Earthquake Stories

16 May, 2010

It’s hard to think of many other disasters, natural or man-made, that can cause as much widespread and instantaneous destruction as that of an earthquake. In the decisive few seconds around the event, your precise location determines whether you live or die. A Haitian physician I met told me stories of incredibly good—and bad--timing.

His cousin was supposed to begin college courses on January 12th in an 8-story classroom building in Port-au-Prince. But much to his chagrin he missed the registration deadline by one day, so he wasn’t permitted to attend classes. This lapse saved his life: The building totally collapsed, so that all eight floors ended up smashed together in a terrible pancake stacked on the ground. Well over a hundred students were killed instantly. A single survivor was pulled from the rubble 17 days later. He had been in the men’s room on the ground floor and survived by drinking toilet water. The worst part of his ordeal, he said, was the smell of decaying flesh, which surrounded him for more than two weeks.

The sister of one of the physician’s friends needed a single credit to complete her nursing degree. She chose a course that was to meet precisely when the earthquake occurred. Even though she was sitting right next to the exit, the first shock was so strong it instantly brought down the building. Her brother found her body half in and half out the door. Our lives are infinitely more fragile than we like to think.

Later in the day Elise, a volunteer nurse, Lissa, the Haitian nurse, and I were sent to work for a week at a hospital in the tiny village of LaColline, considerably to the west of Léogâne. As we bounced along in the Land Cruiser, mile after mile of destruction reeled past. In some towns not a single building was left standing. Cracks in the road were sometimes so big that we had to drive entirely off the pavement to get around them. In several places huge pieces of the adjacent cliffs—some with trees still desperately clinging to them--had chunked off and entirely blocked our way. A few stretches of the highway had been so badly damaged that a new road had been plowed through fields, sometimes right next to indignant little wood houses that were used to being way out in the country.

In the thickening dusk, far out on the lower claw of Haiti, we turned off the main road. Quickly, darkness took over. We bumped along a rutty dirt road for miles into the jungle. Our bobbing headlights caused people to materialize out of nothing by the side of the road, then vanish. Occasionally we saw a kerosene lamp faintly lighting up a few things for sale. Finally we arrived at the hospital compound, a somewhat shabby collection of turquoise and white buildings. We set up our mosquito nets and were soon asleep.