Time is of the essence

Time is of the essence Ashley Mwanza

Heartbroken (Picture Courtesy of The New York Times)

The new year has finally dawned and as life was just adjusting to the crossover then came mother nature and shocked us all. I was left visibly shaken it was at that moment I realised just how much life means. A country was brought to a standstill, a country that was just starting to find its feet again was ripped apart, left lifeless. The world was moved, as reports of unimaginable devastation continued to come out of Haiti in the wake of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck the island nation late Tuesday afternoon 12 January 2010, calls for help from non-profit and aid organizations working on the ground has reached the ‘highest crescendo’.

Haiti is bracing for massive casualties as more lifeless bodies are unearthed and or discovered. The quake, the worst to hit Haiti in more than 200 years, has levelled countless homes and buildings across the island, including the national palace, the headquarters of the United Nations mission and a major hospital in the capital Port-au-Prince. The Red Cross estimates as many as 3 million people have been affected by the disaster, but warned on Tuesday night it would take 24 to 48 hours before a clear picture of the destruction emerges. That picture has slowly emerged, and it is heartrending, nothing seen before. The Tsunami of 2004 wrecked havoc killing nearly 230,000 people in fourteen countries, but this quake could almost reach that toll for one country.

Friday marked the third full day after the quake a potentially critical threshold for finding survivors. Relief workers say the first 72 hours after a disaster are critical to saving lives. After that, Tamman Aloudat, a senior official at the Red Cross, told CNN that relief efforts should be diverted to helping care for the living instead of searching for trapped victims. “Very soon, attention should go to avoiding epidemics,” he said

As the clock continues to tick on rescue efforts, numerous other challenges confront survivors and the relief workers trying to help them. The distance between life and death narrowed in this flattened city, with the race for survival depending increasingly on freeing the lucky ones from under the rubble, on treating the thousands of injured and on speeding up the flow of emergency food and water, as a health time bomb creeps up with bodies everywhere and some survivors remain uncatered for.

The struggle to survive continues to intensify in a city that has already suffered from centuries of poverty, violence and natural disaster. One survivor said “a day felt like a year, ...You're buried alive. You can't scream. You wonder if anyone will ever come.” Such is the tragedy and many nations have chipped in, in one way or the other...Obama himself warned it would take hours “and in many cases days” to get the full U.S. contingent to Haiti. “None of this will seem quick enough if you have a loved one who's trapped, if you're sleeping on the streets, if you can't feed your children,” Obama said.

We only hope that all the efforts will come to something. God Bless the people of Haiti...