“We did not have time to count the dead, we could only attend to the wounded, which were many.”
This is how the Haitian doctor Robinson Gabriel described to BBC Mundo, who treated many of the injured in the Les Cayes hospital, very close to the epicenter of the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that was felt on Saturday and caused the death of at least 1 . 297 people , according to updated figures this Sunday by the authorities .
Rescue teams continue to work in the country collecting debris in a desperate search for survivors.
Houses, churches and schools especially in the southwest of the country ended up collapsed by the earthquake.
There is an unknown number of missing and at least 5. 700 people resulted in injuries , reported the civil protection agency.
The earthquake exacerbates the problems facing the impoverished nation that is going through a political crisis after the assassination of its president last month.
The images of agencies and social networks also show residents trying to remove the victims from the ruins of the buildings.
Piss ntras, doctors and nurses attend to the injured in open places because some hospitals were badly damaged and are in danger of collapse.
“The emergency service of the hospital had many cracks in the walls, so you can’t work. The walls are about to fall. Then to we lay in the hospital courtyard “, Said Dr. Gabriel in communication with BBC Mundo.
The same doctor, who works for the non-profit organization Hope for Haiti, was a victim of the earthquake since he lives in the town of Les Cayes.
“I was at home playing with my daughter and around 8 in the morning everything started to shake. It was so intense that I couldn’t even run to get out. I lay on my daughter and closed my eyes waiting for a debris to fall on me ”, he said.
After checking that his wife, daughter and mother were healthy, the The doctor went to the Les Cayes hospital and volunteered because he knew that many wounded would arrive behind the magnitude of the earthquake.
“At first we were only two or three doctors. In the end we ended up being about eight and we received many injured and people who were already dead “, he described.
” There came a time when there were almost no materials. And we began to invent, to use very efficiently the few resources that we had. And we have to choose which wounded to treat ”.
Gabriel said that the situation in the hospital overflowed and that he himself felt that he was collapsing emotionally.
“At times I remembered what happened to me and I was crying because I was so close to death “, he said.
The doctor confirmed that help finally arrived with medicines, materials, and splints for the injured.
“Constructions that were squashed like cakes”
The epicenter of the earthquake on Saturday was about 12 kilometers from the city of Saint-Louis du Sud, said the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
But the tremor could be felt in the densely populated capital of Port-au-Prince, to some 125 kilometers away and in neighboring countries.
According to the provisional balance of material damage, the earthquake destroyed at least 2. 868 houses in the three most affected departments in the southwest of the country, at the same time which caused damage from different considerations to other 5. 400 homes, as well as in several health centers, schools, hotels and churches, reported the EFE news agency.
The data also shows significant damage to bridges and roads in the affected areas. Many of them are blocked by the landslide.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry declared a month-long state of emergency on Saturday and urged the population to “ show solidarity. ”
“ The most important thing is to recover as many survivors as possible under the rubble, ”he said.
“We know that local hospitals, particularly the one in Les Cayes, are overwhelmed by people wounds and fractures, ”he reported.
There, in Les Cayes, the Chilean Consuelo Alzamora also lives with her husband and her 3-year-old son.
“At that time I was taking a shower and my son comes to yell at me: ‘Mom, Mom, what’s wrong?’ I got out of the shower, grabbed it, and the earthquake was super strong. We fell to the ground and clung to the door of the house, “he told BBC Mundo in a telephone communication.
“My husband was there too. The three of us were lying on the floor waiting for it to pass and praying that the house did not fall “, he described.
Alzamora said that since the strong earthquake on Saturday they have felt several aftershocks and despite the fact that their house did not collapse, it is very cracked and they are afraid to enter.
“We are living in the courtyard,” he assured.
As detailed, in the neighborhood several houses collapsed including that of a neighbor of only 15 years that he lost his life.
“I saw constructions that were crushed like cakes”, comp aró.
And he also said that hospitals cannot treat all the wounded.
“The hospitals are all saturated. Doctors and nurses can’t keep up, ”said Alzamora, who has a physical rehabilitation center and is coordinating with local authorities to also receive injured people at his clinic.
International aid
Various foreign governments from the United States to Mexico and Chile announced that they would send aid to Haiti.
US President Joe Biden said he had authorized an “immediate response from the United States” through USAID. The UN also said it was supporting the rescue effort.
The neighboring country of the Dominican Republic offered to send food and medical equipment and Cuban doctors who had already been working in Haiti were helping to treat the injured, Haitian and Cuban media reported.
Similarly, leaders of the Haitian community in South Florida such as Marleine Bastien indicated that they are organizing the dispatch of humanitarian aid for those affected by the earthquake, a catastrophe to which is added the possible arrival between Monday or Tuesday of the Grace storm.
“As we continue to assess the situation to send aid in support of our brothers and sisters, we ask for your prayers for a country that was already crumbling under the weight of one of the worst political crises in its history, ”Bastien, executive director of the Family Action Network Movement (FANM), said in a statement.
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