Haiti Earthquake - Many casualties expected

[Taylor]

Many casualties expected after big quake in Haiti
A/P

1/12/10

Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The largest earthquake ever recorded in the area rocked Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help and damaging other buildings. An aid official described "total disaster and chaos."

Communications were widely disrupted, making it impossible to get a clear picture of damage as powerful aftershocks shook a desperately poor country where many buildings are flimsy. Electricity was out in some places.

Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in the capital of Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues before phone service failed that "there must be thousands of people dead," according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Sara Fajardo.

"He reported that it was just total disaster and chaos, that there were clouds of dust surrounding Port-au-Prince," Fajardo said from the group's offices in Maryland.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It had a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers). It was the largest quake recorded in the area and the first major one since a magnitude-6.7 temblor in 1984, USGS analyst Dale Grant said.

An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians, as well as many poor people. Elsewhere in the capital, a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.

Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph, said from his Washington office that he spoke to President Rene Preval's chief of staff, Fritz Longchamp, just after the quake hit. He said Longchamp told him that "buildings were crumbling right and left" near the national palace. He said he had not been able to get through by phone to Haiti since.

Don Blakeman, an analyst at the USGS in Golden, Colorado, said such a strong quake carried the potential for widespread damage.

"I think we are going to see substantial damage and casualties," he said.

The earthquake's size and proximity to populated Port-Au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, added quake expert Tom Jordan at the University of Southern California.

"It's going to be a real killer," he said.

The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, Jordan said.

"Whenever something like this happens, you just hope for the best," he said. "The damage caused by this earthquake is not going to be pretty."

Minor earthquakes are common in the Caribbean, but there has not been a major one in Haiti in 16 years. The country of about 9 million people, most of them desperately poor, has struggled with political instability and has no real construction standards. In November 2008, following the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince estimated about 60 percent of the buildings were shoddily built and unsafe in normal circumstances.

The quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, and some panicked residents in the capital of Santo Domingo fled from their shaking homes. But no major damage was reported there.

In eastern Cuba, houses shook but there were also no reports of significant damage.

"We felt it very strongly and I would say for a long time. We had time to evacuate," said Monsignor Dionisio Garcia, archbishop of Santiago.

Haiti, however, was another story.

"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Henry Bahn, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official visiting Port-au-Prince. "The sky is just gray with dust."

Bahn said he was walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake.

"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said. "I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."

Bahn said there were rocks strewn about and he saw a ravine where several homes had stood: "It's just full of collapsed walls and rubble and barbed wire."

In the community of Thomassin, just outside Port-au-Prince, Alain Denis said neighbors told him the only road to the capital had been cut but that phones were all dead so it was hard to determine the extent of the damage.

"At this point, everything is a rumor," he said. "It's dark. It's nighttime."

Former President Bill Clinton, the U.N.'s special envoy for Haiti, issued a statement saying his office would do whatever he could to help the nation recover and rebuild.

"My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti," he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said U.S. officials were holding emergency meetings.

"We need to gather what information we can quickly. We will of course assist in any way we can," he said.

Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said he was concerned about everyone in Haiti, including his relatives.

"Communication is absolutely impossible," he said. "I've been trying to call my ministry and I cannot get through. ... It's mind-boggling."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cb_haiti_earthquake

[Taylor]

Naturally, Obama will allow the now homeless refugees to move to the U.S.A..

[Smedley Butler]

Driving home I listened to the regime AM on the hour radio Newspoop, and they had an ebonic's inteview with some ebonic moaning that the Earthquake did billions of dollars of damage LOL!

I guess the dollar has suddenly taken a dive.

A cruise tommahawk with a 20 mega ton on it would be the kind of help they should get.



LOL invaded and billions in debt and its tax base seriously bailing for almost any other state for ten years now, and so CA is now sending emergency crews to Haiti.

[cotleigh]

Originally Posted by Smedley Butler

Driving home I listened to the regime AM on the hour radio Newspoop, and they had an ebonic's inteview with some ebonic moaning that the Earthquake did billions of dollars of damage LOL!

I didn't think that the whole of Haiti was actually WORTH anywhere near a billion $ - the place is a sh1thole.

[reset]

I didn't think that the whole of Haiti was actually WORTH anywhere near a billion $ - the place is a sh1thole.

Specialty dog food sells for a premium:

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11-oz bottle, country style chicken-flavor Price: $5.19 Out Of Stock »
11-oz bottle, sizzlin bacon-flavor Price: $5.19 Out Of Stock »
11-oz bottle, active maturity beef-flavor Price: $5.19

http://www.petfooddirect.com/categor.../Dry-Dog-Food/

10 million will make a lot of doggie yum-yums-easily a billion retail...

