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Tag: haiti earthquake

  • Haiti’s starvation disaster bites deeper after devastating earthquake

    In a tent encampment within the mountains of southern Haiti, the place tons of of villagers sought shelter after a strong earthquake flattened their houses this month, a single charred cob of corn was the one meals in sight.
    “I’m hungry and my baby is hungry,” stated Sofonie Samedy, gesturing to her pregnant abdomen.

    Samedy had eaten solely intermittently because the 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Aug. 14 destroyed a lot of Nan Konsey, a distant farming village not removed from the epicenter. Across Haiti, the quake killed greater than 2,000 folks and left tens of hundreds homeless.
    In Nan Konsey, the earth’s convulsions tore open the village’s cement cisterns used to retailer ingesting water and triggered landslides that interred residents’ modest subsistence farms.
    Since then, Samedy and the remainder of the neighborhood have camped alongside the primary freeway, a couple of 40-minute stroll from their village, hoping to flag down the uncommon passing truck to ask for meals and water.
    Cooking oil and meals are seen in a truck earlier than distribution by the World Food Program to folks affected by the August 14 earthquake, at a faculty in Port Salut, Haiti August 24, 2021. (Reuters)
    “I’m praying I can still give birth to a healthy baby, but of course I’m a little afraid,” she stated.
    Haiti, the poorest nation within the Americas, has lengthy had one of many world’s highest ranges of meals insecurity. Last 12 months, Haiti ranked 104 out of the 107 nations on the Global Hunger Index. By September, the United Nations stated 4 million Haitians – 42% of the inhabitants – confronted acute meals insecurity.
    This month’s earthquake has exacerbated the disaster: destroying crops and livestock, leveling markets, contaminating waterways used as sources of ingesting water, and damaging bridges and roads essential to reaching villages like Nan Konsey.
    The variety of folks in pressing want of meals help within the three departments hardest-hit by the earthquake – Sud, Grand’Anse and Nippes – has elevated by one-third because the quake, from 138,000 to 215,000, based on the World Food Programme (WFP).
    People affected by the August 14 earthquake look forward to meals offered by the World Food Program, at a faculty in Port Salut, Haiti August 24, 2021. (Reuters)
    “The earthquake rattled people who were already struggling to feed their families,” Lola Castro, WFP’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated in an announcement.
    “The compound effects of multiple crises are devastating communities in the south faced with some of the highest levels of food insecurity in the country.”
    ‘IN THE HANDS OF GOD’
    Just off the freeway resulting in Nan Konsey, a number of dozen males gathered at a goat market, the place they offered off their remaining livestock to safe money to feed their kids or to pay for members of the family’ funerals.
    Before the quake, farmer Michel Pierre had tended 15 goats and cultivated yams, potatoes, corn, and banana bushes. He arrived on the market with the one two animals that survived the earthquake.
    With his crops additionally buried beneath landslides, he hoped to earn about $100 from the sale to feed himself, his spouse and his kids.
    Cooking oil and meals offered by the World Food Program are distributed to folks affected by the August 14 earthquake, at a faculty in Port Salut, Haiti August 24, 2021. (Reuters)
    When that cash runs dry, he stated, he isn’t positive what he’ll do. He continues to be in debt from when Hurricane Matthew ravaged Haiti in 2016.
    “Day by day, it’s getting harder to be a farmer,” he stated. “I am in the hands of God.”
    Haiti was largely meals self-sufficient till the Eighties, when on the encouragement of the United States it began loosening restrictions on crop imports and lowered tariffs. A subsequent flood of surplus U.S. crops put droves of Haitian farmers out of enterprise and contributed to funding within the sector tailing off.
    In latest years, local weather change has made Hispaniola – the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic – more and more weak to excessive droughts and hurricanes. Spiraling meals prices, financial decline and political instability have worsened the shortages.

    For Gethro Polyte, a trainer and farmer residing north of the city of Camp-Perrin, the earthquake decimated his two important sources of earnings: leveling the varsity the place he taught fourth grade, and submerging his crops and livestock in an avalanche of earth.
    Before the catastrophe, he and his household had been in a position to pull collectively two meals a day and draw water from underground springs, he stated. But since then, his meals provides have dwindled down to some yams and bananas, and the water has been contaminated with silt.
    Polyte doubted the varsity could be rebuilt for lessons to start out in September and for him to obtain a paycheck, given the chaos following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July. And with financial institution loans nonetheless to repay, he doubted he’d be capable to safe cash to spend money on rebuilding his farm.
    “We are living now by eating a little something just to kill the hunger,” he stated. “And, of course, things will only grow worse in the coming days.”

  • Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively lengthen help to Haiti earthquake victims

    By ANI

    WASHINGTON: American actor Ryan Reynolds and his spouse Blake Lively just lately donated an quantity of USD 10,000 in an effort to lend a serving to hand to these within the hardest-hit areas of Haiti, following the devastating earthquake earlier this month.

    TMZ reported that the couple has despatched a donation of USD 10,000 to ‘Hope for Haiti’ as a contribution to the nation’s quake aid efforts.

    Reportedly, Ryan and Blake’s donation will probably be used to arrange “mobile clinics in the communities where there is the most need, as determined by the Ministry of Health.”

