Death toll of powerful earthquake in Haiti soars to 1,297; hospitals struggle to treat thousands injured

Les Cayes, Haiti: The death toll from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti climbed to 1,297 on Sunday, a day after the powerful temblor turned thousands of structures into rubble and set off frantic rescue efforts ahead of a potential deluge from an approaching tropical storm.

Saturday’s earthquake also left at least 5,700 people injured in the Caribbean nation, with thousands more displaced from their destroyed or damaged homes. Survivors in some areas were forced to wait out in the open amid oppressive heat for help from overloaded hospitals.
Yet the devastation could soon worsen with the coming of Tropical Depression Grace, which is predicted to reach Haiti on Monday night. The US National Hurricane Center demoted the tropical storm to a depression Sunday, but forecasters warned that regardless, Grace still posed a threat to bring heavy rain, flooding and landslides.

The earthquake struck the southwestern part of the hemisphere’s poorest nation, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in a country already grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination and a wave of gang violence.

The epicenter was about 125 kilometers (78 miles) west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the US Geological Survey said, and aftershocks continued to jolt the area Sunday.

In the badly damaged coastal town of Les Cayes, Jennie Auguste lay on a flimsy foam mattress on the tarmac of the community’s tiny airport waiting for anything — space at a hospital or a small plane like the ones ferrying the wounded to the capital. She suffered injuries in the chest, abdomen and arm when the roof of the store she worked at collapsed.

“There has been nothing. No help, nothing from the government,” Auguste’s sister, Bertrande, said.
In scenes widespread across the region hit by the quake, other families salvaged their few belongings and spent the night at an open-air football pitch. On Sunday morning, people lined up to buy what little was available: bananas, avocados and water at a local street market.

Some in the town praised God for surviving the earthquake, and many went to the city’s cathedral, which appeared outwardly undamaged even if the priests’ residence was destroyed.

“We only have Jesus now,” said Johanne Dorcely, 58, whose house was destroyed. “If it wasn’t for Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to be here today.”

Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Saturday declared a one-month state of emergency for the whole country and said he was rushing aid to areas where towns were destroyed and hospitals were overwhelmed.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said Sunday that humanitarian needs are acute, with many Haitians urgently needing health care, clean water and shelter. Children who have been separated from parents need protection, she said.

“Little more than a decade on, Haiti is reeling once again,” Fore said in a statement. “And this disaster coincides with political instability, rising gang violence, alarmingly high rates of malnutrition among children, and the COVID-19 pandemic — for which Haiti has received just 500,000 vaccine doses, despite requiring far more.”

The country of 11 million people received its first batch of US-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations programme for low-income countries.

Sunday’s count from Haiti’s Office of Civil Protection raised Saturday’s death toll from 304 dead. The agency said more than 7,000 homes were destroyed and nearly 5,000 damaged. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches were also affected.

Medical workers from across the region were scrambling to help as hospitals in Les Cayes started running out of space to perform surgeries.

“Basically, they need everything,” said Dr Inobert Pierre, a pediatrician with the nonprofit Health Equity International, which oversees the St Boniface Hospital, about two hours from Les Cayes.

“Many of the patients have open wounds and they have been exposed to not-so-clean elements,” added Pierre, who visited two hospitals in Les Cayes — one with some 200 patients, the other with around 90. “We anticipate a lot of infections.”

Pierre’s medical team was taking some patients to St Boniface Hospital to undergo surgery, but with just two ambulances, they could transport just four patients at a time.

Hunched on benches, curled up in chairs or even lying the floor, those injured in the powerful earthquake that wreaked havoc on Haiti on Saturday crowded an overburdened hospital near the epicentre.

The emergency room in Les Cayes, in southwestern Haiti, which was devastated by the 7.2-magnitude quake on Saturday morning that killed at least 724 people, is expecting reinforcements to help treat some of the thousands of injured.

“At the time of the earthquake, there were only three doctors in the emergency service,” said Dr Michelet Paurus.

“This morning, it’s getting better because we received orthopedists, surgeons and almost 42 residents distributed across all the hospitals of the department.”

Dr Rudolphe Steven Jacques, 26, came to the hard-hit area from the capital Port-au-Prince.

“The lack of equipment is chronic,” he said, gesturing to a woman sat in a corner with a large open wound on her leg.

“This woman has been waiting for a while for me to do a suture but I don’t have a tray for that at the moment.”

Doctors and patients jostle in the small hospital rooms, as even more patients pour in.

