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Live Updates from Action Against Hunger's emergency response in Haiti
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January 20th
6pm Port-au-Prince: Update from Lucile Grosjean
"This morning, we were woken up by an aftershock measuring 6.1.on the Richter scale. Despite sleeping outside, we all started running because we were afraid that the walls of the house would collapse. We heard screams from the street but thankfully they were more out of fear than harm. We had a short meeting and then we continued our work. We cannot afford to loose any time.
The water and sanitation team split into groups: one team is in charge of managing the water tankers to ensure we regularly refill the water reservoirs; another team is evaluating sites for additional water reservoirs; another is in charge of launching our sanitation activities: installing portable latrines and digging trenches.
A fourth team is charged with coordinating with other aid agencies and the local authorities. In an emergency such as this coordination is crucial to ensure the effective distribution of aid. Another team is responsible for organising the water distribution in rural areas and towns outside Port-au-Prince, including Leogane. And then there is a team that is helping with the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the city’s water network. The team spirit is amazing and everyone is working as hard as possible to provide water to as many people as quickly as possible.
The same goes for the food security teams: their challenge is to organise orderly and effective food distributions.
It will take a long time to deal with the consequences of this disaster. How will the people of Haiti be able to cope? When travelling through the town there are children smiling, men offering to help us, and families who are living from hand to mouth. Everyone is active. It seems as if life is going on.
But the population will bear the scars of this disaster forever. Today’s aftershock caused further fear and shows how traumatised people are. People are trying to understand why this is happening to them. Rumours are circulating around the town that they have been cursed because Haiti made a deal with the Devil. Another rumour is that the world will end before 2012.
At lunchtime an architect comes to inspect our damaged guest house. He tells us we can move back into the ground floor, but the entire first floor has been destroyed. Like everyone else, we prefer to be on the safe side and sleep outside. Once bitten, twice shy.
Logistics continue to be a nightmare. There’s no fuel, we need more cars, communication networks are not reliable and we need more supplies. All our relief equipment has to be transported from Santo Domingo and it is simply taking too long. The more time lost, the longer the urgency remains: gradually the smell of the bodies gives way to that of the waste left in the open air. The race against time continues.
Once again, I am moved by the motivation of our team. In contrast to what the press is portraying, people are calm and grateful for all our efforts. The scale of this disaster is simply monumental but we are able to scale up our activities every day."
January 19th
Our latest update from Lucile in Port-au-Prince:
"The day began as normal, between 5 and 6am. Everyone started working on their computers, reading correspondence coming in from headquarters and our collagues in Gonaives. Meanwhile, the water and sanitation teams began loading the equipment into the vehicles. Suddenly we began hearing noises from the street: nearly 200 people were gathering outside the office, all looking for work. The day before, we had spread word that we were looking for additional logisticians, engineers and nurses.
On the other side of the garden a brief was taking place for the water and sanitation teams.
One week into the disaster, a general meeting was organised for all the Port-au-Prince staff before everyone went out to continue our activities. A minute’s silence was observed in memory of the earthquake victims, all of the affected families and our colleague. Only a helicopter flying overhead interrupted the silence. It was the first time that everyone had got together since the disaster, and even though everyone is now involved in round-the-clock-action, the level of emotion is still very high.
An the everyone spread throughout the city. Some attended coordination meetings at the UN base, others continued our assessments on the periphery of the city – it’s essential that we don’t concentrate solely in Port-au-Prince as rural areas have also been affected. Martha, one of our water experts, is working with firemen from the Dominican Republic, who have donated several unneeded tank trucks to provide water to the different water points. Today, 80,000 litres of water have been distributed around the city!
Oscar, a nutritionist, has been out recruiting all day. In a school courtyard next to Champs de Mars, where more than 25 000 people have congregated, he’s been testing the skills and knowledge of all those who have turned up. It is important that people have the necessary skills to carry out our nutrition activities. They will be looking after babies and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers, and all our programmes need to meet our nutrition and health protocols. Only those with the necessary experience will be able to join the team.
Mohamed has been preparing the food distributions. In view of the large number of people in the city and security risks, all food distributions have to be carefully organised. The distribution is divided up into small neighbourhoods, with management committees responsible for managing the queues. Today they made a list of all the families who have set up makeshift shelters in the Champs de Mars neighbourhood – more than 4,000 families, each with at least 6 family members.
