January 13, 2010, 03:01 AM EST Story Tools
By Thomas Black and Andres R. Martinez
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was struck by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake near the capital that destroyed buildings and left thousands of people dead or missing.
The temblor was centered 10 miles (16 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, a city of about 2 million inhabitants, at 4:53 p.m. local time yesterday, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. An official casualty count has yet to be announced and phone lines are out across the capital.
Port-au-Prince is in “total chaos,” with clouds of dust from collapsed buildings covering the city and fears that thousands may be dead, Robyn Fieser, a spokeswoman with the Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, said after receiving reports from representatives in the country. At least 13 aftershocks with a magnitude above 4.5 have struck the area, according to the USGS.
Haiti, a nation of about 9.6 million people, is recovering from four tropical storms or hurricanes that killed at least 800 people in 2008.
The UN, which has a peacekeeping force of about 7,000 personnel and 2,000 police in Haiti, said its offices were damaged and that a “large amount of personnel” are unaccounted for. The force has been stationed there since June 2004, after President Bertrand Aristide left the country in exile.
“There is no security problem in our headquarters,” Alain Le Roy, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, said in an e-mailed statement. “But we don’t know about the rest of the city so far.”
UN Rescue Effort
Some U.N. troops have surrounded the headquarters building and are trying to rescue people still trapped inside, Le Roy said. “As we speak, no one has been rescued from this main headquarters, but we don’t know how many people were in the building when the collapse happened.”
A school with children in its rooms collapsed in Port-au- Prince, according to the UN Children’s Fund, Unicef. A hospital was destroyed in Petionville, a district near the city, the Associated Press reported. CNN, citing Haiti’s first lady, said parts of the presidential palace collapsed. President Rene Preval is safe, she said.
Unicef’s headquarters suffered “considerable damage,” Tamar Hahn, a spokeswoman for the fund, said by phone from Panama. “We are waiting for daybreak in Haiti to really be able to assess the extent of the damage.”
Citigroup Inc.’s office building in the capital collapsed, CNN en Espanol reported, citing a company official. Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman, said in an e-mail he couldn’t confirm anything.
U.S. Embassy employees reported seeing a number of bodies in the street, State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in a briefing yesterday. At least two U.S. citizens, both members of the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, were trapped in a collapsed building, AP reported.
U.S. Offers Assistance
“There’s going to be serious loss of life,” Crowley said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is offering full assistance to Haiti.
“We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” Clinton said during remarks in Honolulu yesterday. “And our prayers are with the people who have suffered, their families, and their loved ones.”
Houses slipped down hills, walls collapsed and landslides left roads blocked, which will impede any response by authorities, Ian Rodgers, a senior emergency adviser at Save the Children in Port-au-Prince, said in an interview on CNN. People are digging through rubble to find loved ones, Rodgers said.
More than 100 workers from Unicef in Haiti are helping the injured and providing for children separated from their parents, said Caryl Stern, the president of the U.S. fund of Unicef in New York.
“It’s a really densely populated area. It couldn’t be worse,” said Stern, who has been in contact with Unicef workers in Haiti. “It’s going to take a big world effort.”
Phones Out
Fixed-line and mobile phones in the capital are out, U.S. State Department spokesman Noel Clay said in Washington.
The Inter-American Development Bank has approved $200,000 in emergency aid to Haiti, the Washington-based lender said in a statement on its Web site today.
Rafael Nunez, a presidential spokesman for neighboring Dominican Republic, said the earthquake felt “very strong.” No damage was reported in the Dominican Republic, Nunez said in an interview with CNN en Espanol.
Haiti’s per capita income is about $560, with 54 percent of Haitians living on less than $1 a day and 78 percent on less than $2 daily, according to the World Bank.
“This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago,” Eliot Engel, a New York congressman who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said in a statement.
Former President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, said the world body is “committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti in their relief, rebuilding and recovery efforts.”
--With assistance from Jerry Hart in Miami, Edward DeMarco in Washington, Peter Green in New York and Eric Sabo in Panama City. Editors: Paul Tighe, Dave McCombs
To contact the reporters on this story: Thomas Black in Monterrey, Mexico, at +52-81-8124-0145 or tblack@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Andres Martinez in Mexico City at +52-55-5242-9283 or amartinez28@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at +55-21-2125-2535 or jgoodman19@bloomberg.net; Bill Austin at +81-3-3201-8952 or billaustin@bloomberg.net
By Thomas Black and Andres R. Martinez
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was struck by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake near the capital that destroyed buildings and left thousands of people dead or missing.
