DEATH TOLL FROM EARTHQUAKE IN HAITI RISES TO 2,207

Mon 23 August 2021:

The number of people killed by the 7.2-magnitude earthquake on Aug. 14 in Haiti has risen to 2,207, with 344 still missing, the country’s civil protection agency reported on Sunday.

The agency said on Twitter that a week after the earthquake, which also left at least 12,268 injured, the number of damaged homes exceeded 77,000, while almost 53,000 were destroyed.

The epicenter of quake was 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) northeast of Saint-Louis-du-Sud at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).

The country, which has suffered huge devastation and tremors, has called for international help.

Recovery efforts have also been impeded by flooding and damage to access roads, feeding tensions in some of the hardest-hit areas. In places, desperate crowds have scuffled over bags of food.

The collapse of churches in some of the worst-affected towns and villages of the impoverished Caribbean nation left residents to grieve in open fields.

In the hard-hit city of Les Cayes, meanwhile, some attended outdoor church services on Sunday because sanctuaries had been badly damaged by the earthquake, which was centred on the impoverished nation’s southwestern peninsula.

US aid organisation Samaritan’s Purse opened a field hospital in Les Cayes, one of the big cities in the worst-hit area, and took in its first patients.

German aid organisation ISAR Germany has also sent a team of 33 doctors, nurses and orderlies, along with 11 tonnes of material.

One of the world’s most deadly earthquakes in the last century occurred in Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010. 

According to official figures, 316,000 people died and 300,000 were injured in the magnitude-7.0 quake that struck the south of the country.

Around 1.3 million people were left homeless in the aftermath.

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