We’ve had some good news today. Caroline finalised an agreement with the World Food Programme. They will give us 172,000 kg of food to distribute, in addition to the 52,000 kg we’ve already received from Santo Domingo.
Abel is in charge of organising the logistics of this freight. It’s not been an easy task. There have been problems all day: finding trucks, the lack of fuel, finding a storage area and then moving all of the freight to the new warehouse – and all this needs to be solved without proper means of communication.
But it’s important to focus on the good news, especially when everyone feels the task is endless. The scale of needs is incredible – camps containing several thousands of people have popped up everywhere. The number of water points installed is growing by the day. The logistics team have gathered nearly 1,500 emergency kits, each containing tarpaulins, blankets, soap, buckets etc. And despite the trauma, the residents of Port-au-Prince are extremely resilient and everyone is helping each other.
By the end of the day, everyone gradually returned to the office for the day’s debriefing. Small meetings were organised to collate the information gathered over the course of the day, proposals were finalised and next steps prepared. Three more scolleagues joined us from Europe today.
Despite the confined space, the very basic living conditions, the increasing tiredness and the horrors experienced every day in the city, the atmosphere is good. We also talked to our colleagues in Gonaives, suing the satellite phone. More and more people are moving towards the bigger towns. Today, we set up water points in the Gonaives’s overcrowded hospitals. It’s just one drop more in this vast ocean of needs, but gradually, we will get there."
January 18th
12pm Port-au-Prince: The logistics teams is preparing everything for the arrival of another cargo plane carrying 87 tons of water and sanitation equipment and food aid. Relief supplies include 4 water treatment units, 45 tons of protein biscuits to provide for the nutritional needs of 18,000 children under five years old , two extra cars donated by Citroen to replace the cars damaged by the earthquake, 12,000 buckets for water storage as well as face masks, gloves, and protective gear to ensure the safety of our teams as they work in dangerous, unsanitary conditions.
2pm London: We receive the following testimony from Oscar Serrano, our Health and Nutrition Coordinator in Haiti
“I am currently sitting in a makeshift office as our offices were destroyed during the earthquake. The first floor collapsed but apart from a few bruises, thankfully nobody was seriously hurt so we are able to focus our full attention on the rescue effort.
We’ve set up a makeshift office and are sleeping in tents. It is too dangerous to work or sleep in the guest house where our international staff were based as the building is at risk of collapsing. We’ve put up a large makeshift tent and are using batteries and generators to keep the office running.
The resilience of our national colleagues is to be applauded. They’ve suffered great emotional trauma and have lost their homes and loved ones. And yet those who are able to, continue their work with Action Against Hunger to ensure food and water is delivered to the displacement camps as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, our psychologists are supporting them as best as possible.
Today we continued conducting field visits and recruiting additional health workers and nutritionists to help run our nutrition programmes. Finding suitable candidates is not easy but we are getting there.
People are desperate and their needs are immense. Wherever possible, they’ve set up makeshift tents with whatever they were able to find, including blankets, plastic sheets and mattresses recovered from the rubble.
Half of the city is completely destroyed. Over 80,000 people have already been pronounced dead but many are believed to still be trapped and those that have survived are still at risk from disease and a lack of food and water.
One of the girls that we are working alongside is Germaine, a nursing student who has been our translator when conversing with the locals. Tragically, she was one of only 12 to survive from her class of 81 when the classroom collapsed five floors during the earthquake. She remained trapped overnight but has escaped free of any injuries. Her sister, also a student, was less fortunate.”
17th January
9am Port-au-Prince: Our teams continue distributing drinking water to the quake survivors in three priority zones for water distributions: the Canape Vert district, where some 9,000 people have gathered, the Champ de Mars district where 20,000 displaced have congregated and the stadium.
Meanwhile, another team is assessing the situation in the Croiz-Deprez neighbourhood where two makeshift tented camps have sprung up, one counting 60 tents and the other 45. It is very likely that the camps will grow rapidly. Our teams pin down a location to set up another water reservoir. The area is accessible via road, enabling our team to regularly fill the reservoir by tanker trucks bringing clean water from outside Port-au-Prince. The team is also working with other actors to start restoring water distribution networks by repairing pipes and infrastructure for longer term sustainability.
Our teams are also still awaiting authorisation from the National Directorate of Water in Port-au-Prince to dig trenches around the camps to dispose of the accumulating waste and human feces which can quickly become real public health threats.
