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Les Cayes, Haiti
International aid finally began to pour into Haiti nearly a week since the devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake, despite bridge and road failures that hampered efforts to reach some of the hardest-hit and remote towns.
Early Friday, there was no road access to the south-western city of Jeremie, as pictures circulated showing damage to the Dumarsais Estime bridge, one of the main access routes into the city. The local public works department was working in the early afternoon to secure an alternate route into Jeremie.
The airport in Les Cayes, near the earthquake’s epicenter, had become the busy landing ground for relief arriving into Haiti as injured people were simultaneously airlifted to hospitals in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Two US military aircraft and several US Coast Guard helicopters hovered over Les Cayes, arriving with provisions to the airport.
One of the helicopters, loaned to former Haitian Senator Richard Herve Fourcand, was on route to Pic de Macaya, a mountainous region in the rural outskirts of the city, to airlift an earthquake victim, one of many injured when the tremors brought down parts of the mountain.
Almost a week since the initial tremor, victims were still in need of immediate medical care in rural and remote areas. Fourcand and others laid injured and sick residents on their laps to transport them back to Les Cayes.
Other international organizations - including Swiss Humanitarian Aid, Medic Corps, Samaritan’s Purse and the United Nation’s World Food Program and International Organization for Migration - were on the ground assisting earthquake victims. Aid workers dragged suitcases and boxes packed with supplies and loaded them onto vehicles.
World Central Kitchen took a helicopter to survey two of their sites nearby where they have a team of about 40 people providing hot meals with local vegetables and ingredients. Hospital Albert Schweitzer, from the Central Plateau region of Haiti, had sent a team to deal with the response’s logistics.
Three army ships from the Dominican Republic were also stationed on the sea of Jeremie to aid earthquake victims.
The hectic day at Les Cayes was also marked by preparations to receive former Haitian President Michel Martelly, who planned to arrive Friday to survey the damage caused by Saturday’s quake and powerful aftershocks that have so far killed 2,189 people and injured more than 12,200 others. An estimated 136,800 families are homeless and nearly 700,000 people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed also arrived in Les Cayes early on Friday, one of the most notable international figures to visit Haiti so far since the disaster. She was accompanied by Helen La Lime, the UN’s special representative in Haiti, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the director general of Haiti’s Health Ministry, Laure Adrien.
“When you hear the figures of the destruction of schools, people’s homes, the numbers that have died ... it’s tragic,” Mohammed told the Miami Herald.
Les Cayes, Haiti
International aid finally began to pour into Haiti nearly a week since the devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake, despite bridge and road failures that hampered efforts to reach some of the hardest-hit and remote towns.
Early Friday, there was no road access to the south-western city of Jeremie, as pictures circulated showing damage to the Dumarsais Estime bridge, one of the main access routes into the city. The local public works department was working in the early afternoon to secure an alternate route into Jeremie.
The airport in Les Cayes, near the earthquake’s epicenter, had become the busy landing ground for relief arriving into Haiti as injured people were simultaneously airlifted to hospitals in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
Two US military aircraft and several US Coast Guard helicopters hovered over Les Cayes, arriving with provisions to the airport.
One of the helicopters, loaned to former Haitian Senator Richard Herve Fourcand, was on route to Pic de Macaya, a mountainous region in the rural outskirts of the city, to airlift an earthquake victim, one of many injured when the tremors brought down parts of the mountain.
Almost a week since the initial tremor, victims were still in need of immediate medical care in rural and remote areas. Fourcand and others laid injured and sick residents on their laps to transport them back to Les Cayes.
Other international organizations - including Swiss Humanitarian Aid, Medic Corps, Samaritan’s Purse and the United Nation’s World Food Program and International Organization for Migration - were on the ground assisting earthquake victims. Aid workers dragged suitcases and boxes packed with supplies and loaded them onto vehicles.
World Central Kitchen took a helicopter to survey two of their sites nearby where they have a team of about 40 people providing hot meals with local vegetables and ingredients. Hospital Albert Schweitzer, from the Central Plateau region of Haiti, had sent a team to deal with the response’s logistics.
Three army ships from the Dominican Republic were also stationed on the sea of Jeremie to aid earthquake victims.
The hectic day at Les Cayes was also marked by preparations to receive former Haitian President Michel Martelly, who planned to arrive Friday to survey the damage caused by Saturday’s quake and powerful aftershocks that have so far killed 2,189 people and injured more than 12,200 others. An estimated 136,800 families are homeless and nearly 700,000 people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.
UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed also arrived in Les Cayes early on Friday, one of the most notable international figures to visit Haiti so far since the disaster. She was accompanied by Helen La Lime, the UN’s special representative in Haiti, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the director general of Haiti’s Health Ministry, Laure Adrien.
“When you hear the figures of the destruction of schools, people’s homes, the numbers that have died ... it’s tragic,” Mohammed told the Miami Herald.
