Death toll of powerful earthquake in Haiti soars to 1,297
Les Cayes (Haiti), Aug 16: The death toll from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti climbed to 1,297 on Sunday, a day after the powerful temblor turned thousands of structures into rubble and set off franctic rescue efforts ahead of a potential deluge from an approaching tropical storm.
Saturday's earthquake also left at least 5,700 people injured in the Caribbean nation, with thousands more displaced from their destroyed or damaged homes.
Survivors in some areas were forced to wait out in the open amid oppressive heat for help from overloaded hospitals.
Yet the devastation could soon worsen with the coming of Tropical Depression Grace, which is predicted to reach Haiti on Monday night.
The US National Hurricane Center demoted the tropical storm to a depression Sunday, but forecasters warned that regardless, Grace still posed a threat to bring heavy rain, flooding and landslides.
The earthquake struck the southwestern part of the hemisphere's poorest nation, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in a country already grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination and a wave of gang violence.
The epicenter was about 125 kilometers (78 miles) west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the US Geological Survey said, and aftershocks continued to jolt the area Sunday.
In the badly damaged coastal town of Les Cayes, Jennie Auguste lay on a flimsy foam mattress on the tarmac of the community's tiny airport waiting for anything space at a hospital or a small plane like the ones ferrying the wounded to the capital.
She suffered injuries in the chest, abdomen and arm when the roof of the store she worked at collapsed .
There has been nothing. No help, nothing from the government, Auguste's sister, Bertrande, said.
In scenes widespread across the region hit by the quake, other families salvaged their few belongings and spent the night at an open-air football pitch.
On Sunday morning, people lined up to buy what little was available: bananas, avocados and water at a local street market.
Some in the town praised God for surviving the earthquake, and many went to the city's cathedral, which appeared outwardly undamaged even if the priests' residence was destroyed.
We only have Jesus now," said Johanne Dorcely, 58, whose house was destroyed. If it wasn't for Jesus, I wouldn't be able to be here today."
Prime Minister Ariel Henry declared a one-month state of emergency for the whole country and said he was rushing aid to areas where towns were destroyed and hospitals overwhelmed.
A former senator rented a private airplane to move injured people from Les Cayes to Port-au-Prince for medical assistance.
The most important thing is to recover as many survivors as possible under the rubble, said Henry.
We have learned that the local hospitals, in particular that of Les Cayes, are overwhelmed with wounded, fractured people.
Sunday's count from Haiti's Office of Civil Protection raised Saturday's death toll from 304 dead.
The agency said more than 7,000 homes were destroyed and nearly 5,000 damaged. Hospitals, schools, offices and churches were also affected.
Hospitals were overwhelmed at a moment when Haiti has been struggling with the pandemic and a lack of resources to deal with it.
The country of 11 million people received its first batch of US-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low-income countries.
Medical workers from across the region were scrambling to help as hospitals in Les Cayes started running out of space to perform surgeries.
Basically, they need everything, said Dr. Inobert Pierre, a pediatrician with the nonprofit Health Equity International, which oversees the St. Boniface Hospital, about two hours from Les Cayes.
Many of the patients have open wounds and they have been exposed to not-so-clean elements, added Pierre, who visited two hospitals in Les Cayes one with some 200 patients, the other with around 90. We anticipate a lot of infections.
Pierre's medical team was taking some patients to St. Boniface Hospital to undergo surgery, but with just two ambulances, they could transport just four patients at a time.
Small planes from a private firm and the Florida-based missionary service Agape Flights landed at the Port-Au-Prince airport Sunday carrying about a half dozen injured earthquake victims from the Les Cayes area. Young men with bandages and a woman were hoisted on stretchers to waiting Haitian Red Cross ambulances.
Silvestre Plaza Rico, who was supervising one of the volunteer flights, said rescue planes had made several airlifts of about a half dozen injured victims each on Saturday. There were many, many, many, from different towns, Plaza Rico said.