[reset]

'Total Disaster And Chaos' In Haiti After Earthquake



The largest earthquake to hit Haiti in more than 200 years rocked the Caribbean nation Tuesday, collapsing a hospital and heavily damaging other buildings. U.S. officials reported bodies lying in the streets and an aid official described "total disaster and chaos."

Many gravely injured people still sat in the streets early Wednesday, pleading for doctors. With almost no emergency services to speak of, the survivors had few other options.

The scope of the disaster remained unclear, and even a rough estimate of the number of casualties was impossible. But it was clear from a tour of the capital that tens of thousands of people had lost their homes and that many had perished. Many buildings in Haiti are flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=122502289

[White Boy]

Buildings, homes, hospitals destroyed...meh.
Still waiting to hear the good news. How many niggers were killed?

[Rasp]

Being a nigger "country", the poor apes will have nothing to loot. There's plenty of corpses to rape and niglets to cannibalize, so to their tiny brains: two out of three ain't bad.

[Nigtarded]

'Thousands dead' in Haiti quake
13/01/2010

Thousands of people are feared dead after a powerful earthquake struck Haiti's capital, leaving tens of thousands homeless and buried beneath rubble.

Dead and injured lay in the streets of Port-au-Prince after the earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean country on Tuesday, toppling a range of buildings from shacks to United Nations buildings and the presidential palace.

The tremor, measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, struck at 4.53pm (2153 GMT) about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of five miles and is said to be the most powerful to hit the country in more than 200 years.

Journalists based in Port-au-Prince said the damage from the quake - the most powerful to hit Haiti in more than 200 years - was staggering even in a country accustomed to tragedy and disaster.

The scope of the disaster remained unclear early on Wednesday, and even a rough estimate of the number of casualties was impossible. But it was clear from a tour of the capital that tens of thousands of people had lost their homes and that many had perished. Many buildings in Haiti are flimsy and dangerous even under normal conditions.

The headquarters of the 9,000-member Haiti peacekeeping mission and other UN installations were seriously damaged, according to Alain Le Roy, the UN peacekeeping chief in New York. "Contacts with the UN on the ground have been severely hampered," Mr Le Roy said in a statement, adding: "For the moment, a large number of personnel remain unaccounted for."

President Rene Preval and his wife survived the earthquake, according to Robert Manuel, Haiti's ambassador to Mexico. He said he had no other details.

Karel Zelenka, a Roman Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told US colleagues before the phone service failed that "there must be thousands of people dead," according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Sara Fajardo. "He reported that it was just total disaster and chaos, that there were clouds of dust surrounding Port-au-Prince," Ms Fajardo said from the group's offices in Maryland.

US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in Washington that US Embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed. "They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said.

The UK Government said it was "deeply concerned" about the reported scale of the earthquake and was sending a team from the Department for International Development to assess the humanitarian needs.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/...5875-21963554/

[Nigtarded]

Haitian official: Death toll may reach 500,000
By JONATHAN M. KATZ • Associated Press • January 13, 2010

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A leading Haitian senator says the death toll from Tuesday's earthquake may reach 500,000 based on the amount of the destruction, but there are no firm figures.

The prime minister told CNN that hundreds of thousands of people died.

Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital today after the powerful quake crushed thousands of structures, from schools and shacks to the National Palace and the U.N. peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped.

Among the victim's of Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, and France's foreign minister said the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission also was apparently among the dead.

"Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," President Rene Preval told The Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them."

International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally said a third of Haiti's 9 million people may need emergency aid and that it would take a day or two for a clear picture of the damage to emerge. The United Nations said the capital's main airport was "fully operational" and that relief flights would begin Wednesday.

Aftershocks continued to rattle the capital of 2 million people as women covered in dust clawed out of debris, wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands. Thousands gathered in public squares to sing hymns.

People pulled bodies from collapsed homes, covering them with sheets by the side of the road. Passersby lifted the sheets to see if loved ones were underneath. Outside a crumbled building the bodies of five children and three adults lay in a pile.

The prominent died along with the poor: the body of Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, 63, was found in the ruins of his office, according to his order, the Saint Jacques Missionary Center in Landivisiau, France. Father Pierre Le Beller told The Associated Press by telephone that fellow missionaries in Haiti told him they found Miot's body.

http://www.delawareonline.com/articl...-reach-500-000