Tragedy Hits Haiti
- Courtesy of www.dailymail.co.uk
The brand new decade that dawned with the start of 2010 marked the beginning of many things for many people all around the world. With the first 10 years of the 21st century named the worst decade in documented history, citizens all over the world were looking for hope with great optimism. After all, everything steadily went downhill the last decade, so now there’s no way but up right? Not quite. Especially, not for the citizens of Haiti and definitely not after the 7.0 earthquake which destroyed everything that was left of the country.
Even before the earthquake, only 40% of the total population had access to basic health care, 90% of Haiti’s children suffered from water borne diseases and some 30, 000 people died from malaria annually. In 2004, Hurricane Jeanne left 3, 006 people dead while earlier that year floods killed over 3, 000 people on the Southern border. In addition to all this, Haiti is also the poorest country in the western hemisphere.
Out of all the countries the first major earthquake of 2010 could affect, it had to hit Haiti.
Haiti obviously had more than their fair share of problems and on the 12th of January, just 12 days after the dawn of a brand new decade, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti; its epicenter was about 25 km away from the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. Though Haiti is no stranger to natural disasters, their emergency services were deemed weak while many predicted that they would not be able to face a major disaster.
In the aftermath of the quake, it is estimated that about 3 million have been affected by the quake (which is a little less than half of Haiti’s total population) while 200, 000 individuals, are believed to be dead. The bulk of the damage is in Haiti’s capital where major landmarks including the Presidential Palace have been damaged while others have been destroyed. Since most of the administrative functions and their headquarters were located within the capital, Haiti was immediately faced with an administrative crisis along with the quake. With the collapse of the telephone network, communication was severed and the damaging of hospitals left the millions of people helpless on the streets.
Injured casualties were without proper medical care as all hospitals in the vicinity had collapsed. In Haiti, there rose a situation where one couldn’t help another because everyone was affected by it. But still, there were sparks of humanity, even at such a trying time for, people buried under debris were taken out by the populace who were lucky enough not to be in such a position and countries rushed to send in humanitarian aid. The Dominican Republic, though affected by the quake as well, and despite of tensions that remained between the two nations since the 19th century, were the first to send in aid. They also made available their hospitals and airport to take in affected Haiti citizens and receive the aid to be distributed to Haiti.
For the citizens of Haiti, their whole world collapsed on the 12th of January in a matter of a few minutes. With 50% of the country’s infrastructure damaged and a little less than half the population severely affected, the chance for recovery gets bleaker every hour. From a long term view, even with the hoards of international aid coming in, Haiti has a long way to go to simply get to where they were before the quake.
It just goes to show that your entire world can turn around and collapse in just a few seconds.
