Death toll of powerful earthquake in Haiti soars to 1,297

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By EVENS SANON and MARK STEVENSON

LES CAYES, Haiti (AP) — 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 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.

The devastation could soon worsen with the coming of Tropical Depression Grace, which is predicted to reach Haiti on Monday night. The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned that although Grace had weakened from tropical storm strength Sunday, it 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 struggling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination and a wave of gang violence.



A woman carries her child as she walks in the remains of her home destroyed by Saturday´s 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Les Cayes, Haiti, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Joseph Odelyn)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/haiti-earthquake-98f06a322e12f732f94485238d13558c

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. As if that country didn't have enough to deal with

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[NJCher]

3. I have a friend

who goes to Haiti for three weeks every year to help out. I wonder if she will be going this year.

[garybeck]

6. i've been to Haiti several times. no one has been going there for over a year.

it hasn't been safe for white people in Haiti for at least a year. very sad, even before the president was shot, and before COVID, the political situation got very bad and it became unsafe. Many people like your friend and I are waiting for things to get better so we can go back and help.

[NJCher]

7. I knew covid

Threw a wrench in the works; wasn’t aware of the other factors.

[Skittles]

4. ...

[garybeck]

5. As someone who has been to Haiti four times and been in Les Cayes....

This is just so sad. The epicenter of the earthquake is very close to one of the villages i have visited twice to install solar panels on a school. Both times on the way to the school (in a small remote village named Duchity) we stopped in Les Cayes. It is the last "city" on the way where you can stop for supplies. Like the rest of Haiti, Les Cayes is extremely impoverished. There are no real municipal systems for water, sewage, or electricity. the gutters along the streets are filled with sewage. it is just sad to drive through this town, or to stop there, and see how people live. It is impossible to not wish you could do something about it, and to help the people.

That was before the earthquake.

It's just unimaginable what it must be like there now. I have started receiving word from my friends in Haiti and it is not good. the person who runs the school I have been helping, lost his brother in the earthquake. he was in a car that was hit by a landslide.

I wish there was something more we could do besides pray for the people there.