Haiti Earthquake Facts and Statistics - Death toll and Relief Efforts

[Kofi]

More heartbreaking facts about Haiti earthquake reveal that the island victims are still in a miserable condition. Around 16,000 US troops have been deputed in the area now to help out the survivors. However, other facts reveal that millions of dollars have been collected by various agencies following flash appeals.

Aid and humanitarian efforts continue to come in and according to a latest press release by a spokesperson for the UN, the results of flash appeals as well international appeals are more than encouraging. So far, $575 million have been collected by agencies such as UNICEF, World Food Program and number of NGOs out of which, $195 million resulted of flash appeal alone.

Another $112 million have been reportedly pledged and the agencies look forward for more cooperation from rich countries since still there’s acute shortage of food, water and medical assistance in the calamity hit island of Haiti. So far, nearly 200,000 people have benefited from the World Food Program since they have delivered millions of meals to Haitians already yet it seems to be pretty insufficient for a total number of 3 million people affected.

Good news for the Haitians is that a ‘cash for work’ program by the UN worth $40 million has been announced through a UN press release yesterday. The fund has been allocated to encourage young people to come forward to help clear the rubble since it is hoped there would still be some dead or alive people underneath.

According to the latest updates on medical assistance facilities in Haiti and Port-au-Prince in particular, there are several makeshift operational hospitals working and providing the aid on day-night basis. Number of UN troops has reached to 16,000 now since additional 4,000 troops joined the existing force last day.

HELP SAVE HAITI! HELP NOW!

The Haitian government called-off the rescue team two weeks ago thinking that nobody could be alive at that time but to our surprise, a man was pulled alive yesterday after nearly 5 weeks after the quake. I still believe there are some survivors under the rubles

here is the full story:
"
A man who has been pulled alive from the rubble of a marketplace in Port-au-Prince may have been trapped there since the devastating earthquake struck the Haitian capital 28 days ago.



The 28-year-old, identified as Evans Muncie, was found under the remains of the Croix Bossal market where he sold rice. He had not been seen since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake levelled the city on January 12, killing over 200,000 people.
Mr Muncie was discovered by people who had been digging at the marketplace. He was taken to an American field hospital in Port-au-Prince where he was treated for severe dehydration and malnutrition.
Doctors said Mr Muncie was very disorientated and at times thought he was still under the rubble while he was being treated at the tent hospital


It could not be confirmed exactly how long Mr Muncie was trapped but his family said he had been missing since January 12.
His mother said: "I thought he was dead, but God kept him from dying."
Dr Mike Connelly told CNN, the American news network: "He was emaciated. He hadn't had anything in quite some time. He had open wounds that were festering on both of his feet."
According to CNN, Mr Muncie told doctors that somebody in a white coat had occasionally brought him water, however it is not known whether he had been hallucinating.
He also said he could hear bulldozers around him working to demolish damaged buildings while he lay underneath the rubble near by.
Dr Connelly said Mr Muncie must have had access to water to have survived the entire four weeks trapped under a building.
"Initially, I'm sure he had his senses with him, so maybe he was able to find some kind of resources," Dr Connelly told CNN.
The US network showed photographs of Mr Muncie being treated by doctors.
Despite the Haitian Government calling for an end to search and rescue operations on January 23, survivors continued to be pulled from the rubble in the following days.
On January 27, 16-year-old Daline Etienne was rescued from beneath the debris of her house, 15 days after the earthquake had forced the building to collapse on top of her.
The rescue of the teenager, who appeared in relatively good health, was deemed a miracle."

[Truth]

A new study says that the Haitian earthquake caused 14 billion dollars in damage, and some experts are calling that estimate conservative. The Inter-American Development Bank says it is the most devastating natural disaster for any country since World War II. The bank compared the earthquake to 17,000 other natural disasters.

The Bank terms the Haitian earthquake the most devastating because of the proportion of damage it did to the country's total economic output. 117 percent of Haiti's annual economic output was damaged. For the tsunami of 2004, only four percent of Indonesia's economic output was damaged.

From the Washington Post, writer Mary Beth Sheridan gets some reaction to the study.

The U.S. government has committed over $500 million for relief efforts in Haiti since the Jan. 12 earthquake, and the Obama administration is expected to soon ask Congress for special funding for reconstruction there. Officials said the exact amount of the request hadn't been determined. But congressional sources said they expected it to be $1 billion or more.

Mark Schneider, who coordinated the American response to Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998, said $14 billion was "a relatively conservative figure" in estimating Haiti's reconstruction costs, since new structures cost more than old ones did.

He noted that about $6.3 billion was spent on rebuilding areas hit by Mitch, which killed about 10,000 people. The Haiti quake left at least 200,000 dead.

"You have the central political and economic core of the country essentially destroyed," said Schneider, who is now vice president of the International Crisis Group.

He said the U.S. government provided about $1 billion in aid to countries battered by Mitch, and should commit $3 billion to Haiti as part of a long-term commitment.

The development-bank study found that the death toll in the earthquake in Haiti dwarfed the toll in other natural disasters on a per-capita basis. Roughly 25,000 of every million Haitians died, compared with 772 deaths per million Indonesians in the 2004 tsunami, the report said.