“Many more injured are still arriving this morning, I wasn’t expecting that. They are coming from more remote areas,” Jacques said, adding the emergency service workers were “doing our best to treat people.”

The violent quake destroyed over 13,600 buildings and thousands more were damaged, trapping hundreds of people under rubble and leaving more than 5,700 injured, the country’s civil protection agency said.

Hospitals in the country’s third-largest city near the epicenter of the quake were quickly saturated with the massive influx of injured.

“When the earthquake happened… a tremor threw me in the air and I landed on my arm,” recalled Venel Senat, in his forties. “Neighbours came to help me get a taxi. I went to several hospitals, but they were overloaded.

“This morning I came here and I was finally taken care of. I had an X-ray for free and they also put this cast on, free of charge,” he said, as he waited for the medication prescribed to him to be available at the hospital, the pharmacy in town still shuttered.

Already treated but under observation, many injured settled on the lawns around the buildings, traumatized by frequent aftershocks and worried damaged structures may collapse.

“People are afraid to go back inside, but tonight it’s going to rain,” said Paurus, moving swiftly between departments.

“We’re going to try to make them come inside this room because the roof is sheet metal. For the children in the pediatric ward, we’re going to try to set up tents in the courtyard,” he added.

Already injured, grieving and afraid to shelter indoors, Les Cayes residents now dread the torrential rains, violent winds and mudslides that could come with Tropical Depression Grace on Monday.

“If it rains as much as we predict, we really don’t know what we will do. It’s one hit after another,” said Paurus.

Small planes from a private firm and the Florida-based missionary service Agape Flights landed at the Port-Au-Prince airport Sunday carrying about a half dozen injured earthquake victims from the Les Cayes area. Young men with bandages and a woman were hoisted on stretchers to waiting Haitian Red Cross ambulances.

Silvestre Plaza Rico, who was supervising one of the volunteer flights, said rescue planes had made several airlifts of about a half dozen injured victims each on Saturday. “There were many, many, many, from different towns,” Plaza Rico said.

The earthquake also struck just over a month after President Jovenel Moïse was shot to death in his home, sending the country into political chaos. His widow, Martine Moïse, who was seriously wounded in the attack, posted a message on Twitter calling for unity among Haitians: “Let’s put our shoulders together to bring solidarity.”

Shortly after the earthquake, Henry said he wanted “structured solidarity” to ensure the response was coordinated to avoid the confusion that followed the devastating 2010 earthquake, when aid was slow to reach residents after.

US president Joe Biden authorised an immediate response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power to oversee the US effort to help Haiti.

Power announced Sunday that USAID was sending a search and rescue team from Virginia at the request of Haiti’s government. The 65-person team will bring specialized tools and medical supplies to assist with the disaster response, Power said on Twitter.

Working with USAID, the U. Coast Guard said a helicopter was transporting medical personnel from the Haitian capital to the quake zone and evacuating the injured back to Port-au-Prince. Lt. Commander Jason Nieman, a spokesman, said another helicopter was being sent from the Bahamas, along with other aircraft and ships.

Already on the scene were several members of Cuba’s 253-member health care mission to Haiti, and the socialist nation’s state media showed photos of them giving first aid to victims injured by the quake.

The North Carolina-based aid group Samaritan’s Purse announced Sunday it would airlift 13 disaster response specialists and 31 tons of emergency supplies to Hait. These include shelter materials and water filtration units.

Humanitarian workers said gang activity in the seaside district of Martissant, just west of the Haitian capital, also was complicating relief efforts.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in a statement said Haiti’s southern peninsula is a “hotspot for gang-related violence,” where humanitarian workers have been repeatedly attacked, including a Doctors Without Borders emergency health center that was targeted in June. The agency said the area has been “virtually unreachable” over the past two months because of roadblocks and security concerns.

“All of these factors combined will create significant logistics challenges in reaching the most affected areas,” according to the agency, which added that displacements “has created ripe conditions for a spike in COVID-19 infections.”

Haiti, where many live in tenuous circumstances, is vulnerable to earthquakes and hurricanes. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake in 2018 killed more than a dozen people.

The magnitude 7.0 quake of 2010 hit closer to densely populated Port-au-Prince and caused widespread destruction. Haiti’s government put the death toll at more than 300,000, while a report commissioned by the US government placed it between 46,000 and 85,000.

Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his closeness to the people of Haiti, including prayers for the victims and encouragement for survivors. The pope called for the solidarity of the international community “to help alleviate the consequences of the tragedy.”

With inputs from AP and AFP