More Than 150,000 Have Been Buried, Haiti Says
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By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 23, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Haiti's government provided a preliminary assessment of the earthquake's body count on Saturday, putting it at more than 150,000, and declared that the search for survivors trapped in the rubble would soon be coming to an end.
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Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
A man was rescued in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Saturday after being trapped in rubble for 11 days. More Photos »
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Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, Haiti's culture and communications minister, said that 150,000 bodies from the streets had been collected and buried in the past 11 days.
She also said that there were at least 250,000 people homeless and that 200,000 residents of Port-au-Prince and its outskirts had moved to the provinces since the earthquake hit.
It was unclear, however, how the government arrived at these numbers — especially the number of victims buried. The figure grew over the course of the day from 111,000 to 120,000 to 150,000 without detailed explanation.
Ms. Lassegue, in an interview under a mango tree at the police station that now serves as government headquarters, said the 150,000 bodies was a count of "what we have taken and disposed of," not including family burials or bodies still trapped in the collapsed buildings.
As recently as Wednesday, that government estimate was put at 75,000 bodies. But most Haitian and international officials here have agreed that official efforts are better focused on helping the living than counting the dead.
In interviews, government workers collecting the bodies on the streets have said that they were not counting, and at many of the mass graves outside the city where the bodies have dumped, no government officials could be found.
Jacques Adler Jean-Pierre, one of Ms. Lassegue's aides under the tree, said nonetheless that someone had been keeping track.
"It may have looked like no one was counting," he said, "but someone was supposed to."
The figure for those who have left the city seemed more solid. Mr. Jean-Pierre said this was a compilation of what local governments from outside Port-au-Prince had reported.
The number of homeless appears to be in flux. Haiti's Directorate for Civil Protection estimated last week that one million people had been displaced by the quake on Jan. 12. Recent estimates from the International Organization for Migration show that 370,000 people are living in "improvised shelter," outside largely in camps without access to water, sanitation or food.
Laurent M. Dubois, a history professor at Duke University who specializes in Haiti, said that the government — which struggled to compile comprehensive data even before the earthquake — appeared to be geared toward showing people that it was seriously trying to gauge the disaster's impact and challenges.
"What they are probably getting are conflicting reports from people who are imagining things different," Professor Dubois said. "They must be guessing to some extent."
Rescues, however, have been easier to count. The numbers are smaller, and the moments more joyful. As of Saturday morning, international rescue teams had pulled 132 people alive from the rubble.
Then in the afternoon came another. A team of mostly French rescuers pulled a 24-year-old cashier, Richmond Exantos, from a collapsed hotel and pharmacy downtown around 4:30. A crowd of Haitians and rescuers cheered as he emerged, without visible injuries. Soon, though, there will be no more of these miracles.
The government said Saturday that rescue teams could continue to search if they know of survivors, but that, realistically, it was unlikely that anyone else would be found alive.
Michel Legros, a cousin of an owner of the building where Mr. Exantos was found, said this was a mistake. He had stationed people at the building since the quake, listening for signs of life. Saturday was the first day anyone heard anything — the sound of soft tapping. "I think they should keep looking," Mr. Legros said. "Because if Richmond is alive, maybe there are more."
Ginger Thompson contributed reporting.
Correction: January 24, 2010
An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a cousin of the owner of the building where Richmond Exantos was found. He is Michel Legros, not Michelle.
Cultural Riches Turn to Rubble in Haiti Quake
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By MARC LACEY
Published: January 23, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Long before its ground started heaving, Haiti was already a byword for a broken place. Its leaders were considered kleptocrats; its people were jaw-droppingly poor. But there was still a pride that burst forth from the people here, linked both to the country's heroic history and to the vibrant culture that united them and enabled them to endure.
Enlarge This Image
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Axelle Liautaud, an art dealer, removed a painting from the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince. "We had so much despite the fact that we're so poor," she said.
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The Destruction in Port-au-Prince
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Perspectives on Haiti's Earthquake
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Archbishop Killed in Quake Is Buried (January 24, 2010)
Haiti's Icon of Power, Now Palace for Ghosts (January 23, 2010)
Times Topics: Haiti
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
Enlarge This Image
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Art galleries like this one in Port-au-Prince were among the buildings destroyed by the earthquake on Jan. 12. Many irreplaceable cultural treasures were lost.
Now many of the symbols of that proud side of Haiti lie in ruins. The National Palace, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Supreme Court, all are in various states of collapse. Also devastated is the Episcopal Church's Holy Trinity Cathedral, known for its murals of Bible stories with all black figures.