12pm Port-au-Prince: Action Against Hunger’s teams are preparing to launch nutritional programmes to provide assistance to young infants. "In an emergency situations such as this, stress and trauma can temporarily interfere with the flow of breast milk. In such a situation, it is important to create conditions that facilitate breastfeeding, such as establishing safe ‘areas’ for mothers and infants.
The team is also awaiting the arrival of extra supplies including 45 tons of protein biscuits to provide for the nutritional needs of 18,000 children under five years old. This amount will meet their nutrional requirements for two weeks. The supplies are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, if everything goes well.
2pm London: In London, the operational team is working in close partnership with the Paris team to finalise proposals for institutional donors. meanwhile, the communications team keeps updating journalists about our work in the field and the fundraising team continues to mobilise supporters.
16th January
23pm Port au Prince / 4am London : News from our Haiti Country Director, Olivier:
“The entire population has been indirectly affected.The Petionville suburb seems to have less affected but other neighbourhoods such as the region up the hill from Canape-Vert have been destroyed. The Boudon road has suffered great damage. The neighbourhood of Canape-Vert, where our offices are based have been seriously affected with 70% of the area destroyed. 85% of the neighbourhoods of Carrefour Feuille, Martisan and Carrefour have been destroyed.
With communications still only working sporadically, it is still difficult to get a precise overview of the extent of the damage. However, the UN coordination will enable us to get a better idea of the damage in the affected areas. OCHA has established a coordination cell. Although the challenges are enourmous, the aid efforts are being coordinated.
People are organising themselves to manage security. We’ve witnessed the looting of a shop but water distribution is taking place orderly.
We are getting in touch with all our staff and see with them who is available to continue working in view of the traumatic experiences everyone has suffered. We still have not managed to talk to all our staff members but have news from all of them but Diem. We are moving forward with the emergency response. Tomorrow things should be more organised. We’ve briefed all additional staff who have flown in since Tuesday, to take into account the trauma our staff has gone through: not putting too much pressure, being supportive , understanding and flexible. From tomorrow onwards we will however be putting in place working shifts, a staff rota, recruitment procedures and clear working plans, which should also help everyone refocus.
Communication continues to be a major problem. Another major challenge is the lack of cars and trucks as well as storage.“
Water and Sanitation update :
Water: Areas of intervention have been allocated amongst aid agencies. Action Against Hunger will distribute water in Champs de Mars (helping 20,000 people); Canape Vert square (helping 9,000 people) ; stadium (helping 3,000 people).
Gonaïves: We are monitoring population mouvements to Gonaives. Temporary camps seem to be springing up and the water and sanitation in these areas needs to be monitored.
6.30am Port au Prince / 11.30am London: The Airbus cargo plane carrying our relief supplies managed to land in Port-au-Prince and our teams start unloading the cargo.
11:30am Port-au-Prince / 4.30pm London: People continue to move away from the city, bringing their wounded to Gonaives and Saint Marc, where the hospitals are very quickly filling. With the population movement towards Gonaives, the team is beginning to discuss temporary camps. Water and sanitation will very soon be needed. Since Action Against Hunger has had a long-standing presence in Gonaives, we’re preparing to also respond to the need of this city.
18:30pm Port-au-Prince: We launch our emergency distributions of water!!!! Our teams have set up two water points employing three large reservoirs, or “bladders,” to distribute a minimum of 5 liters of water to an initial 9,000 individuals — the bladders themselves filled regularly by tanker trucks bringing clean water from outside Port-au-Prince. Action Against Hunger’s teams are finalising preparations for an additional four or five water points in the Champ de Mars area — efforts that will ensure access to drinking water for more than 35,000 people in three key areas of Port-au-Prince.
15th January
3am Port-au-Prince / 8am London: The airport in Port-au-Prince is saturated and aid flights risk being halted. Planes will be diverted to Santo Domingo, which will delay the arrival of urgently needed relief supplies even further.
Meanwhile, another coordination meeting is taking place in our headquarters in Paris, in charge of running the Haiti emergency response. Isabelle, the Desk Manager and Florence, our Head of Operations, debrief each other on all information received so far and, together with the emergency response coordination team, continue preparing the details of the emergency response.
4am Port-au-Prince / 9am London: The ground continues to tremble in Port-au-Prince.
