Help for Quake Victims

Temporary shelter, emergency supplies, medical help, and clean water are bringing relief to a desperate situation

Living conditions are still desperate in Haiti. There are people sleeping in the streets, and Samaritan's Purse relief workers hear wailing and moaning coming from the camps at night.

Members of our team with years of emergency relief experience describe the scene as “chaotic and disorienting.”

Samaritan's Purse is helping by providing temporary shelter, non-food items such as blankets and hygiene kits, medical help, and clean water.

AUDIO REPORT
Listen to a report from
response leader David Torres

Every morning Samaritan’s Purse teams are giving desperately-needed emergency relief supplies, including hygiene kits, plastic for shelters, blankets, and solar flashlights, to pastors from our network of local churches.

The pastors, who represent 20-30 churches, are distributing the supplies to at least 300 families per day in and around Port-au-Prince who are suffering in the aftermath of the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake at rocked Haiti on Jan. 12.

On Friday, our team distributed 450 family kits and delivered a community water filter to Petit Goave yesterday. Two community water filters were set up in Leogane.

The filters are among 12 that our water technicians are installing to serve pockets of vulnerable people. Each filter is capable of providing clean, safe water for 2,000 people per day.

Doctors working with Samaritan's Purse are performing more than 50 surgeries daily at the Baptist Haiti Mission hospital and other medical facilities. They are working alongside chaplains from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, who are providing spiritual encouragement.

The 10 tons of staple foods purchased by our team on the ground is making its way to vulnerable children. We have delivered beans and rice to two orphanages with a combined total of 60 boys and girls.

As supplies and staff continue to arrive, we are able to reach more people each day.

We have sent six cargo flights into the country. Supplies airlifted in include 842 rolls of plastic for temporary shelters, 2,200 solar flashlights, 1,152 jerry cans, 9,900 blankets, 2,880 hygiene kits, 12 community water filters, 13 pallets of medical supplies, 113,520 water purification packets, and 784 water purification kits.

More supplies are on the way, including two large emergency health kits, each with the capacity to provide care for 30,000 people for one month. Two flights loaded with medical supplies arrived Friday night. Supplies included medicines, surgical equipment, and IV fluids. These were transported to the Baptist Haiti Mission hospital where our medical personnel are working.

A convoy of trucks carrying supplies and heavy equipment from our facility in North Carolina arrived in Fort Pierce, Fla., Saturday. The equipment will be loaded onto a barge on Monday and arrive in Haiti later in the week.

Conditions remain dire in Haiti more than a week after the terrible earthquake. Reports indicate there are more than 300 makeshift camps all around the city with nearly 400,000 people living in shelters built with twigs, bed sheets, and scraps of clothing. United Nations’ assessments state that a significant percentage of this population continues to lack access to clean water.

Public health officials are closely monitoring any reports of disease. Epidemic risk is high because of overcrowding in camps; lack of adequate medical care; unclean water; and unsanitary living conditions. Many are still suffering from untreated wounds, and doctors are performing hundreds of amputations each day because of infection.

“The story is getting less attention in the media, but the suffering of the people there is going to go up,” said Ken Issacs, a Samaritan's Purse vice president who is directing the response.

As many as 200,000 are thought to have been killed, 1.5 left homeless, and three million affected overall.

“This is a historic disaster," UN spokesman Elisabeth Byrs said. “We have never been confronted with such a disaster in the UN memory. It is like no other.”

Security concerns and the scope of the disaster make this a challenging response.

“It’s going to take a miracle, but God is in the miracle business,” Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham said.