PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The strongest earthquake in more than 200 years rocked Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help and heavily damaging the National Palace, U.N. peacekeeper headquarters and other buildings. U.S. officials reported bodies in the streets and an aid official described "total disaster and chaos."
United Nations officials said a large number of U.N. personnel were unaccounted for.
Communications were widely disrupted, making it impossible to get a full picture of damage as powerful aftershocks shook a desperately poor country where many buildings are flimsy. Electricity was out in some places.
Karel Zelenka, a Catholic Relief Services representative in Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues before phone service failed that "there must be thousands of people dead," according to a spokeswoman for the aid group, Sara Fajardo.
"He reported that it was just total disaster and chaos, that there were clouds of dust surrounding Port-au-Prince," Fajardo said from the group's offices in Maryland.
"Buildings collapsed all over the place," he said. "We have lives that are destroyed. ... It will take at least two or three days for people to know what's going on."
An Associated Press videographer saw the wrecked hospital in Petionville, a hillside Port-au-Prince district that is home to many diplomats and wealthy Haitians, as well as many poor people. Elsewhere in the capital, a U.S. government official reported seeing houses that had tumbled into a ravine.
With phones down, some of the only communication came from social media such as Twitter. Richard Morse, a well-known musician who manages the famed Olafson Hotel, kept up a stream of dispatches on the aftershocks and damage reports.
The news, based mostly on second-hand reports and photos, was disturbing, with people screaming in fear and roads blocked with debris. Belair, a slum even in the best of times, was said to be "a broken mess."
The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centred about 10 miles (15 kilometres) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometres), the U.S. Geological Survey said.
USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.
The temblor appeared to have occurred along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other, said earthquake expert Tom Jordan at the University of Southern California. The earthquake's size and proximity to populated Port-au-Prince likely caused widespread casualties and structural damage, he said.
"It's going to be a real killer," he said. "Whenever something like this happens, you just hope for the best."
President Barack Obama ordered U.S. officials to start preparing in case humanitarian assistance was needed.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said his government planned to send a military aircraft carrying canned foods, medicine and drinking water and also would dispatch a team of 50 rescue workers
Haitian musician Wyclef Jean urged his fans to donate to earthquake relief efforts, saying he had received text messages from his homeland reporting that many people had died.
"We must think ahead for the aftershock, the people will need food, medicine, shelter, etc.," Jean said on his Web site.
Brazil's government was trying to re-establish communications with its embassy and military personnel in Haiti late Tuesday, according to the G1 Web site of Globo TV. Brazil leads a 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force there.
Felix Augustin, Haiti's consul general in New York, said he was concerned about everyone in Haiti, including his relatives.
"Communication is absolutely impossible," he said. "I've been trying to call my ministry and I cannot get through. ... It's mind-boggling."
I received this message in my inbox on facebook today from my friend Andrea Stewart: It says: I'm not normally one to send forward-type emails, but thought this one was kind of fun! Some fun is going on.... just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men .... It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status... Haha
It spread like wildfire and the one response that made me laugh for about 5 minutes this afternoon was this one from my friend Jeff MacMillan: Oh... I see everyone is playing a color game... Okay... I pick Gold, the color of real wealth and if you are paying attention at all to this world... you would have some. But everyone thinks I'm crazy... here's a nice video that explains just about everything that is wrong with the economy and politics. But none of you will watch it, because it is two hours long and "You don't have time" Gonna have time when it costs $200 for a loaf of bread?
I took the day off today to drive my dad to the airport. I suspected it would take forever to get through the line up and I was right! The biggest excitement was when some lady showed up after we had been in line for about 45 minutes and was so shocked at the length of the line that she insisted to see a supervisor. The dumb ass supervisor decided to let her skip the whole line to just get her to shut up which ended up pissing the rest of the line up. Not a very smart customer service decision by KLM!
We got him to the security gate after about an hour and a half and said our goodbyes. I really want to see the new AVATAR movie in IMAX 3D so I talked my mom into going for dinner and then going to check out the movie with me. I decided to go pick up tickets before we headed to dinner in case it was still busy and it was SOLD OUT for all the shows tonight! I still went for dinner with my mom and we have a plan to go some time this weekend. I REALLY want to see that movie - I have heard amazing things about it.
I got the kind of call at work today that you just never want to get. It was my mom at the other end not sounding very happy at all saying there was bad news. My cousin Arco had just called to let us know that his father, my uncle Jan, had passed away.
They think he had a heart attack... they are not sure when. Jan did not show up for work on Monday or Tuesday and people started to get worried. The police went to check on him and he was found in his apartment. That part makes me sad... I wish he wasn't alone... I wish there was somebody there to call an ambulance. I wonder if they are going to find me like that one day.
