Just as Haiti seemed poised to turn the corner toward prosperity, it is hit by a horrific 7.0 earthquake. As this is written, the death toll is projected to top 50,000, thousands of building have been leveled, and virtually the entire infrastructure of the poorest nation in the Americas has been destroyed.
In addition, those who survived the quake face a severe lack of water and food and a critical need for medical supplies.
For decades, Haiti — a small French-speaking nation that shares a Caribbean island with the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic — has been hampered by a government that was either corrupt or incompetent or both. Good jobs were few and far between in the mountainous nation and extreme poverty was the norm instead of the exception.
But after decades of outbreaks of unrest and lawlessness, a fragile calm has been presided over by the United Nations, with 7,000 troops, 2,000 police and hundreds of humanitarian workers. President Rene Preval — who survived the quake although the presidential palace was destroyed — has been responsive to change and seemed to be making the right choices. Hope was being restored in Haiti.
Then came Tuesday’s earthquake. The Roman Catholic archbishop, the nation’s spiritual leader, was killed, and scores of hospitals, schools, churches, government buildings and even the central prison were destroyed. As bodies were being stacked in the streets, an unknown number of people remained trapped — or entombed — in collapsed buildings.
The U.N.’s local headquarters was a casualty of the quake, whose epicenter was only 10 miles outside the capital of Port-au-Prince. The U.N. special envoy also was killed along with 37 other U.N. workers. More than 300 are still missing.
Despite the progress made in recent years, it took just a few minutes to send poor Haiti back to square one.
Fortunately, the world’s response was quick. President Barack Obama dispatched a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to the island and pledged $10 million in emergency aid. A small contingent of U.S ground troops has been sent to the island. The scale of the response reflects the scale of the task: Doctors, search-and-rescue teams, sniffer dogs, rubble-clearing specialists, engineers are all critically needed.
Unlike the tsunami, this is a major natural disaster in America’s backyard. That makes the response of our government and, more importantly, our people even more critical.
The progress toward prosperity that Haiti has made in recent years has been erased. An impoverished people who have almost nothing now have even less. They need our help — and our prayers.
