Progress Report on Haiti Disaster Response
March 19th, 2010
The magnitude 7.3 earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday 12 Jan 2010 has caused significant damage, loss of life, and impact on access to basic services for much of the population of the capital city of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas, with up to three million people being affected.
As of March 7th, the Direction for Civil Protection (DCP) confirms that the number of people living in spontaneous settlement sites is over 1.3 million people and estimates that 222,517 people have died.
The demand for shelter, sanitation and hygiene services remains critically high, and in fact it is likely that relief needs may continue for up to one year and delay attention to longer-term recovery which is already hampered by the high density and high vulnerability that already affected much of Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti even before the earthquake.
gorta has been supporting the largest single country disaster response operation in Red Cross / Red Crescent history. On January 22nd, gorta pledged €250,000 in response to the Haiti disaster and provided an immediate €50,000 to assist humanitarian relief efforts.
To date, relief materials have been provided to more than 32,000 families and more than 1 million litres of clean water is being distributed each day since the first week in February.
55,085 people have been treated by health-care teams and 125,000 vaccinations have been provided to date against measles, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. 1,102 latrines have been built in 20 improvised camps where 3,404 tents have been distributed along with 86,375 single tarpaulins.
Much progress has been made, but the demand for critical services and materials remains high. We urge you to make a contribution to gorta's Haiti Humanitarian Relief Fund now to help this life-saving work to continue.
