On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake struck the country of Haiti, leaving behind a trail of destruction that shocked the entire world. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.0, making it one of the most powerful and deadliest earthquakes ever recorded in that region.
The disaster hit close to Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti, where millions of people lived. Within seconds, buildings collapsed, homes were destroyed, and entire neighborhoods were wiped out. Hospitals, schools, and government buildings all crumbled to the ground, leaving survivors with nowhere to turn for help. The loss of life was devastating. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and many more were left injured, trapped under rubble, or homeless. Families were torn apart, and the streets were filled with people desperately searching for their loved ones. The 2010 Haiti earthquake was not just a natural disaster it was a humanitarian crisis that exposed how vulnerable Haiti was due to poverty and poor building structures. The world came together to respond, but the scale of the damage made recovery incredibly difficult and slow.
On 21 February, Preval raised that estimate to 300,000. In February, prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive estimated that 300,000 had been injured. Speaking in Miami in June 2010, Bellerive also estimated the number of deaths had been 300,000. On the first anniversary of the quake, Bellerive raised the death toll to 316,000. He said that was, in part, because of the recovery of additional bodies. A University of Michigan study in 2010 estimated about 160,000 deaths.
Background
The earthquake occurred on 12 January 2010 approximately WSW from the country's capital Port-au-Prince at 16:53 UTC-5 on the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system."Magnitude 7.0 – HAITI REGION Tectonic Summary" . United States Geological Survey. 12 January 2010 The earthquake was measured a magnitude of 7.0 Mw earthquake and was followed by a series of aftershocks, fourteen of them between magnitudes 5.0 and 5.9. The main area affected by the quake was Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region, although it was also felt in several surrounding countries and regions including Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the neighbouring country of Dominican Republic."PAGER – M 7.0 – HAITI REGION" . United States Geological Survey. 12 January 2010"Magnitude 7.0 – HAITI REGION USGS Community Internet Intensity Map" . United States Geological Survey. 12 January 2010. No casualties were reported outside of Haiti.
Much of Port-au-Prince's infrastructure was significantly damaged or destroyed in the earthquake, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, hospitals, schools and the main prison. All hospitals were destroyed or so badly damaged that they were abandoned. In addition, the facilities of foreign governments and non-government organizations were badly damaged in the quake, including the headquarters of the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which was destroyed.
Calculating casualties Calculating the exact number of casualties in the earthquake is an "impossible" task due to the mass number of victims and a lack of a centralized system for tabulating casualties. In the weeks following the earthquake there were a number of estimate figures, ranging from the low tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. On 12 January, Haitian prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated that the death toll could be "well over 100,000". On 15 January, the Red Cross stated that 40,000–50,000 may have died, while Haitian interior minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé estimated that the dead were between 100,000 and 200,000. On 17 January, Bien-Aimé stated that there were "around 50,000 dead bodies" and "there will be between 100,000 and 200,000 dead in total, although we will never know the exact number." Prime Minister Bellerive then announced that over 70,000 bodies have been buried in mass graves. Several days after the quake Haitian authorities estimated the number of injured at 250,000. According to Belgian disaster emergency medicine expert Claude de Ville de Goyet "round numbers are a sure sign that nobody knows." Haitian president René Préval reported on 27 January that "nearly 170,000" bodies had been counted.
On 10 February the Haitian government reported the death toll to have reached 230,000. However, an investigation by Radio Netherlands has questioned the official death toll, reporting an estimate of 92,000 deaths as being a more realistic figure. Other officials did not even attempt to provide a casualty estimate. Edmond Mulet, who was appointed head of the United Nations after the quake, stated that "I don’t think we will ever know what the death toll is from this earthquake." And the director of the Haitian Red Cross, Guiteau Jean-Pierre, noted that his organization didn't "have time to count" bodies, as they were too busy trying to treat survivors.
The complications of coming up with an accurate casualty count were revealed in an interview by The New York Times reporters with the employees at the mortuary in the largest hospital in Port-au-Prince. In the interview, Alix Lassegue, the head physician at the morgue, provided a rough estimate of the number of bodies that had been passed through the mortuary by tabulating the square yardage of the area where bodies had been placed and the space that each body occupied times the number of times bodies were removed from the grounds. Lassegue's estimate was an even 10,000. Other employees estimated the number of bodies that had passed through the morgue as 75,000, 50,000 and 25,000. Compounding the problem of calculating casualties was that people were burying the dead in informal graves and many bodies had been thrown into dumps outside the city. In addition, thousands of people were leaving areas affected by the earthquake, without any centralized method of tabulating who had left. The most reliable academic estimate of the number of earthquake casualties in Haiti (over 95% were in the immediate Port-au-Prince area) "within six weeks of the earthquake" appears to be the 160,000 estimate in a 2010 University of Michigan study.
