Saturday, 11 August 2012

How You Can Help With Reconstruction After An Earthquake

By Jasmine Cummings


After the devastating 2010 earthquake that left over 300 000 Haitian citizens dead and more than a million without shelter, the island country is still struggling to get back on its feet. The magnitude 7 quake, which mainly impacted on the capital city and surrounding areas, has devastated the country. Despite assistance from international governments, the path is Haiti reconstruction has a long way to go.

The earthquake first struck in a small settlement with few fatalities, but aftershocks soon spread to the nearby capital city where the massive quake was extremely destructive, leading to devastating loss of life and damage to homes and other structures in the city including landmark buildings.

Directly following the incident, countries from across the globe responded promptly with humanitarian aid including medical and rescue teams, engineers and support staff. As the need for acute humanitarian aid subsided, the goal shifted to rebuilding the devastated country.

An emergency envoy from the United Nations was sent to the island to determine what the priorities for recovery would be. It was decided that the most pressing problems were to rebuild a working government, clean up the streets and find and remove the bodies of the victims.

Despite these aims, however, the country remained a mess more than 6 months after the incident, with the vast majority of the rubble yet to be cleared. The widespread devastation and obstruction made the city difficult to navigate, and hundreds of thousands of people remained homeless.

Still today, more than 2 years after the tragedy, the island has not come close to recovering. More than 500 000 Haitians are still homeless, living in tents or under tarpaulins, and less than half of the money pledged by the US has actually been delivered for recovery. Every citizen can still make a difference by offering a donation or even just their time to assist in haiti Reconstruction, to help the people affected by this natural disaster to recover.




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