiti on Tuesday, causing several buildings to collapse in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation and leading to an unknown number of fatalities, officials and witnesses said.
[Haiti Map]

The earthquake was centered just 10 miles southwest of the crowded and impoverished capital of Port-au-Prince. Making matters worse, the earthquake was relatively shallow at a depth of five miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Shallow earthquakes can cause more damage.

"I think it's really a catastrophe of major proportions," Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

Raphaelle Chenet, the administrator of Mercy and Sharing, a charity that takes care of 109 orphans, said she saw about ten dead bodies in the street after the quake struck.

"I saw dead bodies, people are screaming, they are on the street panicking, people are hurt," she told The Wall Street Journal. "There are a lot of wounded, broken heads, broken arms."

In Port-au-Prince, many houses built on steep ravines have collapsed, Ms. Chenet said. She said from her house she had heard a couple of explosions, which she believed to be gas explosions. The orphans in the two institutions run by Mercy and Sharing weren't hurt, although an orphanage worker suffered a broken leg, she said.

President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with the people of Haiti, and U.S. officials said they would consider immediate humanitarian aid.

An Associated Press videographer saw the collapsed wreckage of a hospital in Petionville, near Port-au-Prince. Reuters news agency cited a witness saying several buildings had crumbled in the capital and that there were dead and injured trapped in the rubble.

At least 1.8 million people live within the area where the earthquake had its highest intensity, John Bellini, a geophysicist at the USGS, told The Wall Street Journal. "With a strong and shallow earthquake like this in such a populated area, it could really cause substantial damage," he said.

The quake was the most powerful to hit Haiti since at least 1770, according to USGS records, Mr. Bellini added. "This isn't normally an earthquake-prone area," he said.

Within minutes of the original tremor, two aftershocks rolled through the area, measuring 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale.

Eight in ten Haitians live in poverty, according to the CIA World Factbook. The Caribbean nation was hit hard by a series of hurricanes in the past few years, adding to the country's misery.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, said: "This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago."

Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126333470907826737.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
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Keith Ranville
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« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2010, 07:07:04 pm »



Haiti gets rocked by a 7.0 and aftershocks just over three hours ago, the death toll could be in the hundreds of thousands. catastrophic damage is being reported due to none earthquake proof buildings that wasn't built under proper building codes. Cries and Panic is in the streets of haiti.

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« Last Edit: January 12, 2010, 07:23:14 pm by Keith Ranville » Report Spam   Logged
Kristina
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« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2010, 04:19:18 am »

Haiti Earthquake: Capitol Shattered By 7.0 Trembler

JONATHAN M. KATZ | 01/13/10 07:47 AM | AP


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after the strongest earthquake hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped.

Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent of destruction from Tuesday afternoon's 7.0-magnitude tremor, or to estimate how many were dead among the collapsed buildings in Haiti's capital of about 2 million people.

France's foreign minister said the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was apparently among the dead.

International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said an estimated 3 million people may have been affected by the quake and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge. Clouds of dust thrown up by falling buildings choked Port-au-Prince for hours.

The United States and other nations began organizing aid efforts, alerting search teams and gathering supplies that will be badly needed in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. The international Red Cross and other aid groups announced plans for major relief operations.

"Haiti has moved to center of the world's thoughts and the world's compassion," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Associated Press journalists based in Port-au-Prince found the damage staggering even for a country long accustomed to tragedy and disaster.

Aftershocks rattled the city as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares long after nightfall, singing hymns.
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« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2010, 04:19:54 am »



People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passersby lifted the sheets to see if a loved one was underneath. Outside a crumbled building the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.

It was clear tens of thousands lost their homes and many perished in collapsed buildings that were flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.

"The hospitals cannot handle all these victims," Dr. Louis-Gerard Gilles, a former senator, said as he helped survivors. "Haiti needs to pray. We all need to pray together."

An Associated Press videographer saw a wrecked hospital where people screamed for help in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians as well as the poor.

At a destroyed four-story apartment building, a girl of about 16 stood atop a car, trying to peer inside while several men pulled at a foot sticking from rubble. She said her family was inside.

U.N. peacekeepers, many of whom are from Brazil, were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of their headquarters.

"It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi Annabi, the United Nations' Secretary General's special envoy, and everyone with him and around him, are dead," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday, speaking on RTL radio.