An alternative method that may be used to tabulate casualties is by using the satellite imagery of Port-au-Prince located on Google Maps so that destroyed buildings can be catalogued and an estimate of casualties can be calculated using data on the inhabitants. But this method is complicated by the fact that such data may be inaccurate and infectious diseases, such as dysentery, malaria and dengue fever, could take their toll on survivors.
A statistical study by a specialist group at the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California estimated that the number of children injured was 110,000, or roughly half the total number of injuries.
There were reports of more precise numbers of casualties for certain areas of the country. On 18 January, Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) reported that 145 had died and 380 were wounded in Jacmel, the country's fourth largest city located in the south of Haiti. Some other local communal leaders were attempting to count the number of dead in their community. The New York Times reported that in the Edmond Paul region in southern Port-au-Prince, lawyer and community leader Isaac Jean Widner was organizing a list of the dead. Widner estimated that of the 3,000 people that had lived in his neighborhood before the quake, 1,000 had died, but he added that "between the exodus and those still trapped it was impossible to confirm."
Response and treatment of casualties
The earthquake struck in the most populated area of the country and the International Red Cross estimated that as many as 3 million people have been affected by the quake, including injuries and deaths. One factor that contributed to the number casualties in the aftermath of the earthquake was a lack of medical supplies, damage to hospitals, and a shortage of medical and rescue personnel. In addition, Haitian and foreign medical staff, police, and military personnel themselves became victims of the earthquake. An example of this was Port-au-Prince's Grace Children's Hospital, where it was reported on 19 January that of 120 employees, only six had been accounted for and some had been confirmed killed.
Soon after the quake struck appeals for international aid were issued by Haitian government officials, including Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States. Neighboring Dominican Republic was one of the first countries to give aid to Haiti. And the non-governmental organization Giving Children Hope distributed much-needed medicines and supplies. International organization also began large-scale fund raising campaigns for aid to Haiti, including campaigns by the International Red Cross and relief charities in Britain.
On 25 January Handicap International published a statement that an estimated 1,000 amputations had taken place due to injuries. In response to the quake the organization dispatched 30 rehabilitation and health staff to Haiti and announced that they would eventually increase staff numbers to 100 and provide hundreds of prostheses.
In addition, the government of the United States issued orders for deployment to the United States Army's 1st Battalion, 73rd Infantry from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which is scheduled to deploy along with the aircraft carrier . The U.S. Navy also announced on 13 January 2010 that the hospital ship Comfort and amphibious helicopter carrier will be deployed to assist in the humanitarian relief efforts. The American government also announced that it would provide $100 million for the aid effort in Haiti. Partners in Health, the largest health care provider in rural Haiti, also provided aid from Port-au-Prince. Despite the domestic and international relief efforts, many Haitians in the initial days after the earthquake did not have access to health care.
Those injured in the quake, including both Haitians and foreign, have been treated in hospitals abroad. Many patients were transferred to hospitals in neighboring Dominican Republic, including to hospitals in the capital Santo Domingo and in the border towns of Neiba and Jimaní. The total number of casualties treated in the Dominican Republic reached into the hundreds and on 20 January the Dominican Republican government announced that 600 patients would be repatriated to Haiti. Some casualties were brought to the United States, including nearly 500 patients who were transported to Florida and treated in hospitals across the state, including University of Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Burial of the dead was one of the most serious concerns in the aftermath of the earthquake as the main cemetery in Port-au-Prince announced that its plots were full and it was not accepting any more bodies. The Haitian law that bodies must be prepared by a funeral parlor before burial was suspended within the first day of the earthquake. The government then turned to burying the dead in mass graves, including a number of plots in the fields around Titanyen, located north of the capital. Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross encouraged Haitian authorities to take measures so that the bodies could later be identified, including filling out standard forms on bodies; photographing clothing, jewelry, and special marks on the body; and noting where the body was found and where it was buried.