The earthquake on Jan. 12 has caused untold suffering and has taken tens of thousands of lives — more than 150,000 bodies have been buried, according to a preliminary and undetailed government assessment on Saturday. The pain of the cultural loss cannot compare.
But in stealing symbols that gave Haitians their hope and grandeur and reminders of a common purpose, the earthquake cast a different kind of shadow over their future.
"Of course, we should care about the people first," said Axelle Liautaud, an art dealer who has been trying to save what is left of the murals. "But the reason why there is still a country, despite all our troubles, is our strong culture."
The landscape of the capital was in tatters long before this month's disaster, and many markers of the country's past had been looted and destroyed during the political upheavals that racked the country in recent decades.
But Haiti has always clung to its history, the struggle to break the bonds of slavery and become the world's first independent black republic, even if its governments have not done all they could to preserve that legacy.
Its vibrant arts scene celebrated the country's creation, and its public buildings sought to capture the elegance of a past that Haitians held onto though political trauma, staggering violence and a string of natural disasters.
That alone has made the depth of the destruction of Haiti's heritage hard to fully capture.
Teeluck Bhuwanee, the Unesco representative in Haiti, who has toured the city, is still having trouble fathoming what he saw. "You go around and you say, 'Oh my God,' and then you go further and you say it again," he said. "We haven't assessed all the damage at all the cultural sites, but we know it's bad."
The National Palace was the country's principal symbol, Haiti's White House, a grand building surrounded by iron gates, which dates back less than a century but was designed in a French Renaissance style. It was a building worthy of a country born after a slave revolt against its French colonial rulers.
The quake left the imposing structure shattered, its signature white domes collapsed, its Oval Office equivalent a total loss.
The palace had no permanent collection of artifacts, since leaders often stripped the place as they were chased out of office. But presidential aides said they were worried about irreplaceable artwork and sculptures that were on display in heavily damaged ceremonial rooms.
The saddest scenes were at the some of the places where Haitians go to pray, ornate churches filled with historical artifacts. At Holy Trinity Cathedral, the murals featuring Haitian renderings of biblical scenes on its interior walls now resemble an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
The organ, which Haitians proudly say was one of the largest in the Caribbean, was smashed.
When Ms. Liautaud, the art dealer, heard that demolition crews were already lined up to clear the site, she scrambled to stop the work in hopes that bricks and shards of concrete containing portions of the murals could be pieced together again.
"We had so much despite the fact that we're so poor," Ms. Liautaud said. "Nothing that's new can replace what's old. Gone in a day. It's all gone."
Still, there were signs that at least some treasures could be resurrected. Experts think that the key collections at the country's National Museum, built underground in a park facing the National Palace, probably survived.
At the National Archives, there was some structural damage, but important historical documents did not appear threatened, said Bernard Hadjadj, a special envoy for Unesco.
And a giant sculpture in front of the palace that features a man blowing a conch shell as he breaks the bonds of slavery, is surrounded by squatters but standing.
The art world also suffered heavy losses.
At an art center that played a crucial role in making Haitian paintings known around the world, the damage was severe.
Across the capital on Thursday, an artist raised his two bandaged hands in the air and let out a sound that was half sob, half roar.
More than his physical injuries, what seemed to pain the man, Paul Jude Camelot, a student at the École Nationale des Arts, was the damage to his latest creation, a painting of the universe that had had a clay sculpture representing life growing out of the center.
"That's about all I had left," he said.
Artists say they lost many of their colleagues in the quake, although nobody yet knows just how hard hit Haiti's creative community was.
Among the truths bared by the quake was the reality that, after so many years of government dysfunction, private groups and individuals had become some of the most important protectors of the country's treasures.
Many of the country's most valuable historical texts, for instance, were owned by individuals, and preserved at their homes — rather than under glass or in wood-walled libraries as they might have been in Washington or other moneyed capitals.
So last week, as they have done so many times since their country's latest tragedy struck, Haitians again stepped up to perform rescues themselves because other help was slow in coming.
Patrick Vilaire, a sculptor, met on Thursday night with others concerned about saving some of the country's legacy from looters or further building collapses. They put at the top of their agenda preserving the book collections at two private homes, a cache of irreplaceable history, political and economic texts from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Asked how he could focus on old books after such a catastrophic event, Mr. Vilaire said, "The dead are dead, we know that. But if you don't have the memory of the past, the rest of us can't continue living."
