Quake kills hundreds in Haiti 7.2-magnitude earthquake 2021
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Haiti. Churches, hotels and houses were razed to the ground, killing at least 304 people and hundreds of people missing. From the recent assassination of its president.
Saturday’s earthquake hit the southwestern part of the country at 8:29 am local time. It was felt throughout the Caribbean and revived painful memories of the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people. British Prime Minister Ariel Henry declared a one-month state of emergency haiti earthquake 2021.
Henry said that he will not seek international help until he understands the extent of the damage. He said that some towns were almost completely razed to the ground, adding that the government had sent people in the coastal town of Les Kise to help plan and coordinate response measures.
"The most important thing is to find as many survivors as possible under the rubble," Henry said. "We learned that the local hospitals, especially the hospital in Les Cayes, are crowded with injured and fractured people."
He said that the International Red Cross and hospitals in unaffected areas are helping to take care of the wounded and called on Haitians to unite. "The needs are huge. We must take care of the injured and broken people, but also provide food, assistance, temporary shelter and psychological support," he said.
Later, when he boarded the plane to Les Cayes, Henry said that he wanted "organized unity" to ensure coordination to avoid chaos after the devastating earthquake in 2010, when aid was difficult to reach residents.
haiti earthquake 2021 US President Joe Biden authorized an immediate response and appointed Samantha Bauer as a senior official responsible for coordinating US efforts to help Haiti. The United States Agency for International Development will help assess the damage and assist in reconstruction. Biden said that he called the United States "a close and lasting friend of the Haitian people."
More and more countries have provided help, including Argentina and Chile, which have expressed their readiness to provide humanitarian assistance. Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said: “Haiti is hit by adversity again.”
The earthquake caused panic in the capital Port-au-Prince earlier, most of which were subdued by the 2010 disaster. A local, Carmelle Charles, recalled the scene of her escape after the recent earthquake hit her home near Delmas. She burst into tears.
The photos show residents in the towns of Les Cayes and Jérémie who were hit by shells wandering on the streets and smashing vehicles. A picture shows that the spire of the 19th-century French King St. Louis Cathedral in Gérémy has collapsed. Another photo shows the body of a man covered in dust and seemingly lifeless, being dragged away from the wreckage of the building.
Jeanty Dorméus said that his 38-year-old brother, Vilfort Dorméus, was killed when his house in Les Cayes collapsed, where panicked residents reportedly fled into the mountains for fear of a tsunami. Dorméus, a 41-year-old tailor from Port-au-Prince, said: “If Haiti is unlucky, there is always something wrong.” “No one in the family would expect such a thing.”
Robenson Geffrard, a reporter from the Haitian Newspaper, said that Les Cayes' hospital has been overwhelmed by the number of injured patients who have been brought in. The Haitian Civil Defense Office said at least 227 people were killed in the earthquake.
Tropical Storm Grace approaches
Akim Kikonda, the representative of the Catholic Relief Service in Haiti, said that unlike in 2010, Port-au-Prince appears to have largely survived. But the situation in the southwest is much worse. “I heard that many houses and some public buildings were seriously damaged. Some of them have completely collapsed, so people are outside and they don’t have houses,” Kikonda said.
An aid worker colleague tried to drive 60 miles from Case to Jeremy, but was forced to turn back. “The road is completely blocked by landslides and huge cracks in the road haiti earthquake 2021
. So it looks like we can really expect significant damage to the area,” he said.
The American ambassador of Haiti, Bocchit Edmond, is one of many who compares the recent natural disaster in Haiti with the catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake that occurred 11 years ago. Natural disasters continue to hit #Haiti," he wrote on Twitter.
Some observers worry that this unresolved murder may push an already extremely poor country into a new chapter of political and social turmoil, and the bleak prospects of Saturday’s earthquake will not help to improve.
Henry urged the 11 million citizens of Haiti to show a sense of responsibility and solidarity in the face of what he called the country’s “dramatic situation”.
"L'Union fait la force," Henry quoted the country's motto on Twitter: Unity is strength haiti earthquake 2021.