Heart for Haiti

Haiti was struck by a strong aftershock with a magnitude of 6.1, the American Geological Institute USGSsaid. There are no notices yet of extra damage in Haiti which lies largely in ruins already after the earthquake of last week. The new quake took place around twelve o’clock noon Dutch time. The epicenter was at sixty kilometer southeast of the capital Port-au-Prince and at a depth of ten kilometer.

Alive

The past week, 121 people are removed from the rubble alive in Haiti. The United Nations mentioned this today.

According to Haitian officials the number of deaths is 75,000 by now. About 250,000 people got injured and about a million people lost their homes.

The Red Cross associations from approximately thirty countries who look after the emergency aid in Haiti, will certainly stay active in Haiti for three years. After the emergency aid period they will also help the Haitians with the transitional phase to an existence where they can build their lives again. The international emergency aid advisor Eelko Brouwer from the Red Cross in the Netherlands said this.

Half of the Red Cross organisations working in Haiti, are from the region itself. From some countries they were already working in Haiti, like the Netherlands and Germany. They will, just like the local organisations, still be there in three years.

It is Monday evening, almost a week after the major earthquake struck Haiti. A lot has changed in Haiti since then. It is a terror in Haiti when you are looking around only in your own area. Injured everywhere, homeless persons everywhere, collapsed houses everywhere etc.

After we got the generator to start again we set to work at full tilt to also repair the water supply as soon as possible. This was broken at many places. Fortunately we had a stock of pipes and suchlike to be able to repair the water supply. Because of this we were able to, after a few days, offer water in the neighbourhood because there isn’t clean potable water anywhere. We offer the water way below cost, we ask consciously a little sum of money (2 eurocent for almost 20 liter) because we want to prevent chaos and fights. Since Saturday afternoon the bakery is also working again. This was quite a job because the machines were all moved and dropped. Everything had to be checked and cleaned because at the moment of the earthquake the bakery was running. (more…)

Haiti was hit by one of the worst disasters the country has ever known. The country is known as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Itneeds help to overcome the impact of the earthquake. Here in Haiti we do what we can to help them.

The organisation “Doctors on Mission” is giving us the possibility to let use their paypal account. If you want te make a donation so that we can help more people, use the form beloow.  Thank you.

Also note: Doctors on Mission is a 501 (C) (3) ministry which means that your donations are tax-deductible in the U.S.

Situation in Leogane

The school in Leogane is completely destroyed and so unusable. This means that in the two projects, between 850 and 1000 children will get no education for some time. Maybe that at some time they will get education in an alternative accommodation if the finances will enable this. The church is standing but has many cracks, we will have to wait and see. Fortunately, there are no casualties in Leogane.

Curfew

Since today (Tuesday, January 18) a curfew is imposed in Haiti in connection with the bandits and robbers who are out to steal. There is a curfew from 6 o’clock in the evening till 6 o’clock in the morning.

Published: January 14, 2010

Since yesterday, the lives of thousands of Haitians are literally in ruins. Report has it that at the children’s village there is serious material damage by which also people got injured. Over the years, a school, a church, facilities for the elderly, a bakery project and living units for the children were realized at the children’s village in Bon Repos (near Port-au-Prince). All this out of a Christian persuasion to help the Haitian people. From the past there are strong ties with the EO (a Dutch Evangelical Broadcast) and reporters from the EO are on their way to Haiti to see the misfortune the foundation suffered with their own eyes.

Everything is different

While Robert is waiting for the duth television, he is chatting with the Netherlands World Service. After all, once in a while Robert makes a report from his life in Haiti for the Dutch program “Wereldnet” (Worldnet). But after the disaster which took place last Tuesday everything will be different.

In shock

“Actually, we are all in shock. It is an enormous catastrophe. The streets are filled with corpses. Buildings and schools have collapsed. At the neighbors who live next to our project four people died, 2 baby’s and 2 adults. One member of our church died under our wall.

“We do what we can. We provide injured people with clean water and food but our supply is running out. We are afraid that for some time food will not be distributed or will not be available. The banks are closed so we cannot purchase anything also. We have more than 200 people here to feed which makes the situation even more harrowing. Before the earthquake we bought 30 sacks of flour for our bakery so that will keep us going for a while.”

