How Haiti Was Devastated by Two Natural Disasters in Three Days

A magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Haiti Saturday morning, killing more than 1,900 and leaving thousands injured and displaced from their homes. As people in the affected regions in the country’s southwest worked to recover with scarce resources, a severe storm — Grace, then a tropical depression — drenched Haiti in heavy rain on Monday, bringing with it flash floods and the threat of mudslides, which could further delay recovery.

Although some light shaking from the earthquake could be felt as far as Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, 80 miles from the epicenter, major damage was concentrated in the country’s Nippes, Sud, and Grand’Anse departments. When the shaking subsided, vast swaths of Haiti had ever so slightly moved. The map below shows displaced areas in Haiti, evidence of where the earth shifted after the earthquake.

Les Cayes

A number of homes and school buildings were damaged in Les Cayes, a seaport community about 20 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter. Local hospitals were quickly overwhelmed, and a very limited number of doctors and surgeons worked through the night to triage victims. Temporary operating rooms near the main airport in Les Cayes were erected, as people tried to evacuate their loved ones to Port-au-Prince for emergency care.

Even before the quake, living conditions had been unstable for many Haitians as the pandemic added to severe poverty, gang violence and political trauma — the still-unsolved July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

The earthquake also destroyed several churches that have served as sources of aid and stability to surrounding communities, especially to those that receive little support from the government.

Among the collapsed buildings in Les Cayes was Hôtel Le Manguier, where rescue teams continued to dig through the rubble and remove debris in the days after the earthquake hit.

People in Les Cayes who lost their homes spent Monday night sheltering under plastic sheets in makeshift camps or fleeing flooded refugee camps as the storm passed through.

Jérémie

Jérémie, the capital city of the Grand’Anse department in Haiti, also suffered severe damage. Just five years ago, Jérémie was hit by Hurricane Matthew, which destroyed a wave of development that had brought hotels, cell phone service and new roads to the previously isolated region. Saturday’s earthquake caused destruction that overwhelmed the city’s main hospital and triggered a landslide that cut off access to the road leading to the city.

Like in Les Cayes, several churches in Jérémie were damaged, including the St. Louis King of France Cathedral, a landmark place of worship in the area that had also been damaged by Hurricane Matthew.

Petit-Trou-De-Nippes

In Petit-Trou-De-Nippes, just five miles from the earthquake’s epicenter, phone lines were down in the area with no news immediately available. Landslides in nearby cities were recorded, according to the National Human Rights Defense Network, leaving parts of the Nippes department accessible only by motorcycle or sea.