On Tuesday, January 12th, 2010, Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake – 7.0 in magnitude on the Richter Scale. The quake that struck less than ten miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince was followed, so far by 12 aftershocks. Buildings all over have crumbled and collapsed everywhere killing and trapping hundreds of people; just 15 days after the earthquake a man was rescued who said he was trapped by an aftershock.
No one knows the death toll yet, but some estimates are as high as 200,000 people. Countless children have found themselves orphans in a matter of minutes, not to mention the horror of a child dying before its mother or father. January 12th, 2010 was definitely a day that reaped horror upon the island of Hispaniola.
An army of aid workers has flooded into Haiti, but the relief is not coming quick enough. Displaced citizens are so hungry they are flooding the food and water trucks; Canadian Troops have been sent to Haiti to help maintain control of the food distribution and that everyone gets their share.
On another note, Royal Caribbean Cruise line has taken a rather opposite approach by docking in Haiti on a private beach just 60-miles from Port-au-Prince. The decision to keep the scheduled stop just six days after the earthquake divided passengers on the ship and only about half ended up on the beach. Despite the fact that the ship dropped 40 pallets of goods, this controversial move has really tattered the cruise line’s reputation.
More recently, Haitian police have charged ten American with child trafficking in this disastrous country. On Friday, these ten members of a US charity group were arrested while trying to cross over the border into the Dominican Republic with 33 children without proper papers. These children who survived the quake ranged in age from two months to 14 years, as it turned out, all have living family members in Haiti. The New Life Children’s Refuge, an Idaho-base charity claimed they were taking children to temporary shelter.
Despite these two negative happenings in Haiti just discussed, I think I think the world has done an amazing job at coming together to help a country in dire straits. But it is also important that we remember the job isn’t even close to being finished yet. If you recall the major earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, the country still hasn’t completely been restored to its original state after aid efforts pulled out.
If you would like to donate to Haiti, here are some acknowledged organizations that you can donate to:
No comments:
Post a Comment