Winnie Hugot Gabriel was presenting her radio show on Saturday morning, August 14, when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck southern Haiti, sending terrified listeners out into the streets.
“It was also felt here in Port-au-Prince. It was cool, ”said the 32-year-old reporter from Magik 9 station, who dropped the microphone and rushed out after the quake.
The capital of Haiti, which in January 2010 was destroyed by a less powerful earthquake, appears to have come largely unscathed from the latest in a terrible series of natural disasters that have devastated the Caribbean nation.
But the situation on the southern peninsula of Haiti, at the epicenter of the earthquake, was much more dramatic, with cities like Jérémie and Les Cayes pulverized by a calamity that, according to authorities, killed at least 1,297 people and injured more than 5,700.
“It’s terrible. It was my nightmare and the nightmare of anyone who remembers 2010, that something like this would happen again, ”said Jonathan M Katz, a US journalist who had survived that disaster and who has written a book on the failed international response.
On Sunday, August 15, as rescuers rummaged through collapsed buildings for survivors and aid workers rushed to provide food, water and shelter to those forced to leave their destroyed homes, many of the region’s hospitals were overrun. from seriously injured patients.
“Right now I am walking around the city to see if we can still save someone,” said Claude Harry Milord, mayor of Jérémie, where at least one hundred victims have been confirmed.
Milord said some of the injured were flown to Port-au-Prince. Those who remained were in dire need of help. “The city needs medicine, tents and food because many people have lost everything,” he said.
On the other side of the peninsula, in Les Cayes, the situation appears to be even worse. “There are many injured people. Hospitals are overwhelmed. Some are treating the people on the floor; some are simply sending people home, ”said Akim Kikonda, a relief worker with Catholic Relief Services, adding that the powerful aftershocks are driving homeless survivors to the brink of endurance. “People are really scared.”
Roody Bouilly, a telecommunications worker from Les Cayes, said schools, hotels and supermarkets were razed to the ground. “What happened was really terrible,” says the man in his forties. “The city is truly in chaos. Last night many people slept on the street, almost as we saw in Port-au-Prince on January 12, 2010 ”.
Like in war
Complicating the relief efforts was the fact that the only road connecting the capital of Haiti with the three most affected departments has become virtually impassable in recent months due to a battle between police and heavily armed criminal gangs.
“It has been a war zone for a long time. Fuel cannot pass. Supplies cannot pass. Ambulances cannot pass, ”said Jean William Pape, an influential Haitian doctor who, due to the gang conflict, is using helicopters and small planes to transport supplies to hospitals in Jérémie and Les Cayes.
Milord, the mayor of Jérémie, said the arrival of tropical storm Grace, which is expected to hit Haiti on Monday or Tuesday, would further complicate the rescue. “I don’t really know what could happen,” he said, recounting the bodies scattered on the streets of his city after the earthquake.
According to Katz, the quake, which occurred just over a month after the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse, brought further misery to southwestern Haiti, a region still in the throes of the devastation of Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
Haiti could have faced another “momentous disaster” similar to the 2010 earthquake if the epicenter had been closer to the capital, where about a third of Haitians’ 11 million live. “But if you live in Les Cayes, if you live in Jérémie, this thought is not a comfort. Many people have already died and the death toll will continue to rise. This is going to be a really, really big disaster, ”Katz added.
Gabriel, the radio presenter, says she is saddened to see that eleven years after the deadliest earthquake ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, her country was still unprepared for such disasters. “We haven’t learned the lessons of 2010. It’s scary to realize that,” he said, criticizing the apparent lack of contingency plans and the failure to improve building standards.
He fears months of uncertainty and difficulty as Haiti grapples with a series of deep and intertwined crises after the still unsolved murder of the president. “There is a political vacuum, covid-19 is still there, we have an economic crisis and we are now facing this earthquake and its consequences. It’s really, really hard. It’s like there’s no truce, ”he said. “Instead of seeing things improve, you feel like you’re sinking.”
Katz said the images of poorly built houses, fallen “like houses of cards,” underscored how the world failed to deliver on post-2010 earthquake commitments.
“The promise has always been that the international community would not just save people from the rubble. The promise was broader and, as Bill Clinton said, would help Haiti rebuild better. But just look at what has happened in the 24 hours since this earthquake hit to see that it hasn’t. Very little has been rebuilt and what has been rebuilt does not seem to be better ”.
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