At least four Brazilian soldiers were killed and five injured, Brazil's army said. Jordan's official news agency said three of its peacekeepers were killed and 21 were injured. A state newspaper in China said eight Chinese peacekeepers were known dead and 10 were missing – though officials later said the information was not confirmed.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said late Tuesday that the missing included mission chief Hedi Annabi of Tunisia, who was in the building when the quake struck. Some 9,000 peacekeepers have been in Haiti since 2004, including 1,266 Brazilians.

Much of the National Palace pancaked on itself, but Haiti's ambassador to Mexico, Robert Manuel, said President Rene Preval and his wife survived the earthquake. He had no details.

The quake struck at 4:53 p.m., centered 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of only 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti.
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« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2010, 04:20:11 am »

Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.

Tuesday's quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in either place.

With electricity knocked out in many places and phone service erratic, it was nearly impossible for Haitian or foreign officials to get full details of the devastation.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said that U.S. Embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed.

"They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said.

President Barack Obama offered prayers for the people of Haiti and said the U.S. stood ready to help. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. was offering full assistance – civilian and military – and a national organization of registered nurses called for nurse volunteers to provide care in Haiti.

Elizabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s humanitarian office, said it was working with independent aid agency Telecoms Sans Frontieres to get phone lines working again – a key element in organizing relief efforts.

Venezuela's government said it would send a military plane with canned foods, medicine and drinking water and provide 50 rescue workers. Mexico, which suffered an earthquake in 1985 that killed some 10,000 people, planned to send doctors, search and rescue dogs and infrastructure damage experts.
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« Reply #5 on: January 14, 2010, 04:20:39 am »

Italy said it was sending a C-130 cargo plane Wednesday with a field hospital and emergency medical personnel as well as a team to assess aid needs. France said 65 clearing specialists, with six sniffer dogs, and two doctors and two nurses were leaving.

Edwidge Danticat, an award-winning Haitian-American author was unable to contact relatives in Haiti. She sat with family and friends at her home in Miami, looking for news on the Internet and watching TV news reports.

"You want to go there, but you just have to wait," she said. "Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale, it's unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this."

___

Associated Press videographer Pierre Richard Luxama in Haiti and AP writers David Koop and Olga R. Rodriguez in Mexico City; David McFadden and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Matthew Lee in Washington; Alicia Chang in Los Angeles; Andrea Rodriguez in Havana; Tamara Lush in Tampa, Fla.; and Jennifer Kay and Christine Armario in Miami contributed to this report.
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« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2010, 04:22:32 am »

Haiti Earthquake: First Images (PHOTOS) (VIDEO)

First Posted: 01-13-10 12:38 AM   |   Updated: 01-13-10 07:46


An intense earthquake has left the small island nation of Haiti in "total disaster and chaos," according to U.S. officials. Registering a magnitude of 7.0, it struck late on Tuesday afternoon and has done damage that will not be measurable for some time.

Click here for information on how to help the quake victims.

UPDATE: Additional images have been added since this was originally posted. Please be aware that some images contain blood.


People search for survivors amongst the rubble of the Caribbean Super Market in Delmas on January 12, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. A 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti today, followed by at least a dozen aftershocks, causing widespread devastation in the capital of Port-au-Prince. (Photo by Frederic Dupoux/Getty
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« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2010, 04:23:56 am »



People sleep on a square in Port-au-Prince's Petionville district on January 13, 2009.
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« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2010, 04:24:43 am »



In this handout image provided by the United Nations, a young Haitian girl sleeps with her mother and brother on a bunk after receiving treatment at an ad hoc medical clinic at United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti's (MINUSTAH) logistics base on January 13, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(Photo by Logan Abassi/MINUSTAH via Getty Images)
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« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2010, 04:25:39 am »



Injured people sit along Delmas road the day after an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Jorge Cruz)
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« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2010, 04:26:32 am »



In this handout image provided by the United Nations, a Haitian boy receives treatment at an ad hoc medical clinic at United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti's (MINUSTAH) logistics base on January 13, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(Photo by Logan Abassi/MINUSTAH via Getty Images)
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« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2010, 04:27:20 am »



Bodies of earthquake victims lay on a street in Port-au-Prince, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)
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« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2010, 04:27:54 am »



Body of a woman lies near the presidential palace January 13, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
(Frederic Dupoux/Getty Images)
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« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2010, 04:28:48 am »



Passers-by observe the covered corpses of those killed by a massive earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 13, 2010.
JUAN BARRETO/AFP/Getty Images
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« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2010, 04:29:33 am »



The legs of a corpse are seen among the rubble of a hotel destroyed by massive earthquake that rocked Haiti in Port-au-Prince on January 13, 2010. AFP / GETTY IMAGES
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