Government officials are also considering whether to deploy the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) — Canada's team of 200 Canadian Forces personnel, which provides help to areas affected by disaster for up to 40 days.
— CBC
The Presidential Palace and the Cathedral -- two iconic buildings in Pòtoprens -- are both destroyed.
The MINUSTAH (UN stabilization mission) headquarters has collapsed, and the diplomat in charge of the UN mission, Hedi Annabi, is now dead. I'm no fan of MINUSTAH, but obviously this is a tragedy.
One of MSF's facilities in Haiti has been toppled.
Richard Morse, the owner of the Oloffson, is apparently twittering fairly regularly.
Edit: New York Times slideshow.
A point that I just made on TalkRadio 1010: the most common building material in Haiti is cement block and concrete. The vast majority of buildings in Haiti are made out of this material.
In Haiti, they don't want the cement to be too strong, because when people want to tear down a wall, they pretty much do it by hand with chisel and hammer. It's easy to understand that a lot of these buildings will collapse, and the detritus will be very heavy and hard to move.
Edwidge Danticat (author) and Kim Ives (journalist for Haiti Liberté) on Democracy Now. Discussing the situation in Haiti.
I'm hearing more and more reports about Jakmel also being affected by the earthquake.
Remember ( this picture? )
The swanky hotel that we stayed in is the Peace Of Mind Hotel.
The resort town lies south of Port-au-Prince, which was devastated Tuesday by a major 7.0-strength earthquake.
"Jacmel is a disaster zone. Many houses are collapsed or severely damaged. Everyone was on the streets when I got to town. There must be many deaths judging from the way the houses collapsed and given the poor construction practices and materials," Murphy added.
"In addition to many houses collapsed in Jacmel town, one hotel called the Peace of Mind hotel collapsed completely and we fear that many perished. This is on the road to our office in a place called Meyer."
I mostly don't think that Pat Robertson's comments on the Haitian earthquake are worth noticing. I'd rather that people focused their energy on the Haitian people who are suffering. But rather than leave comments hither and yon around the Intertubes, I'll explain this here, once on my blog.
On August 14th, 1791, a large group of Haitian slaves and escaped slaves -- led by a religious leader known as Dutty Boukman -- met in the forest near (what is now called) Kapayisyen (Cap Haitian). In the forest, known as Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony took place -- according to some, the first ever Petro ceremony. In this ceremony, the lwa Ezili Danto possessed one of the participants and told the assembled group how to rise up against the French. According to Haitian legend, this event is the beginning of the Haitian revolution.
Obviously Pat Robertson reads this situation as "making a pact with the devil." I think he's dead wrong, but there you go.
I've been to Bwa Kayiman. There's a plaque there that reads:
The god who created the earth; who created the sun that gives us light.The god who holds up the ocean; who makes the thunder roar. Our God who has ears to hear. You who are hidden in the clouds; who watch us from where you are. You see all that the white has made us suffer. The white man's god asks him to commit crimes. But the god within us wants to do good. Our god, who is so good, so just, he orders us to revenge our wrongs. It's he who will direct our arms and bring us the victory. It's he who will assist us. We all should throw away the image of the white men's god who is so pitiless. Listen to the voice for liberty that sings in all our hearts.
I think it's clear that Pat Robertson would have been on the side of the slave owners.
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regna