The Earthquake in Haiti: The IRC Responds

On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake
struck Haiti about 10 miles southwest of the capital
Port-au-Prince. It killed approximately 230,000
people, injured 300,000 more and destroyed
great swaths of the city and surrounding areas.
In the aftermath, nearly 600,000 people left
Port-au-Prince to live with friends and relatives in
unaffected rural areas. An estimated 250,000 of
these displaced Haitians have since returned to the
capital because they were unable to secure work in
rural areas.1
Haiti is one of the most disaster-prone countries
in the world. It suffers a major catastrophe every
three years. It is one of the world’s most vulnerable
islands to hurricanes, flash flooding, and landslides.
Haiti was still recovering from the 2008 hurricane
season—one of the worst in Caribbean history
(four hurricanes in 30 days)—when the earthquake
struck. The earthquake was the worst disaster in
the Caribbean in 200 years. In just 30 seconds,
Haiti lost 20 percent of its civil servants. The
scale and magnitude of the disaster crippled the
ability of the already weak Haitian government to
meet the basic needs of its people. While Haiti
was still reeling from the earthquake, an outbreak
of cholera in October 2010 quickly spread from
rural areas to towns and cities.2 Recovery and
reconstruction were further undermined by
political and civil unrest following highly contested
presidential and parliamentary elections held on
November 28, 2010. As a result, a year after the
earthquake, nearly 1.3 million people in Portau-
Prince are still displaced and remain living in
crowded spontaneous settlements and tent cities.
Unemployment remains high, buildings are in ruins,
most rubble has yet to be removed and children are
unable to attend school.
Prior to the earthquake, Port-au-Prince was home
to approximately 3 million people, even though the
city was designed to accommodate only 200,000.
The combination of a dearth of jobs in rural areas
and lack of investment in the agricultural sector had
pushed people to migrate into the city, leading to
overcrowded living conditions in Port-au-Prince.
Social and economic inequities also predated
the quake. Before the earthquake, Haiti’s
unemployment rates were as high as 80 percent;
nearly 54 percent of the population lived on less
than $1 per day.3 Required school fees prevented
many children from attending school; only an
estimated 55 percent of children went to school
before the earthquake.4
The earthquake exacerbated all of these problems.
People marginalized by Haitian society, including
children, women, the elderly, and persons with
disabilities, found themselves acutely vulnerable.
Today, far too many Haitians, especially women
and children, are engaged in a daily struggle for
access to basic necessities such as clean water,
economic opportunities, education and protection
from violence.
At the time of the earthquake, the International
Rescue Committee (IRC) did not have programs
in Haiti although the IRC had worked with Haitian
asylum-seekers in the United States. Within hours
of the earthquake, the IRC sent its emergency
response team—including doctors, water and sanitation experts, coordinators and logisticians—to
Haiti to assess the critical needs of survivors and
mount an effective response. In the days and weeks
that followed, the IRC established emergency
operations in Haiti and moved to address the urgent
need for clean water, sanitation and health care, as
well the special needs of women and girls.
Today, the IRC is continuing its work with the
displaced and poor of Port-au-Prince and
surrounding communities. The IRC is preparing to
open a second office in Petit Goave—southwest of
Port-au-Prince—to focus on tracing and reuniting
people who are still separated from their families a
year after the earthquake
The IRC strives to ensure that the most vulnerable
earthquake victims—including the elderly,
persons with disabilities, women and separated or
unaccompanied children—have access to services
and that their views and needs shape the rebuilding
process. Much of this work is done with local
groups and organizations. Moreover, the majority of
IRC staff members in Haiti are Haitian.
This report lists some of the outstanding problems
affecting Haiti and describes how the IRC is
responding. Personal testimonies from IRC field
staff and the people they serve illustrate the
immense challenges they face.