6.30 am Port-au-Prince /12.30pm Lyon, France: Action Against Hunger’s logistical teams are loading the A340 cargo plane with destination to Port-au-Prince. Action Against Hunger has partnered with Airbus to send the A340 cargo plane with 150 metric tons of material to Haiti, including: flexible water tanks, latrines, emergency units of water treatment, jerry cans, drinking water kits, computers and communications equipment, and an additional team of four technical experts.
7.30am Port-au-Prince / 1.30pm Paris: Our emergency coordination cell sin Paris and Madrid are buzzing. The teams are in regular contact with Julien, our food aid expert on the ground in Port-au-Prince, Bea, our nutritionist and Nicolas, in charge of our water and sanitation programmes, to coordinate the response.
An assessment of the nutrition situation in Port-au-Prince, carried out by Bea and her team, shows that only two out of seven health centres are operational. They are completely overcrowded and lack vital supplies. The team fear a rapid deterioration with regards to the nutritional situation of the survivors: all shops have either been destroyed or have been closed and families have run out of food. Many children have been orphaned and the situation is most serious for young infants.
Our team is setting up baby-friendly tents to support mothers with infants to breastfeed and care for their children. A key concern is ensuring optimal infant feeding – protecting breastfeeding and ensuring good complimentary feeding, to prevent the nutritional situation from deteriorating.
7.30 am Port-au-Prince /1:30pm Paris : Jean Baptiste, the Logistics Manager, calls Florence and Isabelle. In view of rumours regarding the looting of WFP relief goods and insecurity at the airport, should we divert the cargo plane via Santo Domingo?
Isabelle calls a contact to find out what, at this point in time, is the best option with regards to getting our relief supplies into Haiti. We cannot lose any precious time with getting the equipment to Port-Au-Prince; the equipment is crucial for setting up water treatment points.
Meanwhile, three more Action Against Hunger emergency experts are on their way from Santo Domingo to Haiti, by car. They will be joining our teams tomorrow.
9am Port au Prince / 2pm London: The water and sanitation situation is extremely worrying. Corpses are flooding the streets.
Marta Val, a water and sanitation expert who is on her way to reinforce our existing teams in Haiti, said: “Our first priority is to provide drinking wáter to the population, especially in those areas where people are gathering and seeking refuge. We will be looking at two options: identifying safe drinking water sources and trucking the wáter to those areas without any access to wáter. At the same time we’ll be distributing jerry cans and hygiene kits. The other option we are exploring consists of rehabiliting the existing water network and water distribution points as quickly as possible. At the same time we will be working to improve basic sanitation by building and rehabilitating latrines and sewage systems."
Many phone calls later, we receive confirmation that the cargo from France will be able to land in Port-au-Prince. The plane leaves at 5pm, UK time. Meanwhile, another cargo plane carrying relief supplies, mainly water and sanitation equipment, sent from our logistical hub in Madrid, arrives in Port-au-Prince and is being unloaded.
Nonetheless, we are also setting up a logistical base in Santo Domingo. “The airport continues to be full and we will continue transporting relief supplies into Haiti, when possible directly to Port-au-Prince, and if not via Santo Domingo. From there, we’ll either be transporting the supplies via planes or road. The logistical hub will help us buying and bringing in all the necessary materials,” says Cathy Violland, a member of the emergency response team.
More good news: we found additional partners in Port-Au-Prince to help our teams with the distribution of water and the rehabilitation of water points.
9pm London: Multi award-winning actress and Golden Globe nominee, Carey Mulligan, backs our Haiti Emergency Appeal to help those affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. She says: "the catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday is having a devastating impact on a country, which is already one of the poorest in the world. Please support the survivors by donating to Action Against Hunger, who have been in the country for over 25 years, and will be providing for those most vulnerable.”
14th January
6.30am – Port-au-Prince / 11.30am - London: The collapse of water supplies and a lack of basic sanitation mean that the risk of an epidemic is great. Action Against Hunger’s teams are helping to clean up streets and distribute plastic bags to prevent water contamination from excrements and corpses.
8am - Port-au-Prince / 1pm – London: Coordinating relief efforts is proving difficult. However, a first coordination meeting between major aid actors took place and was attended by Action Against Hunger.
09.30am – Port-au-Prince / 2.30pm – London: Action Against Hunger’s emergency response team arrives in Haiti to reinforce the team already on the ground and mount the emergency response.
3pm – Port-au-Prince / 8pm – London: Survivors are trying to leave the city and bring the injured to hospitals in Gonaives and Saint Marc. Hospitals are reaching maximum capacity.
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