The Welland Tribune

Death toll in Haiti earthquake rises to 15; hundreds injured

- EVENS SANON

PORT-DE-PAIX, HAITI — The death toll from a 5.9 earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend rose to at least 15 people with 333 injured, according to updated figures released Monday by authoritie­s, as rescue crews worked to help victims spooked by strong aftershock­s.

Haiti’s civil protection agency said in a statement that it will soon deploy 70 soldiers to the Nord-Ouest and Artibonite provinces that were hardest hit, noting it already sent 14 soldiers along with nurses and doctors to the area over the weekend.

Thousands of people along Haiti’s north coast have dragged mattresses and chairs outside, fearing new aftershock­s. Many wondered how they were going to rebuild from Saturday night’s quake and a strong 5.2 magnitude aftershock on Sunday that had residents in the coastal city of Port-de-Paix and elsewhere worried about returning to their cracked cinder block homes for fear they would collapse.

Among them was Marc-Sena Docteur, a 24-year-old carpenter whose girlfriend died in the earthquake.

“Now I’m left with a ninemonth-old baby with no aid at all,” he said. “I’m still crying. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

The walls of the room that the couple had been renting for a year collapsed, and he and the baby have been sleeping outdoors since the quake.

Sunday’s aftershock caused panic on streets where emergency teams were providing relief to victims after cinder block homes and rickety buildings toppled in several cities. The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicentre of the aftershock was 16 kilometres north-northwest of Port-de-Paix.

Among the dead were a fiveyear-old boy crushed by his collapsing house.

Impoverish­ed Haiti, where many live in tenuous circumstan­ces, is vulnerable to earthquake­s and hurricanes. A vastly larger magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital in 2010 and killed an estimated 300,000 people.

Etanvie Dimorne, a 50-year-old mason, said people have to rebuild stronger given the earthquake­s that have hit Haiti. He lost his home in Saturday’s quake and is now sleeping under a tarp in someone’s yard.

“Last night it rained,” he said. “I have to sleep under difficult conditions.”

President Jovenel Moise urged people to donate blood and asked internatio­nal aid agencies to co-ordinate with local agencies to avoid duplicated efforts. The government did not provide an estimate of the damages.

The USGS said Saturday’s quake was centred 20 kilometres northwest of Port-de-Paix, which is about 220 kilometres from the capital, Port-au-Prince.

It was felt lightly in the capital, as well as in the neighbouri­ng Dominican Republic and in eastern Cuba, where no damage was reported.

In Haiti, officials have struggled to shore up buildings despite the two major fault lines along Hispaniola, which is the island shared with the Dominican Republic.

The damage from the temblors was visible. In Gros-Morne, one bed was covered in rubble, while the exterior walls of some homes were cracked. Others tilted at precarious angles.

Pierre Jacques Baudre, a farmer and father of seven, said he was afraid to return to his home after one wall built with rocks and cement crumbled.

“The house can fall at any time,” he said.

The civil protection agency issued a statement saying that houses were destroyed in Portde-Paix, Gros-Morne, Chansolme and Turtle Island.

 ?? DIEU NALIO CHERY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? A boy injured by an aftershock receives treatment at the hospital in Port-de-Paix. The aftershock struck on Sunday, even as survivors of the previous day’s quake were sifting through the rubble of their homes.
DIEU NALIO CHERY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A boy injured by an aftershock receives treatment at the hospital in Port-de-Paix. The aftershock struck on Sunday, even as survivors of the previous day’s quake were sifting through the rubble of their homes.

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