Sleeping on the field

As Dutch we wouldn’t think of leaving but it is terrible here. The school at the project and the church have collapsed. After the quake we went sitting on the basketball court with everyone. Here we are not surrounded by buildings which are safer for the children and the staff. The aftershocks are very heavy and that’s why we are sleeping at the basketball court.

“There has been crying for quite a few times when we saw people from our project again. Yesterday one of our missing guys was removed from the rubble alive by other children. He was at the fourth floor of a school which completely collapsed. Well, then you shed a tear. He is seriously injured but he is alive.”

“We repaired the electricity again and we also repaired the water supply. The aid is getting started and I just saw a plane coming over. When you are willing to help us our main request is to support us financially. This so we can keep offering help to people who are coming to us and for the reconstruction. For this purpose look at the information at the top of our website or use the Ideal payment possibility bottom right.

Team Heart for Haiti.

The catastrophe in the Caribbean, the 7.0 magnitude earthquake happened Tuesday in the afternoon. Later, dozens of aftershocks followed.

The devastation in Port-au-Prince, the capital of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation with  approximately two million inhabitants, is huge. After the catastrophe the streets were littered with the bodies of victims and wounded people. Many citizens spent the night on the streets after the worst earthquake in Haiti in two centuries. For so far as we know there are no Dutch casualties.

The United Nations prepare themselves for a large-scale relief action. It is difficult to draw a good picture of the number of casualties, but doctors and relief organizations expect hundreds and very probably thousands of dead. A large number of the UN staff is missing. The local headquarters and other UN-buildings sustained serious damage.

Facilities
The medical facilities from the MSF (also known as Doctors without Borders) in the city are badly damaged. Patients and staff members are injured. The Trinité hospital of the relief organization has sustained serious damage. It’s the only clinic where residents of the city can receive free surgical treatment.

Catastrophe
”The centre of Port-au-Prince is destroyed, this is a catastrophe”, said an eyewitness. Besides a large number of houses in slums, also much larger buildings collapsed (in part), like the presidential palace, ministries, hotels, hospitals and the five-storied headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in the city.

An enormous disaster
The Haitian ambassador in the United States, Raymond Joseph, expressed fear for a enormous disaster. ”I think it really is a catastrophe of huge magnitude”, said the top diplomat to the American news channel CNN. He called on the international community to offer help.
Telephone connections have broken down, and also the power supply. The police, staff of the United Nations and aid workers from among others the Red Cross tried to bring the injured to hospitals and doctors, but they were hampered by the large amounts of rubble and badly damaged roads.

Epicenter
The American Geological Institute USGS has determined that the earthquake took place at 16.53 o’clock(22.53 o’clock Dutch time). The epicenter of the quake was approximately 15 kilometer southwest of Port-au-Prince, at a depth of only 10 kilometer.

Plunder
An unknown number of inhabitants of the Caribbean republic seized the opportunity to plunder stores and homes. About 80 percent of the nearly nine million Haitians live on less than 2 U.S. dollars per day.
Natural disaster has hit Haiti frequently the last few years. Only in 2008 about eight hundred people were killed by tropical storms and following floods.

Biggest catastrophe ever for Haiti

A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday afternoon around 16.00 o’clock (22.00 o’clock Dutch time). More than 3 million people are affected in one way or another. We expect many thousands of deaths and a tremendous amount of injured while the hospitals are unusable. At this moment we are still in the middle of aftershocks which are extremely frightening.

At the moment the drummer is still missing. Presumably he was in the school, but we are not sure.

The children’s village is also hit heavily. We are cut off from electricity. Pump water is currently not possible. The school where 500 children are going is completely collapsed. There were some injured there and the principal of the kindergarten was trapped but for the rest fortunately no deaths.

Also the church is collapsed at the front and the wall at the back is completely broken. The large multifunctional building is torn everywhere and unusable. Almost all of the walls surrounding the project have fallen and because of that people who were living beside our walls were killed. Also two houses in Cabaret collapsed.

After the earthquake we immediately got everybody out of the apartments and we went to the basketball court with everybody where we sat down. This is a safe place to be because there are no walls there in the area and no buildings which can fall on us.

Apart from that we will have to wait for further help because this catastrophe is incalculable. We remain calm and we pray that we will maintain the peace in this situation.

Johan and Wilcie,
Robert and Durkje