Uncle Jan was DEFINITELY my closest relative on my dad's side of the family. My dad moved to Canada from Holland in his early twenties and married my mother in Canada. After the wedding the family went to Holland few times to meeet all of our relatives and cousins, and the family in Holland made a few trips to Canada - but Uncle Jan MOVED to Canada and even moved in with my parents for a few years. I was already out of the house by then but my little brother Kent was still at home and was Jan's roommate in the basement at my parents home.
Jan was a happy, eccentric man when he arrived. There was a joke that you better not go for a walk with Uncle Jan because everyone who did came back "in love" (even if they were related!) it was odd to say the least but still kind of funny. My Uncle Jan eventually married his cousin Joan - it was a memorable ceremony like none I had ever been to before - it was Ba'hai and there was no booze... well at MOST of the tables... at our table me and my dutch cousins had figured out a way to "spice up" our beverages! It was a nice ceremony and a really great day.
The relationship broke down after a few years and as I said Jan decided to stay in Calgary and moved into my parents basement. My brother Kent was in his EARLY twenties at the time and it was funny that he was now sharing his space with his eccentric dutch uncle who had a habit of hanging around the house in his tighty whitey underwear - it was humorous for us (not so much for Kent) when he would bring friends and girls home after the bar. Jan also shared a passion for singing with my dad. I remember walking into my parents home and hearing the two of them downstairs on the organ practicing away (bright and early right outside my brothers bedroom door lol). I saw bits of Jan in my dad and bits of my dad's personality in Jan. They were close brothers and while they disagreed about quite a few things they sure enjoyed each other and you could see and hear the love! Jan was a smart man - he read a lot - he studied SO many things (both practical and spiritual) - he had unique tastes for fancy ports and unfiltered cigars - could be so happy and so grumpy depending on when you caught him - undeniably he was passionate... and we will miss him!
Rest in Peace Uncle Jan... I hope you are somewhere much better than this world... and I hope you are sitting with Oma, Opa, Uncle Pim, and his little sister Alli (1) somewhere enjoying their company and having a beer. You were loved and you will be missed terribly.
I am at work today. I came in last night to cover off and agreed to stay until the houseparents get back from their Christmas Holidays at 4pm.
I decided to start taking down the decorations and started with the Christmas Tree Stars. The Christmas Stars was a new idea that I came up with this year and that I absolutely love. At the beginning of December one of the youth at the house moved out into one of our more independent programs which left a bed open at Wellington. The intake process did not end up going well for the open bed and I was predicting the month may get pretty chaotic so we decided to take the opportunity to celebrate the kids and staff at the program and just what a great group we have. I thought that it would be good to boost ourselves and do some team building BEFORE the stress started! We gathered around with cut out stars and christmas trees and wrote down appreciative messages. It was really awesome to be able to randomly pull messages and read them over the holidays and today I read them all over again as I took them off the tree. I think we should do this again next year!
These were my messages from this year: Sasha, you are a great listener/advice giver and you have a great laugh Sasha you are such a positive person and always make me laugh Sasha Thanks for being always willing to help. Sasha you share a lot of ideas, appreciate your non-ending humor Sasha Thank you for your help with YAP. Thanks for your rides and spending time with me. Sasha I love your food prep stories + experiences Tim Sasha. The greatest schemer ever!
Well it is the first day of a brand new year! I have a new years resolution to get back to journalling so I am going to post - even when I don't feel like I have anything to post about!
I am not working today and am having a really lazy day overall. I was up until about 5am so I had a late start and stayed in bed until about 12:30 when I was awoken to the sound of my cell phone going off. It rang a few times so I thought I should get up to see who was calling. It was my weekend relief staff at the group home wanting permission to go to a movie and by the time I returned the call they had called my boss and got the okay. The stove stopped working two days ago so they also wanted to go to McDonald's today and order a pizza tomorrow... it made me cranky... I told them if my boss already said yes to all their request then whatever but that I really can't understand why no one can figure out how to feed themselves using the microwave and crockpot that they seem to be able to use every other day. And so the year begins :)
I spent most of the rest of the day (as I seem to do most days off) just browsing around on the internet. I watched an interesting documentary on youtube called "Who Killed The Electric Car" about General Motor's EV1 and the way the whole program and the production of electric cars in general was eliminated (not proven but obviously due to pressure from the oil and gas industry). It reminded me of the CF-105 Avro Arrow that the Canadian government abandoned in February 1959 despite it's success and development putting Canada in the lead of the race to space. It just doesn't make sense - it stinks of corruption, greed, and evil - it makes me sad.
I am going to clean the house up a bit and go for a long shower now... and welcome in a bright clean hopeful 2010!
