Rebuilding Haiti.
| Auteur | Broom, Giles |
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Following January's horrific earthquake in Haiti, Swiss organisations rushed to provide emergency relief. Many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) remain active in the country, creating shelters and helping to rebuild shattered lives.
The earthquake that hit the Caribbean island of ]Haiti on January 12 was one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. The quake killed more than 220,000 and displaced a ; million more, bringing life in the already poverty-stricken country to halt.
Shock
News rippled across the world, as the 7.0 Richter-scale shock brought down whole buildings, including the headquarters of the UN's peacekeeping mission. For a short time, only victims could be seen wandering the ruptured roads of the capital Portau-Prince, next to the quake's epicentre.
"[Haiti] lost its capital city. With the capital city went the country," said lain Logan, head of Haiti operations for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Haitians recounted the terrible day the quake struck, to Emma Le Beau of the humanitarian organisation, Medair:
"I flung my arms into the air, shaking, and calling out 'Jesus, Jesus!'" said 65-year-old Letois Samedy. "I heard a big noise, the wall was falling down on me! I thought I was going to die."
"I didn't know what was happening," mother of eight, Mme Lapin, told Le Beau. "I ran out of the house with my children, but my niece, five years old, she died under the house next door. The air was white with dust. Everywhere people were running."
Emergency response
Into this uncertain chaos plunged a series of government and NGO relief forces, including Le Beau's organisation Medair, based near Lausanne, which usually focuses on other regions of the world.
"Due to the large scale of the Haiti disaster and the level of pre-existing vulnerability of the Haitian people prior to the earthquake, Medair decided to respond," John Farmer, Medair's director of operations for Haiti, explained.
Even before the quake, most Haitians faced nourishment problems and lived on less than two Swiss Francs per day. Medair's emergency relief team conducted a needs assessment in Port-au-Prince, before focusing on the lesser-served community of Jacmel, Haiti's fourth largest city.
"The extent of devastation we saw was larger than the other earthquake disasters we have responded to in the past," Farmer told Swiss News.
The team drew on the organisation's experience of responding to...
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