Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after a powerful earthquake flattened the president's palace, the cathedral, hospitals, schools, the main prison and whole neighborhoods. Officials feared thousands, perhaps more than 100,000, may have perished, but there was no firm count. Death was everywhere in Port-au-Prince. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets. The sheer terror in the eyes of the survivors showed the desperation and sorrow they felt after the tragedy. President Rene Preval said he believes thousands were killed in Tuesday afternoon's magnitude-7.0 quake, and the scope of the destruction prompted other officials to give even higher estimates. Leading Sen. Youri Latortue told The Associated Press that 500,000 could be dead, although he acknowledged that nobody really knows. "Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," Preval told the Miami Herald. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them." Even the main prison in the capital fell down, "and there are reports of escaped inmates," U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said in Geneva. Life is already so fragile in Haiti, and to have this on such a massive scale, it's unimaginable how the country will be able to recover from this.
This is an unbelievable tragedy and i cannot begin to imagine how much turmoil and despair must be occurring in the already fragile nation of Haiti. I can start to imagine how I would feel if my entire community was turned to rubble in a mere matter of minutes. Everything I knew, my school, my home, my family gone. It is impossible to comprehend how much sorrow these people must be feeling right now. The government of this already fragile governed island nation has also been largely effected by this disaster. All of the islands parliament buildings were reduced to rubble by the earthquake leaving the government scrambling to land on its feet and deal with this disaster. At this point in time Haiti needs a strong government to pull them back together but with the destroyed facilities they are finding it extremely hard to do so. I feel that unless the Haitian government can rebound back from this disaster it will leave much of this part of the island in extreme poverty for the time being and cause negative feelings towards the government. I feel extremely bad for the people on this island knowing that helping their cause will be hard to do.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
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This is an awful situation that unfortunately shows the fragileness of some of today's countries. In a small country such as Haiti, when the most important things that hold the country together suddenly vanish, it is unimaginable as to what might happen in the future. The worst of these is the collapse of the hospitals. There is now either no or very little medical supplies to treat those who are injured and need the treatment. I also think that this is a great opportunity for the larger, more prominent countries in the world to come together and help a country that is in the midst of a rebuilding and can shape the future. The last thing the world needs is another country soaked in poverty.
The results of this tragedy have been atrocious- especially to Hati. The country has been the poorest country in the western hemisphere for a number of years now, and this earthquake is extremely unlucky. This is an unfortunate disaster that has exploited some of the weaknesses of today's developing countries. As the article mentioned, Youri Latortue told the Associated Press that as many as 500 000 could be dead, which is terrible. The population of my hometown Stouffville is 30 000 people, which means that 16 times that number could possibly be dead. I can't imagine something like that happening, leaving me and my family members that survived with nothing. I believe that the wealthier countries such as China, the United States, and Canada should donate money and send resources to help the situation. The Hati people have literally been left with nothing, and anything that we can do would help to contribute to the beginning of the rebuilding stage for Hati. They need their government to help them through this, or else they will continue to be one of the world's poorest countries for many years to come.
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