'Painful days ahead' as Haitians struggle to count lives lost in quake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI

Haitian officials slowly tallied the dead and disappeared in remote villages on Thursday, after the toll from last weekend's devastating earthquake passed 2,000 and Prime Minister Ariel Henry warned the Caribbean nation faced painful times ahead.

In the small town of Cavaillon, local officials huddled over pieces of paper where they recorded the number of damaged houses, schools and churches in each of the surrounding villages, along with the number of dead and missing.

"We think there are still bodies in the ruins because we can smell them from underneath the rubble," said Jean Mary Naissant, one of the officials of Cavaillon, which is near the southern city of Les Cayes, one of the areas worst hit by the earthquake.

Haiti's Civil Protection agency, which coordinates the emergency response, said late on Wednesday the death toll from Saturday's powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake had risen to 2,189, with most of the fatalities in the country's south, and that the number of wounded stood at 12,200.

The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti is still recovering from a calamitous 2010 quake that killed over 200,000. The latest disaster struck just weeks after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated on July 7, plunging the nation of 11 million people into political turmoil.

According to the tallies for Cavaillon and the small villages that belong to it, there were 53 fatalities and more than 2,700 wounded in the area. But there were still 21 people unaccounted for six days after the quake, local officials said.

Residents had staged a protest on Monday to demand more assistance to dig out the collapsed buildings, Naissant said, but government help had yet to arrive from the capital, some 180 km to the east.

A village market and hotel nearby were bustling with people when the quake struck on Saturday morning, reducing the area to a great heap of shattered cement and twisted iron rods.

Residents had managed to recover two bodies from the site, said Jimmy Amazan, another local official, but the stench that emanated from underneath the pile during the rescue efforts suggested there were more that were beyond reach.

Prime Minister Henry said in a video message late on Wednesday that the whole country was physically and mentally devastated.

"Our hearts are tearing apart; some of our compatriots are still under the rubble," he said, appealing for the troubled nation to come together at a time of crisis. "The days ahead will be difficult and often painful."

Several days since the earthquake, scant aid has arrived in remote areas across the country's south, according to residents and Reuters witnesses.

In Camp-Perrin, another rural town inland from Les Cayes, more than 100 displaced people, including children and disabled residents, were camped out in a field under the cover of trees after their homes were destroyed by the quake.

A mudslide from two nights of heavy rain earlier this week had partially blocked the main road leading to the area. Any more precipitation could lead to the road being impassable, locals said. 

More from International News

  • Russia and Ukraine complete largest prisoner swap

    Russia and Ukraine completed the exchange of 1,000 prisoners each on Sunday, the Russian Defence Ministry and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, in the largest such swap since the war began three years ago.

  • North Korea detains officials over warship accident

    North Korea has detained shipyard officials responsible for a recent major accident during the launch of a new warship, state media said on Sunday.

  • At least 13 killed in Russian air attack on Ukraine

    Russian forces launched a barrage of 367 drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities overnight, including the capital Kyiv, in the largest aerial attack of the war so far, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more, officials said.

  • Russia, Ukraine swap 307 soldiers on second day of POW exchange

    Russia and Ukraine each exchanged 307 of their service personnel on Saturday on the second day of a prisoner exchange that, when completed, is set to be the largest such swap in the three-year war between the two countries. U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested the prisoner swap - which should see 1,000 prisoners released on each side over three days - could herald a new phase in stop-start efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Saturday's swap was announced by Russia's defence ministry, and separately by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a post on social

  • Police probe arson attack in France power outage

    French police were investigating a possible arson attack as being the main cause for a power outage which hit the Alpes-Maritimes region in southern France on Saturday, including Cannes which is hosting its world-famous annual film festival.

News