News and current affairs events- Nahuel

The Aftermath of the Haiti Earthquake
Who needs help?

A devastating earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, 12 January, including the densely populated capital Port-Au-Prince and the surrounding area. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, greatly increasing the risk that people will suffer or die in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Since the earthquake, many humanitarian organisations have galvanised aid, and assistance to ensure survivors get food, clean water, emergency shelter, medical care and other support.

Who is considered to be the most at risk in an emergency; children, women, the elderly, the sick, everyone?
While there is no doubt that all of the above are vulnerable as in the case of the recent disaster in Haiti, statistics clearly show that women are disproportionately affected in emergencies.
Around 37,000 pregnant women are living in the earthquake-hit region. At least 10,000 of them will need delivery services in the coming months
The lives of thousands of expectant mothers in Haiti and the lives of their unborn babies are at risk after the earthquake left the healthcare system in tatters, leaving the women with no choice but to deliver their babies in emergency camps.
Even before the earthquake, Haitian women faced the highest risk of dying in childbirth in the region with one in 44 women dying in childbirth compared to one in 8,200 in the UK. In normal circumstances 15 per cent of all pregnant women experience a complication requiring medical interventions but in a disaster situation that percentage is much higher.
Many newborn babies will also be in danger as the first 24 hours of a child’s life are the most vulnerable period for a baby.
Women and girls face other specific risks in disaster zones. Women and girls are more likely to be raped or sexually abused in camps, partly because they often have to wash or go to the toilet in exposed, insecure areas. Specific female needs for items like sanitary towels are often overlooked in an emergency and women often miss out in aid distributions to men who are considered stronger.

Children are the next group who are vulnerable as they are ill prepared to fend for themselves, let alone in the confusion and fear in the aftermath of the earth quake.
Thousands of families have been separated in the chaos of the earthquake, but the vast majority of the children currently on their own still have family members alive who will be desperate to be reunited with them and will be able to care for them with the right support. Taking children out of the country would permanently separate thousands of children from their families - a separation that would compound the trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of regaining a ‘normal life’.
“The extreme poverty in Haiti already makes children extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and new unregulated adoptions could open the door to child traffickers” -Justin Byworth, World Vision’s Chief Executive.

The earthquake has affected many elderly centres and residences and hospices; this has left many of the dozens of elderly Haitians still begging for food and medicine in a downtown Port-au-Prince slum, barely a mile from the international airport where tons of aid are pouring in.
"It's as if everybody has forgotten us, nobody cares," said Phileas Julien, 78, a blind man in a wheelchair who has appointed himself spokesman for the 84 surviving residents of one of the above mentioned centres. "Or maybe they really do just want us to starve to death."

These aftermath of the earthquake could possibly be made into a disaster thriller. This is because it would highlight the enourmous scale of disastrous events spiraling into chaos and misery.