Bedlam and Despondency in Haiti

Fears of major catastrophe as 7.0 quake rocks Haiti

By Clarens Renois (AFP) – 3 days ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE — A huge quake measuring 7.0 rocked the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti Tuesday toppling buildings and causing widespread damage and panic, officials and AFP witnesses said.

"I think it's really a catastrophe of major proportions," Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN television.

All communications with the island went down after the earthquake and no details were immediately available on any people killed or injured in the disaster.

A tsunami alert for the Carribean region was immediately issued after the earthquake struck at 2153 GMT.

An AFP correspondent said the ground shook for more than a minute. Later three aftershocks measuring 5.9, 5.5 and 5.1 on the moment magnitude scale hit, US officials said.

In Port-au-Prince, local media reported that the presidential palace, parliament, cathedral and several ministries were badly damaged.

An AFP correspondent in Petionville, a suburb east of the capital, said one three-story building, housing two offices, was toppled by the quake, and a tractor was already at the scene trying to dig out victims as people fled onto the streets in panic.

The up-scale area is home to many foreign diplomats and members of a major United Nations mission to the country.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the powerful quake was initially measured at 7.3 and struck 16 kilometers (ten miles) from the capital Port-au-Prince, and 27 kilometers (17 miles) from Petionville.

The earthquake struck at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), the USGS said.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said the United States stood ready to help.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by this earthquake," Obama said. "We are closely monitoring the situation and we stand ready to assist the people of Haiti."

A US Southern Command spokesman in Miami said the agency was "monitoring the situation and coordinating everything to respond rapidly."

A tsunami warning issued for Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic was scrapped shortly afterwards.

Haiti's ambassador told CNN he was heartbroken as he had just spoken by telephone with a senior presidential aide who described scenes of chaos and devastation.

"He had to stop his car just about half an hour ago, and take to the streets, start walking, but he said houses were crumbling on the right side of the street and the left side of the street," Joseph said.

Already the poorest nation in the Americas, Haiti has been hit by a series of disasters recently and was battered by hurricanes in 2008.

Four big storms -- Tropical Storm Fay and hurricanes Gustav, Hanna and Ike -- pounded impoverished Haiti in August and September 2008, killing a total of 793 people and leaving more than 300 others missing, according to government figures.

The country was also gripped by a tense political standoff in April 2008 amid riots over skyrocketing food prices. UN troops are a regular sight throughout much of the country.

Seventy percent of Haiti's population lives on less than two dollars per day and half of its 8.5 million people are unemployed.

According to official figures, food insecurity already affects more than a quarter of Haiti's population, some 1.9 million people, with women and children the worst affected.

The Food and Agriculture Organization has designated Haiti as one of the world's most economically vulnerable countries.

The WFP serves one meal a day to more than 500,000 Haitian schoolchildren, providing them with what is often their only meal of the day.

The organization also feeds 100,000 women who are pregnant or breastfeeding and 50,000 children under the age of five.

Since mid-2004, the Brazilian-led MINUSTAH has been keeping the peace in the impoverished Caribbean island nation.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved

Labor Day Quick Hits

Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Hanna have been assigned to send hell in a storm basket to Louisiana and Georgia, respectively. Gustave made landfall about a few hours ago, while Hanna is warming up for the beatdown by upgrading to a Category 1 hurricane.

Get in on, both of you.


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36 people in China lose their lives in a 5.7 earthquake in Sichuan Province. And Mother Nature's wrath wreak havoc as Hi Jintao heart hardens like the Pharaoh of Egypt in the Biblical days.

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I am quietly compiling some results for a video on the International Saimoe League 2008, subject to approval to the commisioner of the league (the webmaster of the site, in layman terms). It will just be a simple slideshow, complete with results.

Nothing too special.

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It's Labor Day today. No work means some R&r, but for me, it's on the eve of a return to class.

I gotta get some stuff ready. That means a backpack full of books and binders, and plenty of writing apparati.

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I am elated after getting those DVDs out of the way. I needed to back up all those Olympic Games footage. All that's remaining is a few Closing Ceremony clips, an iso of the Opening Ceremony, and a few soccer games.

The earthshaker!

Would you believe it; the first big earthshaker here in Los Angeles has arrived. I am posting this from my work at the Bar Foundation while preparing some grants, and what do you know, an earthquake sways this building, as well as the whole of Southern California and Vegas.

Strong quake shakes Southern California

By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press Writer

A strong earthquake shook Southern California on Tuesday, causing buildings to sway and triggering some precautionary evacuations. No immediate damage was reported.
The jolt was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego, and slightly in Las Vegas.
Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake at magnitude 5.8, centered 29 miles east-southeast of downtown Los Angeles near Chino Hills in San Bernardino County.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury in Los Angeles. San Bernardino County fire dispatch also had no immediate reports of damage.
The quake struck at 11:42 a.m. PDT. Buildings swayed in downtown Los Angeles for several seconds.
Workers quickly evacuated some office buildings.
"It was dramatic. The whole building moved and it lasted for a while," said Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore, who was in the sheriff's suburban Monterey Park headquarters east of Los Angeles.
In Orange County, about 2000 detectives were attending a conference on gangs at a Marriott hotel in Anaheim when a violent jolt shook the main conference room.
Mike Willever, who was at the hotel, said, "First we heard the ceiling shaking, then the chandelier started to shake, then there was a sudden movement of the floor."
Chris Watkins, from San Diego, said he previously felt several earthquakes, but "that was one of the worst ones."
Delegates and guests at a cluster of hotels near the Disneyland resort spilled into the streets immediately after the quake.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake under Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley was magnitude 6.7. It killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage in the metropolitan area.
The damage created by an earthquake depends greatly on where it hits. A 7.1 quake - much stronger than Northridge - hit the Mojave Desert in 1999 but caused only a few injuries and no deaths.
California is one of the world's most seismically active regions. More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About 10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most of them are too small to be felt.

Associated Press Writer Thomas Watkins in Anaheim contributed to this report.