Earthquake In Haiti

The worst quake in 200 years struck Haiti:

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic —Rescue teams struggled in the early morning darkness Wednesday to make their way through the rubble of collapsed buildings after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti late Tuesday afternoon.

The quake, with a magnitude estimated at 7.0, caused the collapse of the National Palace, leveled countless shantytown dwellings and brought more suffering to a nation that was already the hemisphere’s poorest and most disaster-prone.

The earthquake was the worst in the region in more than 200 years and left the country in a shambles. As night fell in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s densely populated capital, fires burned near the shoreline downtown, but otherwise the city fell into darkness.

Americares will be there to provide disaster relief - theyhave been involved with Haiti since 1984.  From their website:

AmeriCares is working with partners on the ground to deliver humanitarian aid and disaster relief. Many local partners are reporting it is difficult to reach staff on the ground near the epicenter of the earthquake.

In December, AmeriCares sent an aid delivery to Haiti of critical medicines and medical supplies to fight serious infections, burns and skin infection and surgical supplies. AmeriCares has been providing humanitarian aid to Haiti since 1984, partnering with local health care organizations throughout the country. We've delivered more that $145 million worth of medical aid and humanitarian relief to Haiti. AmeriCares helps partners serve more patients and avoid running out of basic medicines and medical supplies with regular shipments throughout the year.

Haiti can use our help; Americares can use your help.  The form for online donations is here.

FULL DISCLOSURE:  As a matter of full disclosure I should note that my wife is a fundraiser for Americares.  As a mater of fuller disclosure, I should add that we were donors to the organization before she became an employee, so, like Jonathon Gruber, she is getting paid to do work she believes in.

Comments

[daddy]

Just for interest:

">http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/recent/sub/index.html"> Alaska has had 122 earthquakes in the last 24 hours.

">http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/latest.htm"> California has had 722 in the last week.

And ">http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/index.php?old=us_ne.html"> this page shows 257 earthquakes of greater that magnitude 4.5 (2.5 domestic) for the last 7 days.

I have no idea if that's more or less than normal, or just about par, but It's easy to forget what a Geologically active planet we live on when it doesn't hit close to home.

[daddy]

And this ">http://www.volcano.si.edu/reports/usgs/"> USGS Global Volcanism site does somewhat the same as above for volcano's. It say on average 20 volcanoes worldwide are erupting each day, and between 50 to 70 in an average year, though it also says activity seems to be stable and neither increasing nor decreasing.

Thanks to your family TM for everything you do for folks around this planet. Mine would be a much poorer life without you guys.

[clarice]

It's a great outfit.
Gosh, Haita was such a mess before. Now, I can't imagine.

[Pofarmer]

One of the gals my wife went to nursing school with works with an organization in Haiti. We don't hear from her much, anyhow, so, no telling if she was involved in this, or not. It's amazing from her stories, just how backwards and primitive Haiti is.

[narciso]

A great and good people, in my experience burdened by horrible history, and now, yet another almost apocalyptic event, as if last fall's hurricanes hadn't battered the place enough.

[Pofarmer]

This is gonna be us if we don't get the idjits out of control.

Venezuela plans blackouts in Caracas, oil town

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela will switch off lights for hours at a time in Caracas and other cities such as oil town Maracaibo in planned blackouts to tackle power shortages that threaten President Hugo Chavez's support.

[rse]

OT but there's an excellent article up called "A Most Uncomfortable Parallel: What Clement Attlee can Teach the Right about Barack Obama".

LUN

[Dennis D]

I can recall being in Haiti in the early 80s. A lady approached our taxi and offered to sell her baby for $60.00 for her and a chance at a better life for the baby. I cried. No I did not take the baby,

[Jack is Back!]

Curt Welling and AmeriCare are the best route for any donations of money. Better than the Red Cross by far and equalled only by The Salvation Army. If you want to give then give to AmeriCare. They will make sure the money is spent in a correct and directed manner.

[Dave (in MA)]

The Salvation Army compound in Port au Prince was heavily damaged by the quake.

[verner]

Thanks for the link TM!

It's hard to stomach so much suffering so close to our shores.

Haiti is the most tragic nation on earth.

[Rocco]

JiB

Thanks for the link

[Porchlight]

This is a truly horrible situation. Those poor people, it's not like they don't already have it bad enough.