The temblor was centered 10 miles (16 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, a city of about 2 million inhabitants, at 4:53 p.m. local time yesterday, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. An official casualty count has yet to be announced and phone lines are out across the capital.
Port-au-Prince is in “total chaos,” with clouds of dust from collapsed buildings covering the city and fears that thousands may be dead, Robyn Fieser, a spokeswoman with the Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, said after receiving reports from representatives in the country. At least 13 aftershocks with a magnitude above 4.5 have struck the area, according to the USGS.
Haiti, a nation of about 9.6 million people, is recovering from four tropical storms or hurricanes that killed at least 800 people in 2008.
The UN, which has a peacekeeping force of about 7,000 personnel and 2,000 police in Haiti, said its offices were damaged and that a “large amount of personnel” are unaccounted for. The force has been stationed there since June 2004, after President Bertrand Aristide left the country in exile.
“There is no security problem in our headquarters,” Alain Le Roy, UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, said in an e-mailed statement. “But we don’t know about the rest of the city so far.”
UN Rescue Effort
Some U.N. troops have surrounded the headquarters building and are trying to rescue people still trapped inside, Le Roy said. “As we speak, no one has been rescued from this main headquarters, but we don’t know how many people were in the building when the collapse happened.”
A school with children in its rooms collapsed in Port-au- Prince, according to the UN Children’s Fund, Unicef. A hospital was destroyed in Petionville, a district near the city, the Associated Press reported. CNN, citing Haiti’s first lady, said parts of the presidential palace collapsed. President Rene Preval is safe, she said.
Unicef’s headquarters suffered “considerable damage,” Tamar Hahn, a spokeswoman for the fund, said by phone from Panama. “We are waiting for daybreak in Haiti to really be able to assess the extent of the damage.”
Citigroup Inc.’s office building in the capital collapsed, CNN en Espanol reported, citing a company official. Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman, said in an e-mail he couldn’t confirm anything.
U.S. Embassy employees reported seeing a number of bodies in the street, State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley said in a briefing yesterday. At least two U.S. citizens, both members of the Haitian Ministries for the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, were trapped in a collapsed building, AP reported.
U.S. Offers Assistance
“There’s going to be serious loss of life,” Crowley said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is offering full assistance to Haiti.
“We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” Clinton said during remarks in Honolulu yesterday. “And our prayers are with the people who have suffered, their families, and their loved ones.”
Houses slipped down hills, walls collapsed and landslides left roads blocked, which will impede any response by authorities, Ian Rodgers, a senior emergency adviser at Save the Children in Port-au-Prince, said in an interview on CNN. People are digging through rubble to find loved ones, Rodgers said.
More than 100 workers from Unicef in Haiti are helping the injured and providing for children separated from their parents, said Caryl Stern, the president of the U.S. fund of Unicef in New York.
“It’s a really densely populated area. It couldn’t be worse,” said Stern, who has been in contact with Unicef workers in Haiti. “It’s going to take a big world effort.”
Phones Out
Fixed-line and mobile phones in the capital are out, U.S. State Department spokesman Noel Clay said in Washington.
The Inter-American Development Bank has approved $200,000 in emergency aid to Haiti, the Washington-based lender said in a statement on its Web site today.
Rafael Nunez, a presidential spokesman for neighboring Dominican Republic, said the earthquake felt “very strong.” No damage was reported in the Dominican Republic, Nunez said in an interview with CNN en Espanol.
Haiti’s per capita income is about $560, with 54 percent of Haitians living on less than $1 a day and 78 percent on less than $2 daily, according to the World Bank.
“This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago,” Eliot Engel, a New York congressman who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said in a statement.
Former President Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, said the world body is “committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti in their relief, rebuilding and recovery efforts.”
--With assistance from Jerry Hart in Miami, Edward DeMarco in Washington, Peter Green in New York and Eric Sabo in Panama City. Editors: Paul Tighe, Dave McCombs
To contact the reporters on this story: Thomas Black in Monterrey, Mexico, at +52-81-8124-0145 or tblack@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Andres Martinez in Mexico City at +52-55-5242-9283 or amartinez28@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joshua Goodman at +55-21-2125-2535 or jgoodman19@bloomberg.net; Bill Austin at +81-3-3201-8952 or billaustin@bloomberg.net
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