Islamic Relief emergency responders arrived in Haiti yesterday to find the stench of death in the air. Thousands of earthquake victims have began to wander into the countryside with no clear destination, so they can escape the death and destruction of Haiti's devastated capital, Port-au-Prince.
An Islamic Relief staff member in Haiti, Adil Husseini, shared his experience from the field in a diary entry:
Port-au-Prince greeted us with the smell of death.
Nothing hit us like seeing the dead bodies; their stench overpowered
everything else.
As we entered deeper into the heart of the city it became apparent how the infrastructure that was once in place had been brought to its knees. People were trying to keep hold of anything they found or were able to salvage amidst the disaster.
Some had taken to looting and the local security struggled to bring a sense of order to a community so desperate and still very much in a state of shock.
At the gas station, huge crowds gathered to fill their vehicles with the last remaining
drops from a tanker that had been abandoned. A local Haitian told us that fuel prices had risen by over 60 percent in the last few days.
Port-au-Prince has been devastated by this catastrophe. Huge buildings have been completely destroyed, cars are crushed under the rubble, homes have been abandoned and families have been broken.
The Islamic Relief team here is assessing the situation to help meet people’s needs but the task is not easy. Many roads are blocked off and the lack of security is increasingly becoming an issue.
To read more about Islamic Relief's response, click here.
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