The earthquake also struck just over a month after President Jovenel Mo se was shot to death in his home, sending the country into political chaos. His widow, Martine Mo se, who was seriously wounded in the attack, posted a message on Twitter calling for unity among Haitians: Let's put our shoulders together to bring solidarity.
As he boarded a plane bound for Les Cayes, Henry said he wanted structured solidarity to ensure the response was coordinated to avoid the confusion that followed the devastating 2010 earthquake, when aid was slow to reach residents after.
US President Joe Biden authorized an immediate response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power to oversee the US effort to help Haiti.
Power announced Sunday that USAID was sending a search and rescue team from Virginia at the request of Haiti's government.
The 65-person team will bring specialized tools and medical supplies to assist with the disaster response, Power said on Twitter.
Working with USAID, the US Coast Guard said a helicopter was transporting medical personnel from the Haitian capital to the quake zone and evacuating the injured back to Port-au-Prince. Lt. Commander Jason Nieman, a spokesman, said another helicopter was being sent from the Bahamas, along with other aircraft and ships.
Already on the scene were several members of Cuba's 253-member health care mission to Haiti, and the socialist nation's state media showed photos of them giving first aid to victims injured by the quake.
The North Carolina-based aid group Samaritan's Purse announced Sunday it would airlift 13 disaster response specialists and 31 tons of emergency supplies to Haiti. Those include shelter materials and water filtration units.
Humanitarian workers said gang activity in the seaside district of Martissant, just west of the Haitian capital, also was complicating relief efforts.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in a statement said Haiti's southern peninsula is a hotspot for gang-related violence, where humanitarian workers have been repeatedly attacked, including a Doctors Without Borders emergency health center that was targeted in June.
The agency said the area has been virtually unreachable over the past two months because of road blocks and security concerns.
All of these factors combined will create significant logistics challenges in reaching the most affected areas, according to the agency, which added that displacements has created ripe conditions for a spike in COVID-19 infections.
Haiti, where many live in tenuous circumstances, is vulnerable to earthquakes and hurricanes. A magnitude 5.9 earthquake in 2018 killed more than a dozen people.
The magnitude 7.0 quake of 2010 hit closer to densely populated Port-au-Prince and caused widespread destruction. Haiti's government put the death toll at more than 300,000, while a report commissioned by the US government placed it between 46,000 and 85,000.
Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his closeness to the people of Haiti, including prayers for the victims and encouragement for survivors. The pope called for the solidarity of the international community to help alleviate the consequences of the tragedy.
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Congress not just removed clothes at AI Summit but exposed its intellectual bankruptcy: PM Modi
New Delhi (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday came down heavily on the Congress for the shirtless protest by its youth wing members at the AI Impact Summit recently, saying the opposition party can tear as many clothes as it wants, but his government will continue to work for the country's progress.
Addressing the News18 Rising Bharat Summit, Modi also said that the Congress did not just remove its clothes in front of foreign guests but also exposed its intellectual bankruptcy, asserting that the millennials have already taught the country's oldest party a lesson, and now Gen-Z is ready to do the same.
In an apparent jibe at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Modi said the opposition was unhappy seeing the statue of "Babbar Shers" (lions) installed atop the new Parliament building, but their own “Babbar Shers" were running away after facing the "shoes" of the general public.
Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, had said on February 24 that he was proud of the "Babbar Shers" of the Indian Youth Congress, who "fearlessly" raised their voice at the AI Summit.
"Congress ke Babbar Sher logon ki jute kha ke bhaag gaye (The 'lions' of Congress ran away after being hit by shoes by the public)," Modi said.
The prime minister was apparently referring to the protesting Youth Congress workers being heckled by some people at the AI Summit.
On February 20, a group of Indian Youth Congress (IYC) workers staged a dramatic protest inside Hall No. 5 of the summit venue in Delhi by removing their shirts to reveal T-shirts printed with anti-government slogans, triggering a political slugfest between the BJP and the Congress.
