Makeshift tents in front of the presidential palace
A girl prepares food for cooking
Men digging by hand, they are standing on what used to be a roof
A family buries a manJanuary 25, 2010
Saw bodies in a 7th Day Adventist Church, 8 were still in the upper floors of the building. A parishioner who spoke very good English took me inside and directed me up. 2 bodies were in shallow boxes on the floor, covered with sheets. The 3rd floor of building had mostly collapsed, was probably really dangerous to be walking around it. Under a slab there was a woman who was probably killed instantly. As I walked down the steps, 2 men were carrying a body bag down. I followed them and they stopped at the ground floor. They opened the bag and took out the body and placed it with a 2nd one in a box, covered them back up with a sheet. Very respectful. Back outside, men from the church had taken a break from demolishing the building literally by hand. When I arrived, they had shovels and were also removing debris with their hands. On a nearby corner, the same scene, many men, some on a big slab which was formerly the roof of an office building, some standing in holes dug out by picks- using hammers and throwing out debris. A man pounds with a sledge hammer, the slab vibrates heavily. The lawyer who worked there thought there was 6 bodies still inside. People walked by covering their noses with cloth or masks against the smell. All in the area the same activity was going on.
In the central downtown Port-au-Prince, the destruction is really complete. Streets can be quite narrow so rubble often piles up on one side or another. But people are on the piles, digging with hands, trying to unearth the bodies. Boys hang around the scene hoping to grab scrap metal.
I’m back with “Big” the motorcyclist who seems about 5 feet tall. Less harrowing today, maybe I’m getting used to it. We checked out the makeshift camp on Champ de Mars in the early morning, right near the toppled Presidential palace. A sea of tents, people trying their best. A woman has made a giant caldron of pretty good looking stew for sale, her niece tells me its traditional New Years stew.
Dust is thick everywhere, my cameras and clothes are covered.
In the afternoon we head to the Port-au-Prince cemetery. The caretaker gives me a tour, mainly to show caskets that had been exposed from crypts that collapsed like the buildings, plus a horrific sight of several bodies pushed out of the earth and now open in a giant ditch. Later, a Jeep pulls up with a casket in the back, a family has come to bury a man killed in the earthquake.
Saw bodies in a 7th Day Adventist Church, 8 were still in the upper floors of the building. A parishioner who spoke very good English took me inside and directed me up. 2 bodies were in shallow boxes on the floor, covered with sheets. The 3rd floor of building had mostly collapsed, was probably really dangerous to be walking around it. Under a slab there was a woman who was probably killed instantly. As I walked down the steps, 2 men were carrying a body bag down. I followed them and they stopped at the ground floor. They opened the bag and took out the body and placed it with a 2nd one in a box, covered them back up with a sheet. Very respectful. Back outside, men from the church had taken a break from demolishing the building literally by hand. When I arrived, they had shovels and were also removing debris with their hands. On a nearby corner, the same scene, many men, some on a big slab which was formerly the roof of an office building, some standing in holes dug out by picks- using hammers and throwing out debris. A man pounds with a sledge hammer, the slab vibrates heavily. The lawyer who worked there thought there was 6 bodies still inside. People walked by covering their noses with cloth or masks against the smell. All in the area the same activity was going on.
In the central downtown Port-au-Prince, the destruction is really complete. Streets can be quite narrow so rubble often piles up on one side or another. But people are on the piles, digging with hands, trying to unearth the bodies. Boys hang around the scene hoping to grab scrap metal.
I’m back with “Big” the motorcyclist who seems about 5 feet tall. Less harrowing today, maybe I’m getting used to it. We checked out the makeshift camp on Champ de Mars in the early morning, right near the toppled Presidential palace. A sea of tents, people trying their best. A woman has made a giant caldron of pretty good looking stew for sale, her niece tells me its traditional New Years stew.
Dust is thick everywhere, my cameras and clothes are covered.
In the afternoon we head to the Port-au-Prince cemetery. The caretaker gives me a tour, mainly to show caskets that had been exposed from crypts that collapsed like the buildings, plus a horrific sight of several bodies pushed out of the earth and now open in a giant ditch. Later, a Jeep pulls up with a casket in the back, a family has come to bury a man killed in the earthquake.
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