Haiti quake death toll at 1,297
Rescue efforts racing impending rainstorm
LES CAYES, Haiti — The death toll from a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Haiti soared to at least 1,297 on Sunday as rescuers raced to find survivors amid the rubble 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 U.S. National Hurricane Center demoted the tropical storm to a depression Sunday, but forecasters warned 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 78 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. 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,” Ms. 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.”
Workers tore through rubble of collapsed buildings with heavy machinery, shovels and picks. After sundown, Les Cayes was darkened by intermittent blackouts, and many slept people outside again, clutching small transistor radios tuned to news, terrified of a possible repetition of Saturday’s strong aftershocks.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry 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 overwhelmed. A former senator rented a private airplane to move injured people from Les Cayes to Port-au-Prince for medical assistance.
“The first convoys started following the coordination efforts of several ministers mobilized at the level of the National Emergency Center,” Mr. Henry told reporters Sunday. “We salute the dignity, the resilience effort of the victims and their ability to start over. From my observations, I deduce that Haitians want to live and progress. Let us unite to offer these people a living environment conducive to development.”
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said Sunday 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,” Ms. 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 U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low- income countries.
Sunday’s count from Haiti’s Office of Civil Protection raised the previous 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 Dr. Pierre, who visited two hospitals in Les Cayes — one with some 200 patients, the other with around 90. “We anticipate a lot of infections.”
Dr. 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.
Small planes from a private firm and the Floridabased missionary service Agape Flights landed at the Port-Au-Prince airport Sunday carrying about a halfdozen 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 halfdozen injured victims each on Saturday. “There were many, many, many, from different towns,” Mr. Plaza Rico said.