Earthquake in Haiti: Death toll rises to more than 2000 – Panorama


After the devastating earthquake in southern Haiti, the number of confirmed fatalities rose again by more than 500 to 1941. The civil protection authority of the Caribbean state announced this on Tuesday on Twitter and also corrected the number of injuries to more than 9,900. The day before, she had spoken of 1,419 dead.

On Saturday, a 7.2 magnitude quake rocked the country. According to the civil protection authorities, a good 37,000 houses were destroyed in the natural disaster and almost 47,000 were damaged. According to Unicef, 1.2 million people are affected.

There was a tropical storm over the earthquake area in southern Haiti in the night from Monday to Tuesday Grace swept away with heavy rain. Videos on social media showed flooded streets. On the Tiburon Peninsula, which was badly hit by the earthquake and where tens of thousands of people had become homeless, the water was ankle-high in places, as can be seen in the pictures. The residents of the area, many of whom had previously slept outdoors, sought shelter in tents and under tarpaulins.

In the damaged general hospital of Les Cayes – with a population of around 90,000 people, the largest city in the affected area – patients were initially housed in the courtyard. Because of the rain, however, they were brought in, as reported by journalist Frantz Duval on Twitter. “The dilemma this morning: the mud outside or the cracked building – where better to be protected,” he wrote.

However, there was also good news: On Tuesday morning (local time), three days after the quake, 16 people were rescued from the rubble of a former UN building in the village of Brefèt, according to civil defense. Help also gradually arrived in the earthquake region. The US agency for development cooperation (USAID) flew 52 people for medical treatment according to its own information.

In Haiti, America’s poorest country, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in January 2010 killed more than 220,000 people and left more than a million homeless. Reconstruction suffered badly from corruption and waste. Missing or damaged infrastructure threatens to impede relief and rescue operations after the new earthquake. The highway that connects the capital Port-au-Prince with Haiti’s south is often impassable because of fights between rival gangs for territory. According to UN figures, this violence drove around 15,000 people to flee in June alone. The Haitian human rights organization RNDDH criticized the government’s handling of the disaster as “total chaos” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/panorama/. Some were looking for tents on their own to protect themselves from the storm. Desperate injured people waited in front of understaffed and poorly equipped hospitals.

Interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced faster work on Twitter. “We will increase our energies tenfold in order to reach and help the greatest number of victims,” ​​he wrote. Henry also ordered three days of national mourning starting Tuesday. Haiti’s already severely underfunded health system has been overstretched by the recent worsening pandemic. In addition, there is a deep political crisis that worsened after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse by a commando in his residence on July 7th.

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