Haiti One Year Later

Haiti earthquake: One year later

On January 12, 2010, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti just 10 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The earthquake damaged nearly 190,000 houses, of which 105,000 were completely destroyed. Of the more than two million affected survivors, 1.3 million are still displaced today.

Milestones in Habitat’s recovery work in Haiti

Soon after the earthquake in Haiti, Habitat for Humanity set a goal of serving 50,000 families over five years, helping them move toward safe, secure and permanent places to call home. In one year, Habitat has already reached milestones:

• More than 21,000 emergency shelter kits are in the hands of people who needed them most. The kits included tools—hammers, pliers, chisels, work gloves, rope and tarps—that have allowed Haitians to clean up debris, complete basic repairs and create emergency shelter. In addition, more than 3,300 emergency shelter kits have been stockpiled, ready to distribute quickly whenever a disaster occurs.

• More than 1,000 families had received transitional or upgradable shelters by December 2010, with a total of 2,000 scheduled to be completed by the end of January 2011. The newest model of upgradable shelter features a timber-frame skeleton with pressure-treated plywood walls, a tin roof and concrete perimeter foundation. The structure is built so that concrete blocks can be added later, as the family’s finances improve.

• More than 2,000 housing damage assessments have been conducted; the goal is to conduct an additional 6,000 assessments through June 2011. Assessments help determine which structures can be made safe and which need to be torn down, making way for new, permanent shelters.

• More than 500 Haitians have been trained in earthquake-resistant construction techniques.

• More than 200 Haitians have been hired by Habitat Resource Centers to build shelters. In a nation with an unemployment rate of 60 percent, job opportunities are a crucial part of rebuilding.

Source: http://www.habitat.org/