    ALSO READ: Haiti raises earthquake demise toll, passes 2,200

    In addition, the organisation will use the cash “to cover distribution costs to continue to deliver dry food and warm meals — donated by World Central Kitchen — to families in these hard-hit areas in Southern Haiti.”

    ‘Hope for Haiti’ is awaiting some huge shipments of emergency aid funds and medical provides from the US firms like Amazon and Americares quickly.

    The variety of folks killed by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake on August 14 in Haiti has risen to 2,207, with 344 nonetheless lacking, the nation’s civil safety company reported on Sunday.

    The company mentioned on Twitter {that a} week after the earthquake, which additionally left no less than 12,268 injured, the variety of broken properties exceeded 77,000, whereas virtually 53,000 had been destroyed.

    The earthquake had its epicentre some 125 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince and had a depth of 10 kilometres, which is why on the time a tsunami alert was issued however was later cancelled. 

  • In Haiti, want is overwhelming, however some politicians’ charity rings false

    Hundreds of Haitian earthquake victims desperately lined up for decent meals delivered to a sweltering makeshift camp this previous week, combating over — and scooping from the muddy floor — rice and rooster that spilled from plastic meals containers.
    The scarce containers bore a printed message: “Courtesy of Senator Franky Exius.”
    The 7.2-magnitude earthquake that rocked southern Haiti on Aug. 14, killing 2,200 individuals, struck a rustic already in disaster, with few legitimately elected officers and a paralyzed, unpopular and underfunded caretaker administration.

    In the absence of a concerted state reduction effort, distinguished Haitian politicians have tried to fill the hole, flying out the injured on their personal planes, delivering medical provides and meals and even handing out money.
    With common elections on the horizon, their private initiatives have taken on political overtones, and the epicenter has in impact turn into a marketing campaign launchpad for a few of Haiti’s presidential and congressional hopefuls.
    In the capital, Port-au-Prince, the politicians’ efforts have raised tough questions concerning the nice line between providing urgently wanted help and cynically exploiting the struggling.

    “The disaster zone has become a terrain for political exercise,” stated Fritz Jean, a public coverage skilled in Port-au-Prince. “If you look at the aid they are giving, it’s a repugnant political campaign.”
    Politicians right here have a document of exploiting pure disasters for private acquire. After Hurricane Matthew’s landfall in Haiti coincided with the presidential marketing campaign in 2016, candidates flooded the world with donated water bottles and bins of matches plastered with their faces.
    Jovenel Moïse, who served as president till he was assassinated in his house final month, cemented his marketing campaign lead by delivering a cargo of rice to hurricane survivors shortly earlier than the vote. The luggage of rice bore his occasion slogans, angering neighborhood leaders.

    Moïse’s dying left and not using a president, a functioning Parliament or a Supreme Court. Although common elections are formally scheduled for Nov. 7, the caretaker prime minister, Ariel Henry, says the nation first must sort out pervasive gang violence and appoint a brand new electoral board.
    Since Moïse’s killing, members of Haiti’s elite have been jockeying for energy, visiting Washington and interviewing and hiring American lobbyists in strikes broadly seen as explorations of electoral bids.

    The help offered by former elected officers has contrasted with the largely ineffectual reduction effort mounted so far by the Haitian authorities.

  • Naomi Osaka to donate prize cash to Haitian earthquake aid efforts

    Naomi Osaka has pledged to donate her earnings from subsequent week’s Western & Southern Open to help earthquake aid efforts in Haiti, the Caribbean nation her father hails from.
    The four-time Grand Slam champion introduced her pledge in response to the 7.2-magnitude quake that struck the impoverished nation on Saturday, killing not less than 304 folks and injuring lots of.
    “Really hurts to see all the devastation that’s going on in Haiti, and I feel like we really can’t catch a break,” Osaka stated on Twitter.
    “I’m about to play a tournament this week and I’ll give all the prize money to relief efforts for Haiti. I know our ancestors blood is strong we’ll keep rising.”
    World quantity two Osaka, whose mom is Japanese and who performs below the Japanese flag, has used her platform to name consideration to the causes she cares about.
    She wore masks eventually 12 months’s U.S. Open with the names of victims of police violence on them.
    Osaka is seeded second on the event in Cincinnati, which runs from Aug. 14 to Aug. 22.

  • Major earthquake strikes Haiti, felt throughout Caribbean

    A significant earthquake struck western Haiti on Saturday and was felt throughout the Caribbean the place folks fled their properties for worry that buildings may collapse.
    The magnitude 7 earthquake quake struck 8 km (5 miles) from the city of Petit Trou de Nippes, about 150 km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey mentioned.
    The nation remains to be recovering from a magnitude 7 earthquake nearer to the capital 11 years in the past that killed tens if not lots of of hundreds of individuals and flattened swathes of buildings, leaving many homeless.
    “Everyone is really afraid. It’s been years since such a big earthquake,” mentioned Daniel Ross, a resident within the jap Cuban metropolis of Guantanamo, including that his house stood agency however the furnishings shook.
    The U.S. Tsunami Warning System mentioned there was no tsunami warning after the quake.