Haiti Quake Updates

It was a relief to read the sign on the wall: no dead bodies after 3.30 pm. My watch showed it was 4pm. Thankfully, when I poked my head into the morgue at the Hôpital Universitē de l’Ētat de Haiti, also known as the General Hospital, the room was empty.

Outside, though, the ground was grimly sticky underfoot – a reminder of how many bodies had been taken to the public morgue for disposal since the earthquake that struck Haiti nearly two weeks ago.

I’d come to the public hospital, one of the largest  in Haiti, to look at the work Oxfam had been doing there. My colleague, Karine Deniel, a public health specialist, focussing on preparedness and emergency response work, had been called to the hospital the week before.

She had been visibly shocked by what she saw: the hospital was packed with more than 1,000 patients, many of whom were surgery cases. There was no running water and no electricity.

Outside the morgue, she said, piles of bodies wree laid out covered with flies. There was no water close by for doctors to make plaster casts for those with broken limbs; and water she saw in a bucket used to mop the floor was black. “It smelled bad; it smelt of death”, she said.

Oxfam installed a 5,000 liter water bladder in the hospital, and also trucked water to the site so that soiled surgery clothes and bedding could be washed, the kitchen could re-open, and workers in the morgue could wash down the floors, and lessen the putrefying sickly smell of corpses.

“Oxfam has helped”, said Hencia Josena, one of the laundrywomen. “Before we had no water, no soap.”

Staff told me nothing could be washed in the hospital after the earthquake struck until Oxfam trucked in water more than a week later. “Before Oxfam came it was a mess,” said laundry operator, Jean-Robert Deus. “In the surgery room, doctors had blood stains over their clothes.”

Many patients still remain outside the main hospital buildings, many of which were badly destroyed, being treated in tents. They’re scared to go indoors, for fear of after-shocks.

The dedication of staff working there both impressed and humbled me. From the laundry washers, to the kitchen staff, to the steady stream of volunteer medics like George Williams, from New York City, who works in the triage area.

“As bad as things are, this is the best humanitarian effort that I have ever seen,” he told me, also praising the “phenomenal” Haitian doctors he had worked with. “It’s the spirit, the humanitarian effort reaching out from all over the world.”

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A Christmas tree with tinsel lay forlornly on the ground with what looked like small presents around that had scattered onto the floor. Next to it, a table was laid out with plates, food and cutlery as though the family were ready to come back for dinner. I could see all this clearly as the front wall of the house had exploded and was pushed out onto the street exposing the family dining room.

It had been like this for the last four days, ever since Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, was hit by a devastating earthquake, said my colleague. Whether the inhabitants of the house, surrounded by collapsed buildings and debris, would ever come back was quite another question.

It's estimated that two million people were affected by the massive earthquake that hit the Haitian capital earlier this week. Thousands are thought to have been killed, many were injured and the rest of the city's dazed residents are still reeling from the shock of it all.

Many walk the streets, some barefoot, balancing on their heads bags containing what belongings they could grab before they fled and clutching plastic containers for water. Large numbers are also wearing masks to stop inhaling the thick grey smoke that lingered long after the quake. The masks also offered some protection from the thick stench of dead bodies that lined the streets in the immediate aftermath of the quake and are still turning up wrapped in sheets or pieces of clothing.

It's thought as many as 30,000 may have been killed in the earthquake while others are still trapped under the debris of collapsed buildings.

Some foreign search and rescue crews who had been working to recover those trapped under wrecked buildings at what was the capital's top hotel, the Montana, told me that cries could still be heard from those buried beneath the rubble across the capital.

Some aid is now getting through to the city. Much of it is coming by truck from the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Some supplies have started to be flown in via the capital's airport which was affected by the quake and has reopened for humanitarian flights after several days of closure

The aid agency Oxfam is flying in emergency experts and is starting to distribute water at some of the large makeshift camps that have sprung up at parks and outdoor areas and hospitals.

The needs are enormous as most basic services just aren't functioning. At the best of times, daily life in Haiti for the 80% or so of the population who have to live on less than two dollars a day, is a daily struggle.

The impact of the quake has made things even worse.

Haiti needs more than a quick fix of emergency aid. It will be many years before the country can really get back on its feet again and fully recover from this massive shock.

Follow Caroline Gluck on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@carooxfam

Caroline is a Field-based press officer for Oxfam humanitarian team, former BBC correspondent.