Angrily angry crowds gathered at the collapsed buildings and demanded tarps to make temporary shelters. This was more important than ever since Tropical Storm Grace brought heavy rains on Monday and Tuesday. It further compounded the poverty of the poor Caribbean nation.
Local authorities delivered a few dozen boxes of rice and meal kits in the first food delivery. It was set up at a tent encampment in Les Cayes’ poorest area. This is where many of the warren’s single-story, cinderblock-roofed homes were destroyed or damaged by Saturday’s earthquake.
The shipment was insufficient to provide for hundreds of people who had lived for five days under tarps and tents.
Vladimir Martino, a representative from the camp, said that while it wasn’t enough, they’d do whatever was necessary to ensure everyone gets at least some.
Gerda Francoise (24 years old) was one of many who waited in the heat to get food. Francoise said, “I don’t know what I’m going to get. But I need something to bring back to my tent.” “I have a baby.”
Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency reported Tuesday night that 1,941 people had died in Saturday’s earthquake. The agency also stated that 9,900 people were injured in Saturday’s earthquake. Many of them waited hours in the heat to receive medical attention.
But, foreign aid was slowly arriving. The U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crews focused on the most pressing task of ferrying the injured to more-stressed facilities. The USS Arlington, an amphibious navy warship from the United States, was scheduled to depart for Haiti Wednesday along with a landing craft and a surgical team.
Volunteers discovered the body of a man among the rubble of an apartment building that had collapsed in Les Cayes. The smell of death hangs in the heat.
Officials stated that the magnitude 7.2 earthquake caused more than 7,000 houses to be destroyed and nearly 5,000 homes to be damaged, rendering approximately 30,000 people homeless. Schools, hospitals, offices, churches, and schools were also destroyed or severely damaged.
Many of the income and food sources that many Haitians depend on to survive were destroyed by the earthquake. Haiti is already in crisis from the coronavirus, gang violence, and the assassination of President Jovenel Moise July 7.
“We don’t have anything.” Even the animals from the farm are gone. They were killed in the rockslides,” Elize Civil (30), a farmer from Fleurant, at the epicenter of the earthquake, said.
Christy Delafield, a Mercy Corps worker in the U.S., stated that Civil’s village, as well as many others in the Nippes province, rely on livestock like chickens, goats, and cows for a large part of their income. To allow residents to keep buying local products from local small businesses that are essential to their communities, the group is looking into cash distributions.
Many areas have not received large-scale aid. One problem for donors is that the importation of huge quantities of staple food products from abroad could endanger local farmers.
Delafield stated that she didn’t want to see the area overwhelmed by the influx of goods from the islands. For areas such as Nippes that have been severely affected by cyclical droughts in recent years and soil erosion, aid must be viewed more carefully. She said that it is crucial to support adaptation of farming practices to the new climate realities, which includes less reliable rainfall and more tropical thunderstorms.
Delafield stated that the soil was stripped by “the drought, followed immediately by the earthquake followed by the storm.”
People were arriving from remote villages to seek help at the L’Asile public hospital, which is located in the southwest.
Sonel Fevry, the hospital director, said that five of these patients showed up on Tuesday. The problems are made worse by poverty, poor roads, and faith in natural medicines.
Fevry stated that they did what they could to remove necrotized tissue, give them antibiotics, and then try to get them an amputation. Fevry also said that it is difficult to access the facility via road and not everyone can.
Mercy Corps reported that approximately half of L’Asile’s houses were destroyed, and that 90% were affected in some manner. Many public buildings that people normally shelter in were also destroyed.
The L’Asile hospital’s obstetrics and pediatric wing collapsed. However, everyone survived. The hospital was able, despite the damage to the building, to treat approximately 170 earthquake victims in tents erected on the site.
The surrounding countryside was completely destroyed: Not a single home, church, store, or school was left standing on a 10-mile (16-kilometer) stretch.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a preliminary analysis using satellite imagery following the earthquake revealed at least 150 landslides west and hundreds of landslides south of Beaumont in Department de la Grand’Anse.
Dr. Barth Green is President and cofounder of Project Medishare. This organization has been working in Haiti since 1994 to improve healthcare services.
Green stated that hospitals were all damaged and collapsing, operating rooms aren’t functional and tents are a good idea because it’s hurricane season and they can blow away. Green was optimistic that the U.S. military would set up a field hospital in the area.
He stated that the interim Haitian government was communicating well to them, but there is no doubt that they are finding their way as well.
“We have hundreds upon hundreds of medical volunteers, but Haitian officials tell us that they don’t require them.” Green, also an executive dean of Global Health and Community Service at University of Miami, said that they are still deploying together with other organizations. After previous disasters, he felt the need to be cautious about the government’s response.
Etzer Emile is a Haitian economist who is also a professor at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince. He said that the disaster will increase Haitians dependence on foreign remittances and international assistance, which could make the country weaker.
He said that foreign aid does not work in the long-term. “The southwest should instead look for activities that increase economic capacity and create better social conditions.