“Congress can tear as many clothes as it wants, but we will continue to work for India's development. Congress not just shed clothes at the AI Summit, it also exposed its incapabilities in front of foreign guests,” Modi said in his nearly 45-minute speech.
He said the AI Summit was a moment of pride for the entire nation, but unfortunately, Congress attempted to tarnish this national celebration.
"When the frustration and despair of failure weigh on the mind, and arrogance makes one's head spin, such a mindset emerges to defame the country," he said.
The prime minister also alleged that the Congress always takes refuge in Mahatma Gandhi to hide its failures, but tries to give credit to one family for anything good.
"People of our country welcomed every good step taken by our government, but the Congress only knows how to oppose everything. The votes of Congress are not stolen; rather, people do not consider Congress worthy of their votes. Millennials first taught a lesson to Congress, now Gen-Z is ready to do the same," he said.
Modi also said that in a democracy, the role of the opposition is not just about blindly opposing every move of the government, but presenting an alternative vision, and that is why the "enlightened public" of the country is "teaching a lesson" to Congress now.
In 1984, the Congress got 39 per cent of the votes and more than 400 seats. But its votes declined consistently in the subsequent elections, Modi said.
"Today, the condition of the Congress is such that it has more than 50 MLAs in just four states. Over the past 40 years, the number of young voters in the country has increased, but the Congress has clearly diminished," Modi said.
On the recent trade deals that India signed with foreign countries, Modi said the country has discovered its inherent strength and strengthened its institutions, which prompted developed nations to come forward and sign deals with India.
He also said that even after Independence, some people ensured that the colonial mindset remained for their own benefits.
"No country would have done trade deals with us had we not discovered our inherent strength and strengthened our institutions. Because of this, developed nations have come forward to sign trade deals (with India)," he said.
Modi also said that even after Independence, India was unable to break free from the mentality of slavery, for which the country is still paying the price.
"The latest example of this can be seen in the ongoing discussions on trade deals. Some people are shocked – ‘what has happened, how did this happen? Why are developed countries so eager to do trade deals with India?’ The answer is – a confident India is emerging from despair and frustration," he said.
Over the long span of history, centuries of slavery had instilled a feeling of inferiority, while the ideology imported from other countries deeply ingrained in society the notion that Indians were uneducated and subservient, the prime minister said.
"If the country was still mired in the despair of the pre-2014 era, counted among the 'Fragile Five', and gripped by policy paralysis, who would strike a trade deal with us?
"Over the past 11 years, a new surge of energy has flowed into the nation's consciousness. India is now striving to reclaim its lost potential," Modi said.
The prime minister also said that due to the recent series of reforms initiated by his government, the world's most powerful nations are now coming forward to sign trade deals with India.
"There was a time when India was only a consumer of new technology. But now we are not just developing them, but also setting standards," he said.
The prime minister also said that India's digital public infrastructure has become a subject of global discussion today, and every move India makes is closely watched and analysed across the world.
"The AI Summit was a clear example of this," he said.
The government's 'Viksit Bharat by 2047' is not a political slogan but an effort to correct the mistakes of the previous Congress governments by making India self-reliant, he said.
“So far, in every industrial revolution, India and the Global South largely remained followers, but in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), India is not only participating but is also shaping it. India now has its own AI startup ecosystem,” Modi said.
He also said the world is astonished that India, where around 30 million families lived in darkness until 2014, has now risen to become one of the top countries in solar power capacity.
India, where many cities had no hope of improving their public transport system, has now become the country with the world's third-largest Metro network, Modi said.
“The Indian Railways was known only for chronic delays and sluggish speeds, yet semi-high-speed connectivity like Vande Bharat and Namo Bharat has now become possible,” he said.
Nation-building never happens through short-term thinking; it is shaped by a long-term vision, patience and timely decisions, the prime minister added.
