Very shocked that no one posted this yet. Hundreds of thousands are dead, as no one was spared:
Haiti earthquake: Port-au-Prince rocked by 7.0 quake; buildings collapse, hundreds feared dead
Originally Published:Tuesday, January 12th 2010, 5:29 PM
Updated: Wednesday, January 13th 2010, 2:05 AM
A devastating quake left Haiti's capital in ruins, knocking down hospitals, high-rises, and churches Tuesday - and leveling the presidential palace.
"There must be thousands of people dead," Catholic Relief Services representative Karel Zelenka told colleagues by phone, just before service went out.
"People were screaming 'Jesus, Jesus' and running in all directions," said Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva from the capital Port-au-Prince. "It's total chaos."
"The whole city is in darkness, you have thousands of people sitting in the streets, with nowhere to go," said Rachmani Domersant of the relief group Food for the Poor.
He and others have reported many downtown buildings collapsed in the city of 2 million, including the parliament, UN headquarters and other other official buildings.
Photographs showed the famed domed presidential palace almost completely destroyed.
President Rene Preval was not hurt, said Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the U.S.
"It's going to be a major catastrophe when we start to count the dead," said Joseph.
The extent of the horror was only beginning to emerge. Near-complete power failures left Haiti, an impoverished island nation of 8million, largely cut off from the world.
Efforts to rescue the injured and trapped were described as desperate. People were clawing at the debris with their bare hands, trying to save loved ones, witnesses said.
In the hilly neighborhood of Petionville, where a hospital fell on top of screaming patients, a visiting U.S. federal official said he saw a number of homes collapsed into a ravine.
"The sky is just gray with dust," Henry Bahn said. "I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
Haitian immigrants in New York City and elsewhere were frantically trying to contact relatives back home - and having no luck getting through.
The magnitude-7.0 quake hitright near Port-au-Prince at 4:53 p.m. and is believed to be the strongest quake in Haiti in more than 200 years. Two powerful aftershocks measuring 5.9 and 5.5 soon followed, further damaging structures weakened by the initial quake.
The quake struck just as Haiti was starting to show the first signs of recovery from the relentless battering of Hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike in 2008, which killed hundreds and left 800,000 people homeless.
Famed Haitian musician Wyclef Jean, who has worked to improve conditions in his homeland, said he feared what will follow this "human disaster" - including looting.
"Idle hands will only make this tragedy worse," he warned.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