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By MARC LACEY
Published: January 23, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Long before its ground started heaving, Haiti was already a byword for a broken place. Its leaders were considered kleptocrats; its people were jaw-droppingly poor. But there was still a pride that burst forth from the people here, linked both to the country's heroic history and to the vibrant culture that united them and enabled them to endure.
Enlarge This Image
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Axelle Liautaud, an art dealer, removed a painting from the Centre d'Art in Port-au-Prince. "We had so much despite the fact that we're so poor," she said.
Multimedia
Interactive Feature
The Destruction in Port-au-Prince
Interactive Feature
Perspectives on Haiti's Earthquake
Related
Archbishop Killed in Quake Is Buried (January 24, 2010)
Haiti's Icon of Power, Now Palace for Ghosts (January 23, 2010)
Times Topics: Haiti
Haiti Disaster Relief: How to Contribute | Tips on Donating
More Multimedia on the Haiti Earthquake
Enlarge This Image
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
Art galleries like this one in Port-au-Prince were among the buildings destroyed by the earthquake on Jan. 12. Many irreplaceable cultural treasures were lost.
Now many of the symbols of that proud side of Haiti lie in ruins. The National Palace, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Supreme Court, all are in various states of collapse. Also devastated is the Episcopal Church's Holy Trinity Cathedral, known for its murals of Bible stories with all black figures.
The earthquake on Jan. 12 has caused untold suffering and has taken tens of thousands of lives — more than 150,000 bodies have been buried, according to a preliminary and undetailed government assessment on Saturday. The pain of the cultural loss cannot compare.
But in stealing symbols that gave Haitians their hope and grandeur and reminders of a common purpose, the earthquake cast a different kind of shadow over their future.
"Of course, we should care about the people first," said Axelle Liautaud, an art dealer who has been trying to save what is left of the murals. "But the reason why there is still a country, despite all our troubles, is our strong culture."
The landscape of the capital was in tatters long before this month's disaster, and many markers of the country's past had been looted and destroyed during the political upheavals that racked the country in recent decades.
But Haiti has always clung to its history, the struggle to break the bonds of slavery and become the world's first independent black republic, even if its governments have not done all they could to preserve that legacy.
Its vibrant arts scene celebrated the country's creation, and its public buildings sought to capture the elegance of a past that Haitians held onto though political trauma, staggering violence and a string of natural disasters.
That alone has made the depth of the destruction of Haiti's heritage hard to fully capture.
Teeluck Bhuwanee, the Unesco representative in Haiti, who has toured the city, is still having trouble fathoming what he saw. "You go around and you say, 'Oh my God,' and then you go further and you say it again," he said. "We haven't assessed all the damage at all the cultural sites, but we know it's bad."
The National Palace was the country's principal symbol, Haiti's White House, a grand building surrounded by iron gates, which dates back less than a century but was designed in a French Renaissance style. It was a building worthy of a country born after a slave revolt against its French colonial rulers.
The quake left the imposing structure shattered, its signature white domes collapsed, its Oval Office equivalent a total loss.
The palace had no permanent collection of artifacts, since leaders often stripped the place as they were chased out of office. But presidential aides said they were worried about irreplaceable artwork and sculptures that were on display in heavily damaged ceremonial rooms.
The saddest scenes were at the some of the places where Haitians go to pray, ornate churches filled with historical artifacts. At Holy Trinity Cathedral, the murals featuring Haitian renderings of biblical scenes on its interior walls now resemble an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.
The organ, which Haitians proudly say was one of the largest in the Caribbean, was smashed.
When Ms. Liautaud, the art dealer, heard that demolition crews were already lined up to clear the site, she scrambled to stop the work in hopes that bricks and shards of concrete containing portions of the murals could be pieced together again.
"We had so much despite the fact that we're so poor," Ms. Liautaud said. "Nothing that's new can replace what's old. Gone in a day. It's all gone."
Still, there were signs that at least some treasures could be resurrected. Experts think that the key collections at the country's National Museum, built underground in a park facing the National Palace, probably survived.
At the National Archives, there was some structural damage, but important historical documents did not appear threatened, said Bernard Hadjadj, a special envoy for Unesco.
And a giant sculpture in front of the palace that features a man blowing a conch shell as he breaks the bonds of slavery, is surrounded by squatters but standing.
The art world also suffered heavy losses.
At an art center that played a crucial role in making Haitian paintings known around the world, the damage was severe.
Across the capital on Thursday, an artist raised his two bandaged hands in the air and let out a sound that was half sob, half roar.
More than his physical injuries, what seemed to pain the man, Paul Jude Camelot, a student at the École Nationale des Arts, was the damage to his latest creation, a painting of the universe that had had a clay sculpture representing life growing out of the center.
