Michael Kühn of Welthungerhilfe, reports from Haiti

Day two after the earthquake in Haiti: Things are still shaky

Many survivors of the earthquake lost everything
and have to sleep in the parks. © REUTERS /
Joel Trimble www.alertnet.org(14.01.2010) It's day two after the serious earthquake here in Haiti. And things are still shaky. Just last night we had another noticeable aftershock. Now in the daytime our head, heart and stomachs are gradually taking in what our eyes have seen. It's alarming and shocking. So much destruction, so much despair; a lot more even than we had already feared. We’re asking ourselves how the people can possibly bear it. Where they can find the reserves that have been virtually exhausted in any case by everyday life.

Injured people lie in the streets, there are countless dead lying under destroyed buildings, and maybe still some survivors. Although that's hard to imagine with these concrete roofs.  It also seems unreal how pragmatically the people here are getting on with things. Bodies are being sifted through and piled up, almost as if in categories: the seriously injured, the half-dead, the dead. This is appalling. But how else are they to control the chaos? Scenes and pictures that one would prefer not to have to see.  Many people are searching for their family members, or if they have found them  – dead – they want to bury them. But there just isn't any time for that. Soon there are likely to be even greater problems. But for now all that counts is emergency assistance.

We were lucky, our office is unscathed. Our whole team is well. But not all our Haitian colleagues know whether their family members have survived. We hope so.
We’ve now got an initial impression of the devastation. Dramatic. It looks as though many inhabitants have already left the capital on foot heading for the provinces. Where else should they go? There is no alternative overnight accommodation, no neighbours that people can stay with. I live a short distance out of town on a hill overlooking the city. My house is still standing and I can put a couple of neighbours up. We're making do, we're helping each other out.

The people whose houses are undamaged have got just enough supplies to get through perhaps two or three days. But then things will get tight. Today we are trying to boost our aid measures from our office.  We'll have to see whether the electricity supply holds out longer today. Then hopefully we'll soon be able to report that things are moving forward. We still need fuel for our generator. That'll probably be a challenge as well. But we'll crack it. We're coordinating things with our partner organisations here in Haiti, and also with our fellow organisations from Europe. We're planning carefully on a step by step basis how and where our aid efforts should best be started. That's our job.

There's also no point doing anything else. There's already enough chaos, and there probably won't be any over-arching coordination from the United Nations for some time yet. I heard that one of the important United Nations coordinators for humanitarian aid has lost his whole family in the quake. They'd just gone shopping in the supermarket. It completely collapsed.

So we have to make sure that people get food and emergency shelter quickly. That's what we're working on at the moment. But first I want to have a quick word with some journalists so that they can report what's going on here. We’re dependent on any assistance we can get.  This is no short-term disaster. It will require a lot of strength and above all a lot of money.  Please help us, so that we at least don't run short of these. Many thanks for standing by us!

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Reference: Nothilfe Haiti