January 14, 2010
Haiti Earthquake, #4
While the 7.0 earthquake is the immediate cause of Haiti’s’ disaster, the main cause of death and despair are the historic conditions of poverty and vulnerability of a majority of haiti’s 9,000,000 people.
Below, we send information from CNN television.  The reports are devastating.
The estimates of the numbers of Haitians killed range from 10s of thousands to 100,000, or more.  No one has yet a clear idea.
Most of the dead were already impoverished people; many will succumb to post-earthquake diseases, injuries and/or malnutrition.
Click on CNN photo and video links to see the degree of destruction and desperation.  It is hard viewing.  You will see some of what the Haitian, mainly poor population are up against.

SHORT-TERM
In the short-term, governments and large-scale humanitarian relief institutions must maximize efforts to send search & rescue and medical teams and try and save as many trapped people and injured/sick people as possible.  They must try to properly deal with the vast numbers of bodies.
In the short-term, these governments and relief organizations must establish "internally displaced camps" (including food, water, clothing, medical attention, etc) for the vast number of homeless.
And the work gets no easier.
MEDIUM-TERM
Once the first weeks (months ???) of urgent response are over, the work gets no easier, arguably more complicated.
Rights Action is raising funds now, and recommending groups (see below) to send funds to, for the medium- and longer-term work of supporting Haiti's impoverished majority that have no "safety net" whatsoever, and will need any and all kinds of financial (and other) support to start rebuilding shattered lives and communities.

For more information: Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448
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TRYING TO PREVENT 'ABSOLUTELY CATASTROPHIC' SITUATION IN HAITI

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- International aid groups were feverishly trying to get supplies into quake-ravaged Haiti on Thursday to prevent the situation from going from "dire to absolutely catastrophic."
The search-and-rescue efforts are the top priority. "The ability to get people out of that rubble is paramount," said Jonathan Aiken, a spokesman for the American Red Cross. "You have a very limited time to accomplish that before people die and before you start to get into issues of diseases."
Behind the scenes, a massive coordination effort involving dozens of aid groups, the Haitian government, the United Nations and the U.S. military was under way to get food, water, tents and other supplies to survivors of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake.
Ian Rodgers, a senior emergency adviser for Save the Children, said aid efforts were at a "tipping point." "People are without water; children are without food and without shelter," he said. "What we will see with the lack of water is the possibility of diarrheal diseases and, of course, that can kill children in a matter of hours if not tended to appropriately. "It is very possible," Rodgers said, "that the situation can go from dire to absolutely catastrophic if we don't get enough food, medicine and work with children and their families to help them."
Precise casualty estimates were impossible to determine. Haitian President Rene Preval said Wednesday that he had heard estimates of up to 50,000 dead but that it was too early to know for sure. The Haitian prime minister said he worries that several hundred thousand people were killed.
The country's infrastructure has been devastated, the scope of the calamity enormous. "The government personnel that would normally lead these types of responses, they themselves have been affected," Rodgers said.
The Haitian government stopped accepting flights Thursday because ramp space at the airport in the capital city, Port-au-Prince, was saturated and no fuel was available, said Federal Aviation Adminstration spokeswoman Laura Brown.
Meanwhile, the pier used for delivery of cargo to Port-au-Prince was "completely compromised" by Tuesday's earthquake, said CNN's Eric Marrapodi. Three ships filled with medical supplies, food, clothing and water were turned away, he said. Roads leading into the city from the dock were bucked about 5 feet high by the earthquake, he said.
Relief agencies are focusing on food, shelter, medical care and communications, all of which will help establish a sense of security, Aiken said. "The people will at least know that the world is paying attention to them."
SUPPLIES AND SECURITY
A bottleneck of supplies has built up while authorities have tried to get Haiti's main airport functioning. Rubble-strewn roads, downed trees and a battered communications network have hampered humanitarian efforts.
Aftershocks continue to jolt the region, causing further fear and panic among residents. "We're going to have to wait for this pipeline of aid coming in from various places around the world to be set up and put into full gear before Haitians can get all the help that they need," Aiken said. "You're going to start seeing some progress on that today."
While planes were able to bring in the first round of supplies, the question became, Aiken said, "how do you get it to the folks who need it?"
Haiti isn't accustomed to quakes and doesn't have the heavy equipment or specialized machinery to help clear the rubble, Aiken said. Aid groups and government agencies are coordinating to get the equipment in. "It's basically a matter of clearing out the rubble, making sure that areas are workable, that you have security that can protect these supplies and that you have security in place to help people," Aiken said.
The American Red Cross emptied a warehouse in Panama that had been filled with everything from cooking kits to toiletries to medical supplies and tents. That load of supplies is likely to make it into Haiti on Thursday, Aiken said. "Our effort is immediate relief and supplies." "The needs are overwhelming at this point in time," Rodgers said. "We are going to be doing our best to respond to that, but obviously that's a big task at hand."
MEDICAL EMERGENCY
Hospitals in Port-au-Prince have collapsed, and the few facilities still open can't handle the needs of the injured. The United States and other countries were dispatching medical supplies, facilities and personnel. People who suffered broken bones from falling debris have been unable to get treatment; there's simply too many of them.
"We need medical help," Haitian President Rene Preval said. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed. The hospitals, they are full, and they put people in the outside."
As the days go by, health concerns will grow about diseases, like cholera and tuberculosis, from the thousands of corpses on streets and in the rubble. The bodies also can affect the water supply and sanitation. "You can have airborne diseases," Aiken said. "You can have animals carrying feeding off these corpses."
Haiti could also have a humanitarian crisis since tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed, forcing residents onto residents. "There needs to be a place to put people and to set up a structure like a refugee camp," Aiken said. "That's all part of this." But he said, for now, the priority is to rescue as many people as possible -- and get supplies in as quickly as possible.
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WHAT RIGHTS ACTION DOES WITH “DISASTER” RELIEF FUNDS
In 1998, RA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds and support to Hurricane Mitch victims in Honduras.  In 2004-2005, RA raised and distributed emergency funds to community groups in Haiti in response to the dual crisis of the military coup against the government of President Aristide and a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that devastated Haiti through 2004 and into 2005.  In 2005-2006, RA provided hundreds of thousands of dollars of funds and support to Hurricane Stan victims in Guatemala.
With disaster relief funds, RA funds and supports existing community and shanty-town based organizations

HAITI-FOCUSED GROUPS WE RECOMMEND - Please contact and/or donate to these groups:

TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS FOR RIGHTS ACTION’S "HAITI RELIEF" WORK:
Make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
UNITED STATES:  Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA:  552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A-1T8
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm

For more information: Grahame Russell, co-director, info@rightsaction.org, 860-352-2448
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www.rightsaction.org / info@rightsaction.org:  Rights Action (with tax-deductible status in Canada and USA) funds and works with community development, environmental justice, human rights and disaster relief organizations in Guatemala and Honduras, and also in El Salvador, Haiti, Oaxaca and Chiapas.  Rights Action educates about and is involved in activism related to the underlying local, national and global causes of poverty and exploitation, environmental destruction, human rights violations and disasters.
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