[DebinNC]

As Obama uses the quake to rehabilitate himself by talking about the generosity of Americans, exhorting us to give to charities, etc., I hope his discouraging charitable giving by limiting tax deductions to The Salvation Army et al isn't forgotten.

[matt]

a friend of mine was a military commander during the 90's in Haiti, and said he had never seen such a godforsaken place in his career.

The depth of the poverty, corruption, filth, and hopelessness were almost too much to bear.

And now this. God must have a special place in heaven for Haitians, because they surely live in hell on earth.

[clarice]

Lucianne:
Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Haiti's earthquake, the prime minister told CNN today

[narciso]

Good god, those numbers are incalculable to consider, the tsunami was probably a close comparison, how do they recover from that
kind of devastation

[Stephanie]

Why are all the 'folks in charge' at various agencies lamenting the fact that they don't know the numbers of dead or injured and quantity of buildings damaged as reasons why they aren't mobilized yet? Seems to me you go in guns blazing to rescue and render assistance and worry about the numbers later.

This bureaucratic mentality is infecting all corners of relief. Granted you can't go blazing into the port or the airport til some assessment is made of the usability of the landing zone, but Haiti is on an island and surely beaches could be used to land material and offload the injured to floating hospitals just offshore.

Communications is a problem because you don't know yet what their needs are? Seriously? I would suspect that the needs are medical, food and shelter but that is too blaringly obvious for a bureaucrat to notice.

22 hours in and most of the folks being interviewed on TV are in assessment mode. Sickening.

BTW, wouldn't a really useful function of the UN be to develop and have contingencies for different disaster scenarios for every country (gee it's an island country - hurricane planning might be a good start oh and they are in an earthquake zone so lets model that, too) with pre determined drop off points for food medicine and supplies kinda like the various scenarios the Pentagon plans for wars started by Monaco or Switzerland and how to respond?

There is little difference in war planning and disaster planning (even the end result of the devastation is similar). Someone get these bureaucrats a clue.

[sunzeneise]

On April 8, 2009, an earthquake struck the central Italian city of Aquila and destroyed many marvels Baroque and Renaissance art and architecture. Obama attend the G-8 summit there in July. (It was moved there from Sardinia to draw world attention to rebuild the historic places and monuments. Obama toured the ruins with Berlusconi. In December, the leading television program "Porta a Porta" broadcast from Aquila to review the disaster and assess the progress and prognosis. The broadcast reported that during his tour Obama was impressed by the devastation, and asked Berlusconi "What can we do to help?", as they inspected a major church's ruins, and noted that since The United States has done practically nothing to aid the rebuilding of Aquila historic places; meanwhile, France, Spain, Germany and other countries have pledged large sums to rebuild entire churches, and other monuments.

Photos of damage here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/the_laquila_earthquake.html

[Porchlight]

22 hours in and most of the folks being interviewed on TV are in assessment mode. Sickening.

This is exactly how it was after the Christmas tsunamis in 2004. The US military was on the way overnight while the UN took weeks to put committees together, then wanted to claim the credit while the US was being "stingy." I remember Mark Steyn writing about it in several venues. This isn't the one I remember in particular, but it seems representative:

Mark Steyn: On tsunami's shore

[Jack is Back!]

No one on this planet has the assets, resources, training and C3 structure (Command, Communications, Control) to respond to a disaster like this but the USA. Forget China, Japan, Russia and Europe. We are the only ones. When you consider the lack of any form of real government in Haiti, I would just tell our JSC to get moving and get permission as they land the LST's and Helo's. Don't waste time asking Congress, either or the UN, especially the UN. Lives will be lost by dithering (where have I heard that before?}

[Rick Ballard]

JiB,

It takes an order from the CiC to get all that stuff moving. I'm sure that will happen as soon as Axelrod reviews initial polling data and gets TOTUS programmed with the appropriate response. In the meantime it's best that Barry just be left to finish his waffle and continue his study of the Austrian language.

[Skookumchuk]

Yes, Rick, sadly, but once that process concludes the Navy and Coast Guard will be first out of the blocks with cutters, a diverted carrier (I think the Carl Vinson) and possibly an amphibious assault ship and a Hospital ship. The whole effort is led by the State Department, who may choose to "mission assign" other entities like FEMA and USAID. I've been told there is a chance I'll get a tap on the shoulder. If so, there eventually may be photos and a story over at Flares. Anyway, time to get those booster shots. :-)