"That's about all I had left," he said.
Artists say they lost many of their colleagues in the quake, although nobody yet knows just how hard hit Haiti's creative community was.
Among the truths bared by the quake was the reality that, after so many years of government dysfunction, private groups and individuals had become some of the most important protectors of the country's treasures.
Many of the country's most valuable historical texts, for instance, were owned by individuals, and preserved at their homes — rather than under glass or in wood-walled libraries as they might have been in Washington or other moneyed capitals.
So last week, as they have done so many times since their country's latest tragedy struck, Haitians again stepped up to perform rescues themselves because other help was slow in coming.
Patrick Vilaire, a sculptor, met on Thursday night with others concerned about saving some of the country's legacy from looters or further building collapses. They put at the top of their agenda preserving the book collections at two private homes, a cache of irreplaceable history, political and economic texts from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Asked how he could focus on old books after such a catastrophic event, Mr. Vilaire said, "The dead are dead, we know that. But if you don't have the memory of the past, the rest of us can't continue living."
Haití: hallan sobreviviente pese a controversial fin de rescates
| 2010-01-24 | El Diario NY
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Una menor carga agua al campo de refugiados donde permanecen los daminifacos del terremoto.(Foto: AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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Haití: Viviendo en la calle con hambre y desesperanza
Avidos de adoptar huérfanos
Se acumulan los cadáveres
Socorristas franceses rescataron a un hombre de 23 años que estuvo atrapado durante 11 días bajo los escombros de una verdulería luego del terremoto que arrasó la capital.
El hombre fue colocado sobre una camilla y le suministraron suero mientras lo atendían paramédicos franceses.
Previamente un médico pudo llegar hasta el hombre, al que se le suministró agua, dijo el teniente coronel Christophe Renou, miembro del equipo que trabajaba en el lugar.
"La vida no se detiene cuando lo dice un gobierno", declaró Renou. "Quedan algunas esperanzas, pero se necesitará suerte y la ayuda de Dios porque hay tantos edificios destruidos".
"Esto no significa que el gobierno les dirá que desistan. Si aparece la menor señal de vida, actuarán", dijo la vocera de la ONU Elisabeth Byrs. Añadió que "salvo algún milagro, lamentablemente las esperanzas se desvanecen".
Los equipos socorristas internacionales han rescatado a unas 132 personas de los escombros de edificios, precisó.
Mientras, cientos de personas se congregaron para el funeral del arzobispo de la capital, en una inusual ceremonia que simbolizó el duelo colectivo de una nación donde muchos de los muertos fueron enterrados en fosas comunes.
Durante la ceremonia de dos horas por monseñor Joseph Serge Miot y el vicario Charles Benoit, muchos entre los 2,000 dolientes lloraron a sus propios seres queridos.
| 2010-01-24 | El Diario NY
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Imprimir Enviar Comentar Guardar Vincular a
Una menor carga agua al campo de refugiados donde permanecen los daminifacos del terremoto.(Foto: AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
1/1
Haití: Viviendo en la calle con hambre y desesperanza
Avidos de adoptar huérfanos
Se acumulan los cadáveres
Socorristas franceses rescataron a un hombre de 23 años que estuvo atrapado durante 11 días bajo los escombros de una verdulería luego del terremoto que arrasó la capital.
El hombre fue colocado sobre una camilla y le suministraron suero mientras lo atendían paramédicos franceses.
Previamente un médico pudo llegar hasta el hombre, al que se le suministró agua, dijo el teniente coronel Christophe Renou, miembro del equipo que trabajaba en el lugar.
"La vida no se detiene cuando lo dice un gobierno", declaró Renou. "Quedan algunas esperanzas, pero se necesitará suerte y la ayuda de Dios porque hay tantos edificios destruidos".
"Esto no significa que el gobierno les dirá que desistan. Si aparece la menor señal de vida, actuarán", dijo la vocera de la ONU Elisabeth Byrs. Añadió que "salvo algún milagro, lamentablemente las esperanzas se desvanecen".
Los equipos socorristas internacionales han rescatado a unas 132 personas de los escombros de edificios, precisó.
Mientras, cientos de personas se congregaron para el funeral del arzobispo de la capital, en una inusual ceremonia que simbolizó el duelo colectivo de una nación donde muchos de los muertos fueron enterrados en fosas comunes.
Durante la ceremonia de dos horas por monseñor Joseph Serge Miot y el vicario Charles Benoit, muchos entre los 2,000 dolientes lloraron a sus propios seres queridos.
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